Rest of Day 3: We went to the Tuileries after going back to the hotel.
Day 4: There's a hop-on-hop-off Seine river cruise tour, so we did that, getting off at the Alexander III bridge at one point and as a coin collector, going to a coin museum. No new numbered routes, as we were near the centre the entire time, and there are no numbered routes inside the Pιriphιrique.
Day 5 (in progress): As I type this, I'm at Gare du Nord, past customs, waiting for the Eurostar train to London. There is a railroad strike in the UK from the 21st to the 25th, announced well in advance; it only partially disrupts things instead of stopping them entirely.
New plates seen: BG, Switzerland (has a flag instead of letters), I motorcycle (previously saw I commercial vehicle
Most French restaurants seem to be similar: if you want to order water without paying, you get a carafe (as CNGL-Leudimin said), and bread (baguette slices?) comes with the meal. They have the credit card scanners that I previously saw in Canada and really should spread to the United States. I didn't go to any foreign cuisine places except one Italian, so I don't know if it works the same way at those places.
I was expecting things to be more expensive, but overall, they were actually slightly cheaper. Meals for 13 after tax (before tip, but tips are much less outside the US) are common, and there are even some for 10. My guess is that 1 was significantly more than US$1 until recently (it was 1=US$1.04 right before we left), and somehow the exchange rates converged toward 1:1 despite the US having more inflation than the EU, meaning that European things are underpriced. (If these numbers look expensive to you, keep in mind that I'm comparing to prices in Massachusetts, not the US average.)
I thought meal sizes were smaller outside the US, especially after getting a C$3 (≈US$2.25) ice cream that was pretty small a few years ago, but that does not seem to be the case in France. The Lebanese ice cream we got (Lebanon speaks French) was 4,3 for two scoops, which were quite large for a two-scoop ice cream like most in the US. Additionally, one of the Italian places we saw had their steak at 250g, which is about 9 oz; many steaks in the US are 6. However, as I type this, there is counter-evidence; there is coffee with two sizes at 20 cL and 33 cL (at 5,1 and 5,6, although we're through customs at a train station), smaller than in the US.
Based on what we've been told about the B&B in London, the "three passcodes to get into a residential building" thing isn't present, unlike in Paris.
Question: What does it mean if a van or lorry has circles numbered 80, 90, and 100, or something similar? They look like "this vehicle doesn't drive faster than this speed", but that doesn't make sense with more than one number on the same vehicle.
