It's been cold here in Paris and yesterday Sylvain and I met up with the couple, Nat and Julie, that introduced us. We met in St. Michel and then found a place to have a drink. On the menu were various coffees, beers and soda. Prices were 4.50 for cappuccino hot chocolate or tea, 4.10 for a 33ml soda and about 4.10 euro for a half pint of beer. Alcohol drinks are taxed almost 20% vs other drinks which get taxed around 5%. I complained to Nat about this who said it was shocking for him too, when he first moved to Paris from Strasbourg where a coffee as around 1 euro, but now he had gotten used to it, and I would too. However, I don't want to get used to paying the same amount for a tiny little coffee or half-pint that I would for about 2500 calories at McDonalds. Starbucks in Paris is the cheapest coffee around, which frankly, is sad. I never eat at McDonald's but there is something inherently wrong here- I could buy two boxes of tea for what it costs to buy a small cup in a Parisian cafe. And let's be real here, I drink tea everyday, but it's hardly more than hot water and electricity costs aren't that high.
Everyone at the table then began to look for clues as to how this was possible- perhaps the rents were so high that they had to charge these rates? There must, after all, be a reason for this kind of violation. I was not buying this flimsy excuse. These are the same people that lived in New York and use this excuse to wrongly proclaim New York more expensive than Paris. Real estate in Manhattan may be higher than in Paris but it depends on several factors. For example if you live in Brooklyn or Queens you'll pay significantly less than in the area of Manhattan we all lived in. My good friend Jenna just left a one bedroom on the upper-west side that she paid $2000 a month for and was a few blocks from the train and the park. Both Nat and Julie's apartment and ours in Paris are priced at about $1000 for a studio. It would be difficult to find a studio apartment for $1000 in Manhattan but you could easily find a 2 bedroom for $2000, and in Queens I have friends who have a larger apartment than I have ever lived in for something like $1500. So maybe real estate in New York is higher, but it depends. Location as always, is everything.
In the end the metro/subway is cheaper although it's much faster in Paris. Eating out is significantly cheaper in New York which is hardly surprising because no one in New York cooks more than they eat out or order in. Moreover because the dollar is so poor against the Euro everything else is cheaper in New York too.
But there are seriously interesting rebates in France, for example we knew that Sylvain could get a 250 euro rebate on any rent he pays as a student, but yesterday Julie and Nat told us he could get more back because I live with him. France gives you money for every kid you have and yesterday at a nanny interview I found out the woman I was interviewing with who was due to give birth in April would have from today Feb 15th until Oct 1st off for maternity leave, this being her 4th child I believe she accrued more time, but still- isn't it 6 weeks in the states?
Deciding where we will eventually live will never come down to what's the best deal, there are way too many more important factors that we have to consider regarding our jobs, our languages and quality of life standards. But as the debate volleys back and forth it gets more interesting every day. Yesterday after the interview I had, we caught the train home when two girls boarded, Sylvain clocked them as American and then asked me why we had such amazingly white teeth. Apparently their perfect teeth gave them away? He theorized perhaps it had something to do with our meat... Someone recently suggested London as neutral territory, which now made me pause- after all the teeth in Britain are a serious deterrent. Around the continent of Europe the British teeth stand alone as crooked and bad. The French, or at least the ones I know have perfectly nice teeth except for the occasional discoloration due to their diet of coffee and cigarettes, but they're all straight and shapely. So I had to ask, if we lived in London could we still get our future kids the dental plan in France? Albeit, no.
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