"Reality and reputations part ways" a Paris Travel Page by bcorbitt

Spent a week in Paris as a friend was teaching English at the Sorbonne for the year. Spent two days at her small two room apartment. Though small it had everything two people needed including a small kitchen and shower. Using the shower was a trick as one could easily flood the bathroom if not careful. The kitchen was more kitchenette as it took up about as much room in the apartment as a tub would in an a house in the USA. Paris itself was wonderful and any reputation about being rude to Americans was not seen by me though my wife is Brazilian and does speak atleast functional levels of French.

As far as the city itself my wife loved it almost as much as Brazil and she loves Brazil. I will not go into details about all the neighborhoods as any decent travel book will talk about this. I will say that Paris reinforces my rule about staying where you want to be at night instead of where the tourist attractions are since the metro stops at 12:30 so any late nights would need to be ended with an expensive cab ride. Also atleast were I was near the Gare du Nord was dead at night with no bars even open when I came back at 1 in the morning.

I will say I wish I had come to Paris when it only took 88 cents to buy a euro instead of a dollar and 33 which was the exchange rate when I went.