12 take aways from Paris:
1. Nearly all the Parisians I ran into were super nice and helpful.
2. The subway system is not wheelchair accessible. Apparently there are some stations that do have elevators, but I did not see them.
3. Many parts of the city are hilly and, hence, difficult to wheel up and down. Wheeling down felt especially dangerous to me because I stayed at a very hilly part of town so I often wheeled backwards to help me feel more in control.
4. The buses are wheelchair accessible, but they are slow.
5. The sidewalks in many parts of the city are narrow, bumpy (because of the cobblestones) and steep.
6. Trains going outside of the city have at least two steps leading into them and there seems to be no staff onsite to ask for portable ramps.
7. I've heard that drinking in public places is legal.
8. Even though I can do wheelies quite well, it did become tiring because there is a lot of areas with cobblestone here. My shoulders and back are definitely giving me some urgent feedback to rest.
9. The city is a lot more diverse than I thought. I saw a lot of Chinese and black people.
10. You will hear mainly French spoken here, but many people do speak English and others who just know one word of English will be eager to try to help.
11. I saw a lot of good, hard working people who are just trying to scrape by in the best way that they know how. It reminded me a lot of NYC.
12. It cost me as much as 70 pence to use the restroom at one point during my stay in Paris!
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