1. It starts at the airport. Think the tarmac is lined with welcoming Frenchmen waving baguettes of joy? Exactly the opposite. Try and find someone, anyone, to tell you the way to the shuttle or toilet. Charles de Gaulle is staffed by ghosts. Ghosts who smoke Gauloises.
2. Taxies. Taxi drivers who charge whatever they want. Because it's before 10 AM; because you made a reservation; because you have baggage; because you called and they charge from the moment they leave their home base. Because they can. Learn to take the metro.
3. Hotels. Just because you made a reservation doesn't mean you have a reservation. And just because you've reserved the best room--hey, it's a special birthday and you've reserved half-a-year in advance--doesn't mean you'll get the best room. (The desk clerk's reassurance, "We have uglier rooms" is surprisingly little consolation.) Particularly if you're alone. Particularly if you're a woman.
4. Eating alone in a restaurant. Ditto the above.
5. Disappearing shops. I don't mean just the cute one-of-a-kind boutiques located in the twilight zone of Paris's unmapped winding suburban sidestreets that you see once and never find again, but the vast amount of irreplaceable shops sucked into the maw of this increasingly crappy economy. Brentano's on rue de l'Opera was only the latest. Almost as bad as losing the Samaritain.
6. Toilets, toilets everywhere and not a place to pee. (Let's not even get on the subject of toilet paper.) Naturally there's the inevitable guy peeing outside les Halles. And who can blame him?
7. Public peeing. Plan to bump into a stray Parisian penis on every single trip.
8. Closures. Closed because it's Sunday, closed because it's Monday. Closed for renovations. Closed for lunch. Closed for you.
9. The patisseries on every street corner. Sure they're convenient--you can see the people lined up on their way home from work. And the one just down the street from my hotel with the most delicious mouth watering banana cream chocolate eclairs? Hate it. Though that's not really a complaint. It's the skinny Parisian women with their matchstick legs tripping elegantly along the cobblestones with an eclair in each perfectly manicured hand that I hate.
10. Toujours la greve. The strikes. There is always a strike in the city of lights: the museums, the metro, the students, the civil service. Whatever can go on strike, does and then everyone else goes on strike just to be in sympathy. That's the French way. Except for the bars. I have never seen the bars or cafes go on strike. That's also the French way. Les prioritees.
Because there's whine and then there's wine. This must be why there's so much of it and so many places to indulge in a good glass. You'll obviously need more than one and if you need to pee? There's always Starbucks or MacDonald's and that's what an American in Paris is for.
