Category Archives: Health Care

When You Get Sick in Paris …

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Parisian pharmacy

I’ve got a killer cold. Here, in California, I had to track down an urgent care clinic (my doc was booked for days), pay an arm and a leg, get a prescription for a liquid to numb my throat, go to the pharmacy to get the medication, and then had to wait 24 hours while they ordered more of it because it wasn’t in stock. Fortunately, the medical system in France is very, very different than ours. When one gets sick in France, you first go to the pharmacy. Continue Reading →

Paris Tried to Crack Down on Its Worst Attribute

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Smoking 2

Parisians–and the French in general–are smokers.

It’s a love affair that’s lasted for decades, and shows no sign of abating any time soon. Studies show that about 30% of French adults smoke, and more alarmingly a similarly high percentage of Gallic teenagers regularly light up. But a recent move by Paris’s new mayor to curb smoking in public places has led some to decry the loss of the iconic image of the Parisian smoker. Is that necessarily such a bad thing? Continue Reading →