I once again ventured into Nice today to spend the day shopping and running errands. The stores were full, the roads a mess, and the inhabitants flustered. However, it was a welcome outing as I was able to spend five or so hours soaking up a rarity: the sun. I’ve posted a fair amount of new photos within the gallery I’ve set up for this trip and in addition, I’ve included a number of small observations about the differences between France and the US in this post.
Lifestyle You can’t beat the French lifestyle. Waking up in the morning, putting on a light jacket, and heading down to the Boulangerie to pick up a freshly baked baguette. Fruit are fresh, ripe, and ready to eat. The presentation of the cakes in the Patisserie are mouth watering. All of this adds up, make you feel alive - more so than heading to the local supermarket in Clinton to buy shrinkwrapped food. Although, that of course is still available here too. However, even the local hypermarches - Carrefour, Casino, and Auchan - go out of their way to make the trip feel fun, much like a trip to Whole Foods or Wegmans.
Prices Prices here differ quite a lot from those found in the US. Electronics, books, media are all high. A CD will cost around 18 euros in Fnac, the equivalent of a Best Buy. As of writing this, that’s about $20 and $6-8 more than what you would pay back in the states. A digital camera such as the Rebel XT costs 850 euros, a good 20% or so more than in the US. A lot of the price difference though can be attributed to the taxes: 19.6% (I believe). A baguette however, that would cost betwen $3 to $4 in the US costs 0.70 euros at our local bakery. Granted, it’s price controlled but even bread that isn’t is decently priced. Fruit, general food, meat, and alcohol are all cheaper here too. One thing that’s also very cheap here is Internet. For 30 euros a month, you can get up to 20 MBps internet (only in ‘degrouppe’ areas, meaning where there’s no longer a monopoly on the DSL line, otherwise it’s 8 MBps), TV through DSL, and unlimited phone calls to French numbers. Time Warner sells something similar for close to $100 a month!
Driving Pay attention, that’s all I can suggest. It’s fun to drive here but it’s work. If you’re used to an automatic, it takes a few moments to get the hang of knowning when to upshift/downshift. Living on a mountain, there are some roads where you need to be in 1st gear even to make it up the hill. French drivers are quick too, although with the advent of some new speed cameras and increased traffic stops, I’ve at least felt that they are more manageable this year. Finally, I’d forgotton how much fun my dad’s aging (14 years old, perhaps?) Lancia Thema is. 16 valves, turbocharged, and missing any amenitiy you would desire (heating: broken; seats: falling apart; body: scratched; tape player: absent; central locking: finicky). However, as soon as you even barely touch the gas pedal, the engine revs, the turbo engine kicks in, and you’re shot forward. Fine on the autoroute (highway) but somewhat hard to tame in town. I’ve gotten a couple of funny looks from passerbys … what can I say, my foot was heavy.
Style The French care a lot about their looks. Most people are dressed very smartly, except for the young teenagers who are dressed in a white track suits, white shoes, and a white hat. Otherwise, and it may be partly because of Nice’s proximity to Monaco and the whole Riviera-thing, everyone cares about how they appear.
TV Pretty stupid here, just like in the US. A lot of reality TV shows, a bunch of music shows (Star Academy), and a lot game shows. That said, there’s also some documentaries and so forth. The news lasts 45 minutes or so, ads are interspersed about 50 minutes apart and last for 10 minutes or so. And since there was a storm here recently, our reception is pretty bad :)
Mentality Even though it’s beautiful here and there’s so much going right for the country, the French mentality is still annoying. Try to get anything done and you’re screwed. Our DSL is very finicky. Sometimes on, mostly off, we’ve been trying to get assistance. Wanadoo tells us our line is noisy and to contact France Telecom. Wanadoo, just for full disclosure, is France Telecom’s DSL! France Telecom tells us it’s not their problem. The association who handles anything to do with our house tells us it’s not their problem, and because it has to do with the telephone, it can’t be touched by anyone but France Telecom. Long story short, in our broken French we’ve schedule an appointment tomorrow for someone to look at our line.
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“and unlimited phone calls to French numbers” >>> now with this offer you can have unlimited calls from France to the US & Canada (”normal” phones and cellular !!!), China, European Union,… that’s soooo cool! :)
Enjoy your hollidays!
Mathieu Thouvenin on December 23rd, 2005 at 12:46 pm