Smells

Paris might be called the "City of Lights" (which, in this economic time and environmentally-conscience time, wouldn't it be better to turn off the lights?), but it is also the city of smells.

Sure, there is the smell of fresh bread baking at every boulangerie each morning, the sweet smells from the patisseries, smelling wine at tastings, and soon the trees and flowers in bloom.

However, just to warn you, it is also smells of exhaust, urine, feces, cigarette smoke, and other such unpleasantness. Yes, I have seen several men urinating in the street (in the bushes, against the sides of buildings, on a car's tire...), and some of my colleagues have seen the same. There is dog sh!t everywhere. I couldn't tell you what a lot of the buildings look like because I'm always looking DOWN to watch where I walk. And I swear, some of these piles on the sidewalks cannot possibly come from the accessory-sized dogs that seem to plague this city.

I figure a few years are being taken off the end of my life just by living here and breathing all of this. And, I'll probably develop some ghastly combination of allergies and asthma. Vive la France.