Tips for Travellers to Paris - the Letdowns (1)

If you have never been to Paris and are planning your first trip to that city, you may have high expectations of there. You may guess that it's very beautiful, that its people are romantic, and that you'll have a great time there. However, with such expectations, your first trip to Paris will probably disappoint you. In reality, Paris is far from a perfect tourist city. There are some things you'd better be mentally prepared of before you go there:

Unfriendliness

You may have heard of this but don't care much about it. You may have met some unfriendly people elsewhere in the world and find yourself stronger. But what if I tell you that Paris has the largest population of unfriendly people in western Europe and their level of unfriendliness surpasses anywhere else?

Before I went to Paris, many people told me that Paris was the most unfriendly city they had been to, so I didn't expect too much of Paris. But after I arrived and stayed in Paris for a month, I was still startled by Parisians' unfriendliness. I'm not talking about the passersby on the streets; in all big cities, passersby are cold and don't care about you at all, so this is not a surprise. Whom I'm referring to are those whose job is to provide you with services: the restaurant servers, the hotel receptionists, the ticket office staff, the shop clerks and so forth. Although all they need to do is to serve you, they seem reluctant to do that. For example, when you get to a museum and want to buy a ticket, the staff at the ticket office are unlikely to tell you which type of ticket you should buy, even if you ask them politely - you have to read the ticket menu yourself with care in order to buy the most suitable ticket. Another example is the restaurant experience in Paris. When you sit down at a table in a restaurant, you'll probably find that the server is unwilling to answer your questions about the dishes they serve but wants you to finish ordering as soon as possible, even if you are the only guest there. And the most impressive story is that once I went to Orange, a famous telecommunications brand, to enquire about the SIM card, the staff looked rather impatient after I asked only two questions. He answered my first question and expected me to go away (yes, I could see that expectation from his face clearly), but I asked the second question because I really had no idea about how to top up my account. He didn't answer my second question but stared down at his own mobile phone. A few seconds later, he raised his head and asked, 'Do you have any more question?' I was so surprised, 'You haven't answered my last question.' And then I repeated my second question. But He said, 'It's just like what I said. Find the answer yourself.' He went away without looking at me again. That was the new level of unfriendliness I had ever seen. 

Dirtiness

You may expect Paris to be beautiful from any angle...Don't do that. Expect less and you'll be disappointed less.

When you stand in the streets and look up, you are likely to find everything beautiful. But when you look down, ugh...Rubbish is everywhere. And the smell may be striking somewhere in the metro stations - I mean the smell of urine. Also, you may already know the dog poop problem. Yes, it's true. I've seen Parisians' walking their dogs and the dogs suddenly foul and then their owners just walk away with them without doing anything. So be careful not to step on dog poop when you are walking in Paris.

Alright, let me stop here today because I've written so much. Next time I'll write 'the Letdowns (2)' : I'll write about some other problems that upset the tourist in Paris.