My husband and I just spent a week in Paris.So the first thing we did was rent a fantastically expensive sixth-floor apartment the size of a cupboard. It was so tiny that we had to leave our suitcases in the hallway.
The place wasn't entirely authentic, though. Unlike a normal Parisian apartment, the plumbing ( 水管 ) worked. Our building even had a tiny lift with a female voice that said, "Ouverture des portes," in perfect French. That is the only French phrase I mastered, and it's a shame I don't have much use for it.
Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone noted in this paper a couple of weeks ago, they eat great food and never gain weight. French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they explode in your mouth like little flavor bombs.
On our first morning in Paris, I went around the corner to the food market to pick up some groceries. I bought a handful of perfectly ripe small strawberries and a little sweet melon. My husband and I agreed they were the best fruit we had ever eaten. But they cost $18!
In France, quality of life is much more important than efficiency.
You can tell this by cafés life. French cafés are always crowded.When do these people work? The French take their 35-hour workweek seriously — so seriously that some labor unions recently struck a deal with a group of companies limiting the number of hours that independent contractors can be on call.
A. Not all the customers are tourists.
B. The quality of life in France is equally excellent.
C. There was a nice kitchen and a comfortable bed.
D. The amazing food is mainly consumed by local farmers.
E. That's not the only reason the French eat less than we do.
F. Our aim was to see if we could live, in some way, like real Parisians.
G. The food is so delicious that you don't need much of it to make you happy.
