As mentioned earlier, Mrs Bear correctly stated that coming to Paris for a weekend would not afford a full experience; Instead, we would be snacking from its extensive buffet of offerings which would lend direction to our chosen experiences upon our next, longer visit. So we picked a hotel within walking distance of most entrees and put our feet into motion…This may be a cleaver metaphor, but with Mrs Bear, you must always be prepared to walk your butt off. She said we managed about six miles today on a walk that was briefly disrupted by scaling the Arc de Triomphe !!! Then after bribing me with Parisian bread and humus, off we walked again until needing to head back early for our flight to Africa. It was a shortened six miles. But the company is great and I have an important job making sure she doesn’t walk into the Seine while looking down at Google Walking Map !!!!
More lead ins… I don’t know where all these reputations came from about the French being rude, etc. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was very nice to us. We go out of our way to always be appreciative and thank people for their service, and just maybe you reap what you sew. But let me provide an example… We were doing the normal thing of spreading out our toiletries on our one sink. I come in after our day-long walk to find that towelettes had been laid out on each side with toothbrushes, razors, and everything else neatly sorted. I assumed Mrs Bear, who is smarter than I, figured this out, but no, it was done by Housekeeping!!! An extreme example of a basic principle…
Another example, Parisians are fast and aggressive drivers. They begin training their children on scooters, and they later graduate to motor scooters that split lanes to manage ten km per hour faster than their countrymen/women who are warm in their autos. And yet, no one honks a horn !!! I have been some places where honking is automatic ( eg: India, New York). But in Paris you really have to f*** up to have someone blast you with horn…
One final example of this civility, Looking down from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, you see cars merging onto an oval from six separate roadways…It reminded me of bumper cars going round and round at the amusement park while trying NOT to hit each other… Pure auto chaos !!! And there they all were, waiting and inching forward with nary a honk blast or curse word. Very impressive.
The Adventures of Barry Brink 