This post was originally written almost a month ago, when I'd only been in Paris for a week. My opinions have changed a little bit since then (yes, even in that short period!), but I think it's still worth sharing what my initial thoughts were at the time.
As most of you are probably aware by now - primarily because I've been mentioning it to pretty much everyone I come into contact with lately - I am currently living in Paris. I've only been here for about a week so far, but I have some thoughts. So, in the interest of both creating a time capsule of my experience here and also milking this move for all it's worth in case it all goes to hell in a month, I've decided to compile my first impressions in a blog post.
Before I proceed, I should mention this: an issue I think everyone experiences when talking about Paris is that because it's a city that is so widely depicted in popular culture, it's almost impossible to look at the city without in some way comparing it to the Paris of our imagination. Not everyone has the same vision of what Paris is, of course. While my vision of Paris is of beautiful streets and copious amounts of baked goods, I have a friend who associates it primarily with the decidedly less romantic pissoirs. Any first impressions I've had of Paris so far are naturally going to have been impacted (subconsciously or otherwise) by my vision of what I expected the city to be like. I'm not going to try to dodge around that, and most of this post is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek look at how the Paris I've experienced measures up to its formidable reputation. However, I'd also like to say that it's in no way a criticism of Paris if elements of it don't match up with the imaginary Paris in my head. With that all out of the way, let's move on to my observations!
Paris is simply very pretty
A small caveat here: the prettiness of the city does seem to depend on the area (surprise, surprise). Still, even if it's not all Haussmanian avenues and views of the Eiffel Tower, the streets have generally struck me as being generally very pleasing to look at. I haven't even been into very central Paris yet, but already I've been enjoying the terraced houses and stereotypical Parisian rooftops of my dreams.
People really do carry baguettes around
This is pretty self-explanatory, but I'd thought the cliché of French people wandering around in striped t-shirts and berets with a baguette under one arm and a string of garlic around their neck was just that - a cliché. It turns out that while the berets, stripes, and garlic are more rarely seen, the baguette part is real. I've seen people carrying baguettes on the street, on the metro... Where Parisians go, they take their baguettes with them, it would seem.
For all its other faults, the Charles de Gaulle airport taxi system is good
I wasn't terribly enamoured with CDG airport, where I first landed upon arrival in Paris. It was large, confusing, and border control took an eternity. On the plus side, the way that taxis are arranged is rather effective. There is a rank for official taxis with an assistant who will direct you to the next available one, a set rate for journeys to the Left or Right Bank, and (best of all) glass roofs on some of the taxis. My taxi driver was also incredibly nice and patient with my poor French, so 10/10 for that airport taxi experience.
Even the bad food is decent
Okay, I'll admit that this observation is based entirely on my experience with my local Franprix and Monoprix shops, but it fits so well with the French reputation for quality food that I had to include it. Even though I've been almost exclusively buying cheap food products since I got here, everything has been surprisingly nice. This includes: sliced bread, hummus, and ready-made tubs of tabbouleh. It also applies to biscuits, of which even the cheapest varieties seem to include eggs and/or butter. This is a great tragedy for a person like me who depends on cheap biscuits as a reliable source of vegan snacks, but I can appreciate the dedication to quality that it must stem from.
Parisians are stylish people
So far, the stereotype of French people in general and Parisians in particular being unbearably chic has proven to have some basis in reality. That's not to say that everyone is walking around in head-to-toe haute couture like they just stepped off the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week, but it does seem to me that in comparison to the UK, people here tend to have a greater sense of personal style. For some people that means monochromatic, dapper ensembles, for others it means a more casual 'street style' type of look - in any case, the sense that people are wearing outfits that they've put time and effort into composing definitely comes across to me. Although perhaps I am biased, being from a famously unfashionable country. According to my little book on French culture: 'The French […] mock the British for dressing badly and having no sense of savoir faire.' Ouch.
Everything is in French
Before you call me out for being a typically entitled Anglophone tourist who expects everything to be in English, let me just say that I have made every effort since I got here to use French as much as possible and only switch to English when absolutely necessary. I was a little surprised to see how much written information is only in French or even in other European languages but not English (such as food packaging), but given France's commitment to the preservation of the French language, it shouldn't be such a shock. On a related sidenote, I've also found that 95% of the people I've spoken to in my poor French have been very friendly and understanding, which totally goes against the reputation French people have for being hostile or rude to non-native speakers.
That's all I have to say about Paris for the time being. If I am lucky enough to be able to stay here longer than a month or so, I might end up writing another post later on about how my feelings about the city have changed (or not). Either way, I feel incredibly happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to stay here, even if only for a short time. Finally, if anyone is interested in seeing some of the many photos I've been taking of Paris since I got here, I've been uploading lots of them to my Instagram, @marynotavailable.
