friendly faces

After our IS210 meeting and eating lunch in a café, Ellen B. and I headed off to our second adventure at the laundry mat. This time was different because we were no longer using fabric softener for the clothes (darn monoprix…too many options…). The laundry mat is some place that in the United States I am definitely not used to going to, but here it just seems normal in a lot of places. The locals that go all seem much more friendly than the average person you find on the street in Paris. We were almost like regulars. Ellen B. even told some guy how to get detergent out of the machine!! What a pro! In Greenville, the only laundry mats that I have ever seen are in the bad parts of town and there are always full of scary looking people. Here everyone is really friendly and I didn’t even worry that I or my stuff would get messed with when I decided it was time to take a nap. : ) I’ve also noticed that store owners are much more friendly than in the states. When you enter a store they genuinely greet you and want to help (at least in all the places that I have been). I think that maybe because this city is such a touristy place the shopkeepers are used to lots of people just looking around with no intention of really buying anything. In the states, most people in the stores get frustrated at you if you mess up the way they have things organized and folded unless you find something that you are actually going to buy. Even though I have been here for almost four weeks, I still notice new things like this all the time.