jus d'orange is an old staple for kids to drink - again like Oringina about $4 for a tiny bottle. Nothing complicated at all - this is what IME French parents order - not Coke! But that would be OK too and probably is gaining popularity.

"There's no way you can eat that -- it's not for children anyway!" usually works when you want them to try something about which they might be suspicious.

PalenQ, plenty of French kids drink Coke in restaurants and so do a lot of adults, notably in the Muslim population.

kerouac - is that a tiny bottle of coke cost a few euros or is it now from a fountain and free refills? It just seemed that years ago when my kid was young it would be $3-4 for a tiny bottle - just wondering.

No one is being nasty.

There are Starbucks and McDonald's in Paris.

There are ice cream parlors like Amorino and Bertillon.

There are chocolate shops, bakeries, cheese shops.

The grocery stores sell snack crackers, potato chips, Coke Lite, Pepsi, cookies, all kinds of canned nuts, packaged sandwich meat, etc.

When you walk down the street in Paris the people look exactly the same as you would see in Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, and LA.

People wear hoodies, Nike sneakers, Hollister t-shirts, they have iPhones.

We live in a global economy. French people no longer wear berets and carry a baguette under their arms.


Thin

PalenQ, I see Coke for sale for 8€ in the tourist traps and for 3€ in a normal place. In a supermarket you can buy a six-pack for about 4.50€. If you buy a house brand of cola, the price goes down to about 2.20€.

Merci kerouac!

French people no longer wear berets and carry a baguette under their arms.>

berets no but casquett still - if you know the difference and it is a common site to see French folk on their way home carrying a baguette under their arms - you see it all the time or would if you were ever in a real neighborhood around dinner time - or at noon on Sundays - yes the baguette carrying is still a tradition - at least places I go.

Still a few berets down here in the boondocks, mostly on the over 70s, but loose baquettes are ubiquitous--under the arm, in the bike basket or panier, tucked in a newspaper....

They still wear berets in certain parts of northern Spain, at least some of the older men. You can get high quality berets in San Sebastian/Donostia.

And here is the question that would arise from someone in our family, "What you are not going to France because the boys cannot get -------?"

There is a great sense of adventure and the unknown about travel even and including bastions of art, culture, and food like France. That is one reason, why people travel.

Let the boys experience the differences and maybe, just maybe, they will find a new favorite and unexpected drink. (That the rest of the world has imbibed for yours.)

Embrace the differences and let them be a source of joy, not anxiety. (Lecture over.)

I have taken my 11 yr old and 13 yr olds to Paris.. on seperate trips.

I allowed them to order one soda/juice a day in a restaurant /cafe. The rest of the time they drank tap water while out.. but we did stop in grocers and picked up cheaper then cafes etc juices for mid afternoon snacks. etc. At breakfast hot coco was allowed.


We found orange juice the easiest to find.. and apple juice much less so.

Milk in France tastes weird yucky to all of us.. I have spent many months in France as a child and hated the milk unless it was hot coco, and my kids found milk just as gross. There is however bottled milk in the grocery coolers sometimes.. its not all boxed UHT milk.

Orangina is basically pop.. slightly less sweet, but still pop to me.

I agree with Keroauc to my recall Limanade is just like sprite or 7 up.. I just thought it was basically no name sprite? The cloudy stuff I recall as being called Bitter Lemon .. and I rather liked it.

We used to get served this syrup stuff you mix in water.. all sorts of flavors including mint.. don't know what the proper name for that stuff is..

Buy juices to stock mini fridge in hotel.. I always did.. so drinking tap water during the day was not such a big deal if they could have some juice at some point. They did miss drinking milk but were far to happy enjoying their holiday to care that much.. and we got ice cream and yogurts often so they still had their calcium intake.

<i>We used to get served this syrup stuff you mix in water.. all sorts of flavors including mint.. don't know what the proper name for that stuff is.. </i>

It´s called sirop as in Sirop de . . .

menthe, framboise, orgeat, cassis, citron, grenadine, and a whole lot of others.

After I pondered this question a bit, these syrups mixed with water are probably the most common drink consumed by young people. These are usually served at room temperature or sometimes with an (as in one) ice cube.

for the fun of it "Pschitt" http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Champagne_Drink.php has got to be on a kid's list

Pschitt---how funny. That will definitely go on the list. Is it popular in Paris?

nah, it's just a lemonade fizz

nah---does that mean it's not available and they wouldn't know what you are ordering OR that it's just not popular so don't order it?

First you would have to know how to pronounce it. Actually, the spelling is about as close as you can get to the pronunciation, because the name of the beverage is an onomatopoeia of the sound of opening a fizzy beverage.

So I guess we'll be ordering Orangina---that we can pronounce.

Hooray for Orangina. On my first trip to Europe when I was in High School, the big beverage discoveries were Orangina and San Pelligrino water. I also love the do-it-yourself aspects to a citron presse' which allows me to do something while people watching.

just not popular. Orangina is everywhere