And now the last chapter of my fun facts:

There are no laws requiring dogs to be leashed. Dogs just trot in front of their owners like they’re on an invisible leash (well most of the time, I’ve seen a guy a couple times whose young dog literally runs circles around him and nips at his shins). I don’t know if Parisian Dogs are that well trained or if there are a lot of canine/car collisions.

The French aren’t concerned about fire safety. I’m pretty sure that there’s not one smoke detector in my apartment (this does not help my daily paranoia that I’ve left my straightener on). At my office, you have to have a key card to leave the building. And at the bar I was at Saturday, people were packed wall-to-wall; all I could think about was getting trampled if someone yelled “feu!” (fire).

Most Metro ticket machines only take coins (or non-American credit cards). I suppose this makes sense, given that there are one and two Euro coins, but it doesn’t help the person that just got cash from the ATM. The machines that do take cash only give change in coins, but not necessarily one and two Euro coins. I put in 20 Euro for 12 Euro worth of tickets, and the machine spit out 28, count ‘em, 28 coins as my change. I was waiting for flashing lights and music cause for a second I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

Most toilets don’t have toilet seats. (Well, the ones at work and at my apartment do.) French women must have some strong quads.

The first day of summer is celebrated with a “music party”. The Fete de la Musique is an annual musical festival where certain areas are designated for certain types of music and musicians perform in bars and on the streets. Kim was in town for this, so we walked around and saw a DJ, a choir and a three piece ensemble. There was a (very loud) cover band down the street singing American songs like “Louie, Louie” and “Sweet Home Alabama” (so not really a French cultural experience). They were pretty good, but played until after 1 am. As Manoela says, I can sleep when I’m in the US.

Light switches are not Intuitive. The switches in my apartment are reversed—you flip the switch down to turn on the lights. Some light switches are outside of the room you’re entering, but not all (as I found out when I tried to turn the bathroom light on at my coworker’s house, but ended up turning off the foyer lights).