#8. Men Taking Leaks Anywhere and Everywhere

Ok, so I realize we all lead busy, hectic lives nowadays, we are all pressed for time, but really, if women can keep it in their pants until they can get to a bathroom, why can't men?

It was just astonishing to witness how many men couldn't find the time, or couldn't be bothered, to go to a bathroom. It was a regular occurrence to watch a guy stop walking and start peeing each and every time that I ventured out of the house. And I don't mean a stroll through the countryside. In the city, in the suburbs, in the parks, in alleys, on sidewalks, in parking lots and garages, everywhere.  Busy street?  No problem. Women walking past you? Who cares.

While approaching the mall to go grocery shopping one day, a man and his little boy stepped aside just before entering the door, the man pulled down the little boy's pants, who then peed not 3 feet from the passers by that were streaming in and out.  (Here's where I blink my eyes several times in incredulity).  Way to go. Teaching the next generation that there's no shame in whipping it out whenever the mood strikes.

#7. Naked Baguettes

Baguettes purchased from the bakery section of grocery stores are sold in either open paper bags or clear perforated plastic bags.

However, if from a boulangerie, the bag is skipped altogether and instead a small square of paper is wrapped around the middle of the baguette.

Occasionally I'd see the bagged version carried around, but it seems most people purchase them from boulangeries. Being used to bread coming encased in tightly sealed packaging, safely sequestered away from any airborne germs or dirt, it took some getting used to seeing them toted around completely unwrapped.

They were sometimes seen poking out upright in a tote bag, often tucked under an arm, and frequently just clutched in a hand swinging at someones side.

I've seen them casually set down on a bench at bus stops, strapped across the backs of bicycles, laying in rear window spaces of cars, tossed in backseats, and sticking out of backpacks on standing-room-only crowded subways.

Ewwww....germs, dust, lint, dirt and grime, people breathing on them, brushing against them on the street!  Actually though, after a couple of months I fit right in, I didn't think a thing of it either.

  

#6. No Blue Cheese Salad Dressing

  What?! How is it that in the land that gave birth to blue and Roquefort cheeses that blue cheese and Roquefort dressing doesn't exist?

  The french eat cheese with almost every meal. Either as an ingredient in the dish, an accompaniment, or as a finish to the meal. Hundreds upon hundreds of varieties of exquisite cheeses are stocked on grocery store shelves all across the country, to be savored on it's own, or used in countless ways in french cuisine.

   But oddly enough, nowhere will you find the creamy, tart, delicious goodness of a bottle of blue cheese dressing to adorn your salad. A simple vinaigrette seems to be the natives dressing of choice, which you will find served in homes as a matter of course, and in stores as well.

  Resorting to having to make my own, I found out that it's very simple to make, and being very inexpensive there, I used liberal amounts of blue cheese for extra rich dressing, and so, in the end, it's just as well that it wasn't available in a mass produced bottle of chemicals sitting stale on a shelf, since it was so much better made at home!

  Other salad dressings that don't exist there either are ranch, honey mustard, and ironically,  french! But uh, no love lost there I'd say.

  They do have an 'American' sauce, that resembles french dressing, but never having tried it, I have no idea what it's like or what it's used for.  A sauce they don't have that also ended up having to be made at home is barbecue.

  Made only once, while on vacation with some french friends who wanted to do some grilling.  After months of them all introducing me to new foods, I thought I'd introduce them to something uniquely american that they said they had never tried before. Although they ate it, it wasn't exactly a big hit with them. I must have done something wrong, cause who doesn't like barbecue sauce!

#5. Square Trees

   I'm really surprised that I had difficulty finding pictures of them, as they seemed to be everywhere.  It seemed wherever I was heading, A big hedge trimmer in the sky had swooped down and carved out a perpendicular path ahead of me for me to walk grandiosely through!

  When seeing trees in the winter it seemed that most of them in city areas are pruned tightly into a box or rectangular shape, and come spring, are allowed to grow out naturally, or if along city streets, the foliage is trimmed in to a box shape as well.

  Seen from the viewpoint of someone who grew up in Vermont, where nature's beauty is prized precisely for the naturalness of it, this highly manicured, almost artificial look has an almost surreal quality to it.

  Other than square trees, another thing that I found odd (and funny!) as well, is that parks aren't mowed as frequently as we're used to seeing them. In parks out in the suburbs it wasn't uncommon to see children playing in grass a foot high.

#4 Colored, Scented Toilet Paper

    Long extinct in the U.S., I suppose due to all the easily irritated, sensitive bottoms here, colored toilet paper in a rainbow of pretty pastels and prints is still available in France. It's not just available, but it's even standard cheap storebrand fare.

Even better, they're matched with a coordinating perfumed scent!

purple paper = lilac
yellow = vanilla or tropical
green = green apple
orange = tangerine or peach
pink = rose or floral

Vive la France for their colored, scented toilet paper!

#3 Supermarkets In Malls

   Cruising through the mall window shopping.  Men's clothing store, women's clothing boutique, perfume and cosmetics store, book store, shoe store, lingerie store, fine chocolate shop, grocery store, jewelry store.  Wait, grocery store?

   On my second day in Noisy-le-Grand, France, I was asked by my soon to be hubby if I would like to go grocery shopping.  'You bet!' was my enthusiastic response, as I love grocery shopping, and was excited to see what discoveries there were to be made in my new country's stores. So, off we went.

    Grabbing a shopping cart outside the large, plain-looking building we'd parked outside of that didn't look anything at all like a supermarket, I pushed it through the door that future hubby opened ahead of me.  And found myself (to my horror ) in a mall.

   And not your typical quiet weekday afternoon in small town America type mall. We were amidst a Christmas season sized throng of bustling, smartly dressed shoppers though it was in the middle of August. With embarrassment, feeling out of place, I managed to follow him, maneuvering the unwieldy cart through the masses wondering why on earth we were in a mall if we were supposed to be going grocery shopping.

   We hadn't gone too far when I saw to my relief a grocery store looming up ahead. We proceeded to wind up and down the isles, filling the cart up with all sorts of amazing, exotic to me goodies.  Just as it seemed we had found all we needed and were ready to go, it was then proposed by future hubby that we head to the upper level of the store.  I followed, at first puzzled, then horrified, at seeing the only way up was by way of a steep automatic revolving ramp!

   Valiantly trying to look as nonchalant as was possible while exhausted with jet-lag and in my Sunday best that included high heels, I held tight to that full cart of groceries and braced myself against it with all my might as discreetly as possible, trying to seem cool and casual. All the while in a flat out panic of in trying to prevent it from rolling backwards down the ramp during the loooonnnng sloooowww ascent.

   Finally making it to the top and feeling triumphant, thinking I had made it look effortless despite the beads of sweat that had formed on my forehead, I looked askance at my companion, expecting acknowledgement of some kind for the feat I'd just accomplished.  But no, he continued on as if it were no big deal.  And indeed, looking around, both the people in front and behind us looked as unconcerned as he by their own ordeal with the ramp.  Cool as a cucumbers. Very french.

   I later learned that the reason no one else's face showed signs of strain was because the cart wheels grab hold of the ramp treads and carry them up without the need to hold them whatsoever. Argh.

#2. Super Strong Coffee

   French friends often expressed their amazement at hearing that many Americans sip on coffee all day long. What they don't know is that the average all-day coffee drinker is normally drinking something like Folgers.  Which I would then try to explain that it's more of a tame, weak, watery version of  the dark, high octane, spoon dissolving stuff that the french would call coffee.
 

   In most households there, coffee is brewed espresso strength and is limited to a cup in the morning and/or a cup after dessert.  After dessert?  Yep.  In restaurants and homes alike, this strong coffee is served after, not with dessert.  It is definately not an all day affair else you'd be bouncing off the walls like they think we must be from drinking it all day long!

#1. No Window Screens

    No window screens means a direct link between you and the great outdoors. Nothing to marr your view. Nothing to stop you from leaning out your window to become one with nature. Ahhhh nice. Or so one would think. Until the bugs start flying around. While living in the suburbs, we weren't plagued with them terribly, but what about in the countryside? Are there not many there either in France?

    As an aside, french style windows are the norm, not surprisingly.  But why is that? For as idyllic and picturesque as they look, they really are inconvenient at times.

   One night, after yet another frustrating day of battling with windows banging back and forth due to the wind, I was desperately looking for a way to get them to stay in just the right position.  Which is to say, enough to let in a nice little breeze but not gusts big enough to send the paperwork in the room flying or to flap the windows around causing them to bang into and damage the adjacent walls and furniture or hit me in the head where I'm seated at the desk next to it.

  Desperation led me to try the latest in a long line of tactics, which that night was paperback books jammed in between the casing and the window near the hinges.  At my wits end, when finding that that wasn't working out too well either, as they kept falling out after a few minutes each time, I posed the question of ' why in the  %$#&  do they make these types of windows?" in a growl, ok, more like scream, to my resident frenchman.

   His reply was that american guillotine style windows were thought by the french to be too dangerous compared to french style windows.