Wednesday, November 17, 2010

France time

So I thought that I may be affected by jet lag when I got here, after all it is nine hours ahead of what I'm used to. Well luckily after traveling for about 24hrs from LAX to MRS, it was about 40 hrs since the last time I slept. When I finally arrived, I slept for 14 hours straight, and voila I adjusted to the time difference in one day! Normally, I would think "victory!" but unfortunately, this isn't the case. I may have adjusted to the time difference, but I haven't yet adjusted to the schedule difference.

In France, people, offices, shops, and businesses actually take lunch breaks. What a concept. They literally, close up shop, lock the doors and you won't be able to use their services until after lunch- around 14h00. When I'm used to not getting my day started until 11h00 and running errands during lunch time, I'm finding I really need to adjust my habits and get things done in the morning, boooo. So today when I felt like going grocery shopping (faire les courses), it was 14h00, they were closed. Ok. I looked at the hours, it opened again at 16h00, so I went back later. This is just one example, time after time I've showed up to an office that was closed. Now that I thoroughly understand that meal time (un repas) is very important, I must change my American ways.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, you must break those bad American habits. I'm glad you are getting used to French ways :-)

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  2. Kristina, I sense sarcasm. And fyi, it's a hard habit to break, even here.

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