Some more fun facts for you:

People don’t jog on Paris streets. I noticed my first week here that I saw no runners. I wondered, “do people just eat cheese, smoke cigarettes and drink wine and never work out?” I finally did see a runner, but as I passed by, I heard her explain (in an American accent, no less) to a Parisian man that “I do it because it feels good.” My coworker told me that the French only run in parks, and sure enough, when I went to a park the next week there were runners all over the place (and also plenty of people lounging on blankets eating cheese, smoking cigarettes, and drinking wine).

The French don’t think that the French are big smokers. When Kim and I arrived from London, the first thing we noticed was the haze of smoke in the taxi line. With every meal I get a side of carcinogens with my crepe. But, apparently because you can’t smoke in restaurants anymore (but you can outside where everyone is eating) and the amount of smoking has decreased, my coworkers think that “no one” smokes in Paris anymore.

Vitamin Water flavors are different. My usual—“revive”—is “restore” here, and tastes not quite right. Disappointing.

There’s no such thing as non-fat milk. You can get “demi-crème”, which I guess is “half-cream” milk, but I’ve yet to see non-fat milk, whether at the grocery store or a café.

Speaking of milk...not all milk is refrigerated. At the Monoprix (my local grocery store), some milk is kept in the refrigerated section, and some is located in the regular aisles. The milk at the office for coffee is kept in a cabinet alongside office supplies. I’m not sure how that works, but I’m going to stick to the refrigerated milk. UPDATE: my coworker John explained to me that the milk is sterilized and then sealed in an aseptic container. Regardless, room temperature milk still seems wrong to me.

Nights are really short in the summer. It doesn’t get dark until 11 pm, which might have something to do with why I never seem to eat dinner until 10 or 11. And the sun starts coming up at 5.

Parisian stores have government-regulated sales. The “soldes” run from the last week of June until the end of July. Every store, even chains like H&M, has pretty much everything on sale. I went to Galeries Lafayette (a big department store near my office) and saw people lined up for designer purses like they were waiting for a roller coaster ride. It’s basically black Friday every day for 6 weeks. I’ve been known to do some shopping, but the soldes are too much, even for me.