Even though Paris is my favorite city, I’ve compiled a list of problems that I won’t miss when I head back to California:
1. The Relaxed Work Ethic
With the exception of restaurants, everything in France shuts down on Sundays, grocery stores included. This is pretty ridiculous in reality. My French host family agrees that the 35-hour work week hurts the economy, and this whole “the world stops on Sunday” mentality exacerbates the problem.
For example, waiters and waitresses take their time to serve food at every restaurant. They don’t get tipped, therefore they have no incentive to provide swift service. It’s easy to spend an extra hour at a restaurant, and the waiters won’t go out of their way to make customers comfortable.
The French economy would be better if stores were open on Sundays. No one has a lot of time to shop during the week, so Saturdays and Sundays seem like the days to do it. In France, Saturday is the only day most people have to shop. I went to H&M yesterday, and I’m highyl disappointed that I can’t go shopping on Sunday, when I have absolutely nothing to do, anyway.
2. The Water Situation
The French don’t drink enough water. Ever wonder why so many of them died in the heat wave several summers back? It was only 105 degrees in Paris, but the French weren’t used to hydrating properly for that kind of climate, so they all died.
We don’t drink enough water in France. My host family of six will share a liter of water. I alone drink gallons of water a day. Ava and I got to the point where we drank so much water that we started using our host family’s tap water. We save bottles of water in our room and always make sure to drink water, whenever we can find it. Our host father says he drinks enough water, but he doesn’t drink half the amount that we do.
Last night, I went out to dinner with three Arizona in Paris friends, and the waiter kept laughing at us for requesting more bottles of water. I’m just used to American waiters constantly filling up my glass of water, and it’s frustrating to be thirsty all the time over here.
For now, those are my two biggest complaints. There’s not very many bad things to say about Paris otherwise. It’s an incredible city. It’s just too bad the people won’t step up their work ethic or hydrate enough.
COPYRIGHT 2009 LAURA DONOVAN
