Watch where you walk!

8/3/13
A little aside this morning about the two scourges of Paris.
Firstly, don't let anyone tell you that there isn't a problem with dog poop in Paris. It's a serious blight on this otherwise beautiful city. At any moment you can encounter a pile of poop on the footpath or see someone walking their dog and stopping to let it poop along the way, sometimes right in the middle of the footpath where everyone walks! Not so much on the main streets but most definitely on the smaller side streets. Sometimes the pile is so big I wonder if maybe a horse has been along the street (and just between you and me, sometimes I'm not so sure it's animal in origin at all........ but that seriously doesn't bear thinking about - ugghhhh!) Paris is way behind Australian cities when it comes to making available the little doggie poop bags and requiring dog owners to clean up after their "best friends". I've been here almost two weeks and thankfulky haven't been caught out yet with poop on my shoes but I fear it's only a matter of time! :-(
The other scourge is second hand smoke and cigarette butts all over the place. It's impossible to avoid the smoke and according to our teacher the QUIT campaign is a dismal failure in France because it uses the wrong words (the verb QUITTER means "to leave" and refers to a person or place, not to quitting a bad habit)! I notice and have to walk past smokers everywhere every day but at least there is no smoking in buildings or in the Metro.
So in beautiful Paris you actually do need to watch where you walk for two very good reasons!
There, that's my little gripe for the day (and I promise I won't upload photos for this one) ;-)