Life in the City

Life in a Big City
I have never really lived in a big city. All of the noises from all the people. 
There are as many people in the Rhone-Alpes region as there are in all of Colorado and in only a tenth of the size.  I have a emergency station just half a block away and they are always using the sirens as they leave.  I sleep through all of it.  There is construction on the main thoroughfare that starts at 7:00 every morning.  I sleep through it all.  I think there is so much noise that it cancels out. 

The construction may start at 7am, but of course they take a break from 9-10 and work again for a couple more hours before taking a two hour lunch.  They are usually gone by 16:00.  The french have a 35 hour work week. Beyond the normal two weeks of holidays, similar to the US, they also get another 50+ days of vacation to be used as they want.  They put a high premium on the time spent with friends and family and they don't let work get in the way.  They don't understand the americans with their fast lunch and immediately back to work.  They work hard while they are at work, but then cherish the time to be with family.  I am usually the first in the office out of the group of grad students and the last to leave.  That does not count the time I spend in my apartment working.  They do understand why the americans get so much accomplished, they just don't want to sacrifice everything we do to achieve it. 




Census Lady
I had a census taker come by last week.  She rang the bell.  I did not know I had a bell.  She spoke in French and I muttered in french "Je ne comprends pas" and then she spoke a bit of broken english.  Enough for me to understand that she needed information about the residence.  I took the form and she said she would come back tomorrow.  I figured I could get someone at work to read it for me.  I forgot.

Not really my apartment, but very similar!

The next day, the bell rang.  I could not decide if I should just stay quiet as a mouse hoping she would go away, or face it like a man and take the shame.  I answered the door and explained that I was noncompliant.  She said no problem, She would help me fill it out.  She read the questions and allowed me to fill in the boxes for the correct answers.  They wanted to know how many rooms, the type of heat or air conditioning, type of stove and so on.  There were only about 12 questions and only took 5 minutes to complete, once I had someone to read the french.  So now I am officially censused here in france.