Gypsy Soul: Le Café.

Lately I've been fighting a lot with my internal clock.

American internal clocks and French internal clocks are very different. For example, normal dinner time in America is around 6:30, right? But none of my French friends start thinking about dinner until 8, and they usually eat around 8:30 or 9. So I have two choices: I can eat alone at 6:30, or I can starve until 9. (Which, by the way, is when I get tired and start thinking of bed...)

I also find that back home during the week, we don't do much socializing. The work week is focued on work. You go to work, you come home tired, you cook dinner, you read a book, watch TV, or visit facebook, and you go to bed. Then you wake up and do it all again.

One day last week, I went to work. I came home tired. I made myself dinner. I started to read my book (Misery, by Stephen King. It was terrible, but it's slim pickins for English books at the public library). And that's when, at 8:00pm, my friends asked me to go to the rec center and play a game of squash with them! (Thank you for gasping over-dramatically at this sentence with me.)

Basically, I told them: you all are crazy, it's entirely too late to go run around a squash court for two hours, and...don't you all have work tomorrow? Then I explained to them how you are supposed to conduct yourself during the week. They laughed. «So...all you do is just work and sleep? When do you see your friends?» «Well, on the weekends,» I explained. «On the weekends you can do whatever you want.» A pause. «So I have to do five days of unhappiness for two days to see my friends? This is life?» ummm......

Ok touché. Good point. But even so...where do they get all this energy? How do they stay active all day long??

I figured it out, the next morning over a cup of coffee. (Which I desperately needed, because of course after that conversation I reluctantly forced myself to go to squash...). It's coffee. Coffee is the source of all the French people's power. This is why they are never tired. This is why they wake up at 6:00 and work all day and cook all night and then go play squash for two hours with their friends. This is why there are entire stores devoted to some VERY special coffee machines and colorful coffee capsules. And why every.single.person. I know here owns one (or two....they also make them for tea!)