We put a little over 5000km (3100 miles) on our little Toyota Yaris over 33 days of travelling France. Did you know France is the third biggest European country? It's only smaller than Russia and Ukraine. I always thought those Nordic countries were much bigger but that's all Mercator's fault. Anyway, France is awesome but there are also some bad and/or weird things about travelling there.
The Good
1. The people were friendly and helpful. They have a reputation for being rude, but besides a few exceptions they were patient with our terrible attempts at French. Don't expect people outside of super touristy areas to speak English, Google translate is your friend (when it works).
2. We had phone and data pretty much everywhere. Our phone plan only comes with 1GB international data which isn't enough when you work online so we did buy Gigsky esims which were cheap and worked really well.
3. The food is delicious and they really care about making each thing on your plate as tasty as possible. Baguettes are fresh and only like $1.50 all over the place. Lettuce mixes at the grocery store are also cheap and way better than what we get in the US. We made a lot of our own meals or got premade grocery store meals, they were all very good. Duck is amazing!
4. Driving is easy and the French drive well. There are speed cameras which means most everyone goes exactly the speed limit which makes driving unstressful (no crazies blowing by at high speed). Roundabouts are amazing!
5. There is way more to do and see than what we had time for. The French are very active so there are hikes and bike trails everywhere. There are castles on every hill, fancy churches at the center of every town, and old mansions everywhere else.
6. Mayo on fries and fries cooked in delicious oil. Not sure if it was beef fat or duck fat or something else but it isn't like ours. Yum.
7. Most restaurants you pay at the counter. No waiting for the check, you just get up and leave when you want to. I liked it, but some people might like waiters waiting on you more.
8. The public bathrooms often had these really cool machines that were '3-in-1' things where you could get soap, rinse, and blow dry your hands in the same location. They were really neat.
The Bad
1. There are a lot of very narrow roads sometimes with unclear markings/signs. This doesn't bother me much but I could see someone driving in Europe the first time having a stressful first day or two.
2. Public toilets are the worst! Most toilets don't have seats so I guess everyone just hovers until they're elderly, at which point they use the handicap bathrooms. The lack of seats means that every men's toilet was covered in pee. Many were out of TP so we always had to have some along.
(Cris note: Ladies, practice your squats before going to France! Women public bathrooms also do not have toilet seats....I looked it up and apparently they think not having a toilet seat is more hygienic. Many of them had handles you could hold as you squatted over the lidless toilets, but some of them did not. Twice, I fell in. As I wiped toilet water off my butt, I muttered to myself that this was totally fine because the French think this is more hygienic. Somehow....)
3. Around 30% of gas stations don't accept US credit cards and most of the others put a temporary ~$200 hold on your card. Their cards all have pins so if you use a card without a pin it won't work... sometimes. Gas is expensive too but our little hybrid made up for that with its crazy high mpg.
4. No air conditioning most places. Climate change is hitting them hard so it was really hot for the first 2+ weeks but very few places have AC.
The Weird
1. priorité à droite (priority to the right). I still don't fully understand this. So, sometimes when you're driving down the road you have to stop for anyone that is approaching your road from the right of you. There will be no signs or markings, you're just expected to stop for anyone coming from the right. Usually they see you and will at least hesitate, but sometimes they'll just pull out in front of you. Quite often in the middle of a quiet town there will be an intersection with no stop or yield signs, you just priorite a droite it. It's weird but wasn't a huge problem.
2. No resealable/reusable bags. They do not sell ziploc bags at all. Also, anything you buy is in a bag that rips open random places so you can't use it again and whatever is inside goes stale. The bags for groceries (that you have to buy) are super sturdy though.
3. Showers are all the type with the handle that you can pull out with a flexible hose. I guess you can wash the undercarriage easier that way, but most of the time they rotate or fall off when you start the water so it's pretty annoying.
4. Flat, square pillows and no sheets. You just get one flat pillow each and it's a small square, and the bed has a fitted sheet but then just a duvet on top.
(Cris note: if someone from France can please explain to me how those flat square pillows work, that would be great. Does half of your body lay slightly higher than the lower half? Or are you supposed to fold them in half to make a normal-sized pillow? My neck was killing me and I don't understand how these things work...)
5. People carry baguettes everywhere just like the stereotype. We saw: Old lady with cane in one hand and baguette in other, little girl hopping and playing with a baguette in her hand, fancy-dressed lady with 3 baguettes that looked like a bride's bouquet, many people on bikes or scooters holding a baguette.
6. Plastic bottle caps stay connected. They just unscrew and kinda flip over. I grew to like this feature but at first you end up putting the cap in your mouth when you're not looking.
9. They LOVE bread (mainly baguette as stated in #5) but they apparently HATE crackers. If you thought spreading some of their thousands of varieties of soft cheese on crackers sounds tasty, too bad! We searched every grocery store for crackers and only found saltines once.
No comments:
Post a Comment