1 . My husband and I just spent a week in Paris. 1 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. 2 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. 3 French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they explode in your mouth like little flavor bombs.
4 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. 5 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. |