Some Observations

Being in a foreign country, experiencing new and different things naturally leads one to make various observations. Here are some of mine (in no particular order.)

The car I am renting, its engine totally shuts off when I come to a complete stop. Is that just a European fuel efficiency thing? If so, why don't cars manufactured for the USA do the same thing? (I happen to be driving a Ford, at the moment! And I don't drive a new car at home, so I don't know if newer cars do this or not.) The car also knows the speed limit wherever I am driving (accurate 95% of the time), and it flashes at me if I am exceeding it. (What else does it know??? It does also have "crash assist" which flashes if I'm approaching a car too quickly; can read whether I am in my lane; and I think it does something to the steering when it thinks I'm getting out of my lane. Sometimes I feel it pulling against me.)

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on recycling in France. There are lots of public recycling receptacles (in Céret, I seem to remember that there were even more recycling bins than garbage bins!) All product packaging has a little reminder, "Pensez au tri!" which means "Think about sorting!" with little images and instructions about what parts of the packaging can be recycled and what has to be thrown away. In Limoges, they apparently recycle virtually all plastic (relatively new, since there is public advertising to remind people of all the things that can now be recycled that couldn't previously be recycled: plastic wraps (even cling wrap like Saran Wrap, and films from food packaging, plastic containers of every single type, stryofoam, etc.) And I am wondering how do they actually do this, because it only brings to mind how I've seen exposés in the United States about us shipping our recylables to China; or contamination of recyclables which leads to everything being thrown away; or items that are too small and therefore jam the machines...yet here they remind you to recycle everything, even the little circle of foil that covers your milk bottle, for example.

(Yet the Number One piece of garbage I see littering the streets is disposable masks... hmmm....

Which incidentally, Limoges actually has a recycling program for disposable masks too!) 

And on the topic of plastics, there are very, very, few stores that give free bags, and if they do, they are rarely plastic (usually paper). Therefore, you must buy/bring your own grocery bags.  If you ask for disposable tableware with your take-out food, it's made of wood and comes in paper packaging. Bags at the bakery or produce area for your selected items are mostly paper with a plastic window, although there are some rolls of plastic bags for produce too, depending on what you need it for. Even the tissue boxes don't have plastic at the openings. There are four little flaps of paper to help keep the tissues coming out one at a time.

Incidentally, I have also heard that reusable plastic bags use many times more plastic that the kind we get at our grocery stores, and they wear out after many fewer uses than the equivalent number of "single use" plastic bags, which aren't usually "single use" because a lot of people reuse them for small waste baskets, animal waste, and a variety of other things, things that they end up buying plastic bags for anyways. E.g. Just making this up, but to illustrate the point: maybe it takes the equivalent of 500 plastic grocery bags to make one heavy duty reusable shopping bag that will wear out after 250 uses AND it may not be recycleable, while the other ones are. I have one thick plastic grocery bag I had to buy, and I've probably used it no more than a dozen times, but it is already starting to get holes in it (from sharp corners, ostensibly), so that one is clearly not going to save any plastic from being produced and is probably contributing to the unnecessary production/consumption of plastic.

I've seen other exposés that using "natural" materials like paper and wood aren't always as ecologically friendly as we would like to think, (e.g. you have to cut down more trees to make those products; are we able to reforest as quickly as we consume?) so I am definitely curious about what the real ecology and impact of these practices are. (Although I will probably never know.)

Some traffic"intersections" here are a mind-boggling mess. "Intersection" probably isn't the right word... perhaps "convergence" would be better? I think it probably arises from paths and roads being established ages and ages ago before cars and traffic lights, so sometimes there might be eight roads coming together at different angles in the same vicinity... which leads to stop lights every 50 feet sometimes! It also means that sometimes I have to stop at 2 or 3 lights to complete what is essentially a left turn.

There are no overhead traffic lights, at least in Limoges (and not in Céret either.) They are always to the side. Usually one small one at head-height for the first car in line, and then a taller, bigger one on the same pole for the cars behind to see. I've been driving here for about seven weeks now, and I am finally getting to the point where I look to the left or the right first, instead of up to watch the traffic light. (The traffic lights are often on both sides of the road, especially if there are multiple lanes in one direction.) Although it still feels really weird to be looking to the side while I wait for the light to change. (And sometimes in the direction of other drivers! Bleh!)

It's a little difficult to see, but the smaller traffic light is turned to the left; about 3 feet from the ground. You can see the little sliver of green light glowing.

Shopping carts at the grocery stores steer differently than ours. All four wheels turn and rotate independently. This was mostly just frustrating at first, because I find it more difficult to steer -- it actually requires more core strength/enagement -- but I think it helps with maneuvering carts in tight spaces because you can easily move it any direction, such as diagonally or whatever you need to do. However, my local Aldi has an undulating parking lot and it is absolutely, literally IMPOSSIBLE to push one of those carts uphill when full of groceries!! One time I resorted to walking backwards and pulling it, then I had to hold it with my foot to keep it from rolling away. Today, I had to leave the cart in front of my car because that's where the ground was flat, and load my groceries from there. 

I like this "butt rest" that McDonald's had in place for customers who order take out:

So many tiny cars! I am still not entirely used to seeing such small cars. We have even seen a car that only had one seat! (I don't have a picture.) But I certainly have a greater appreciation for the practicality of such cars, especially when it comes to parking, in places like this where everything is more compact.

I love how easy it is to make a bed that only has a duvet cover and not a top sheet.

I admire and appreciate those who grow flowers and plants even when they don't have a yard, and sometimes not even a terrace! There are a lot of apartment buildings here. Some of them only have a metal railing outside their windows or doors, not even a patio or anything, and they will still have window boxes full of flowers on the railing, or maybe some potted plants or a small tree on the ledge in front of the railing. I've also seen some extremely tiny yards that are absolutely chock full of plants, whether decorative or edible or both. I have a brown thumb and I'm pretty terrible at growing things, but I love seeing other people succeed at growing tons of plants!

This house actually has grape vines growing on that awning, an apple tree to the right, and the rest of the yard is chock-full too.

Some plant-filled terraces.

This little yard is all garden except for that little side walk that runs through the middle. I think there are grapes growing on the trellis, a fig tree in the middle back, and then all sorts of vegetables in the beds (some of which are fallow at the moment/recently harvested).