10 things you'll see in France but not in the US

10.   A woman in heels peddling a bike through a insanely busy traffic circle

9.   A dog poop vacuum in use on the sidewalk

8.  Roman Polanski

7.   A police car with 17 cops crammed into it

6.  Statues with boobies! (Hooray for boobies!)

5.  Rental bikes you can check out on your own and leave in any other rental stand when you're done

4. Cheese that smells like a corpse left in a sewer... but tastes sooo good

3. An underground gas station

2. A guy in a suit driving a scooter with a cigarette in one hand, and ice cream cone in the other, his youngest son sitting in front and his eldest sitting behind, zipping down the boulevard. (absolutely true. wish I could have controlled my amazement and managed to take a picture)

1. A man wearing a scarf while jogging, on a 55 degree F day.

Next installment:  10 things you'll see in the US but not in France.

The trolley is dead. Long live the trolley

An essential tool of daily life in downtown Paris is the trolley, also known as a wheelie, Rollser, rollie-thingie and a bunch of other names. In a place where taking the car to the market isn't practical, you drag your trolley with you to carry your groceries home. Everyone has one, and many people have several.

The garish trolley in the right of the picture was bequeathed to us by Rob and Cheryl when they returned home to the U.S. last year. It was a dodgy creature, with shaky wheels, stretched fabric and a distinctively homely exterior. Still, we were very glad to have it. After all, who would steal such a thing? (you leave them outside the market when you go in to shop and they are known to flee under their own power sometimes)

As Troy was leaving Casino (a supermarket) yesterday, it took a curb a little too heavily and broke the plastic supports that help keep it upright. While you can still carry things in it, if you let go of it, it will topple over on its poor ugly face. A bottle of marinara sauce was sacrificed in the ordeal.

Today we bought a new trolley, a little camouflage number we hope will be suitably ugly yet high in capacity. We like it. But it's not our old one.

The trolley is dead. Long live the trolley!