Starbucks, Paris Style

I did it.  Last week I broke down and went to Starbucks...in France.  My love for coffee-flavored blended drinks got the best of me, and I'll admit, I was a bit curious.  Would it be the same as home?  Being an avid coffeehouse goer, I was missing my usual atmosphere.  I mean, the cafes are great, but I was really craving an icy cold some sort of chocolaty flavored frappaccino topped with whipped cream, and there's really nowhere else here that has any product even remotely close.  Starbucks ranks pretty low on my coffeehouse list in the US (nothing compares to Kaldi's in Kirkwood or the Mudhouse down in Springtown), but I was desperate.  This is what it looked like from the outside: just another Starbucks, complete with outdoor seating, multiple logos, and their earthy color scheme.

And then I walked inside.  The counter area was identical to an American Starbucks.  Same graphic design style, same menu (the names were all in english with french descriptions), same uniforms for the workers, and the same mugs and other Starbucks-logo-laden paraphernalia.  The seating area however, was an entirely different story.

The elaborately comfortable and detailed surroundings wasn't the only difference though.  The bakery options were much more artistic and fresh-looking, the items I got seemed to have a richer taste, the prices were higher (but so is everything else here, so no big deal), and they said the American names with a French accent, which completely made the experience.  The cashier yelled my order, "Un jshava sheep frappascheeno!"and then one of the barista's yelled it back, so I got to hear it twice!  So, overall, it was pretty much the same as in the US, but, like everything else here, about six steps up on the scale of classy-ness.

(photos collected from googleimages)