Accepting the Parisian Way of Life.

Parisians like to take it slow.
At first it was a little frustrating. In the States, everything is built on a foundation of efficiency and efficacy. Everything happens as quickly as possible and no one waits around since there is always somewhere else to go.
I had to get used to waiting a half hour for the waiter to notice that there were 15 loud Americans sitting in his restaurant, waiting an hour for the food to arrive, and waiting another half an hour to get the check. (Maybe that's why French food is so delicious... the French are so hungry by the time their food actually arrives that every bite is the best they've ever tasted.)
The lines in the grocery store never cease to amaze/confuse me. I somehow always manage to pick the slowest moving line, or the cash register breaks, or someone is getting trained, or something else occurs that I don't understand since, really, let's be honest here, I don't speak French.
Everything closes on the weekends, and a lot of places are also closed on Mondays. The French take lunch breaks for two hours and then leave two hours later. I'm still not sure how anything gets done... but they got something right, since obviously they are productive and successful.

So. I have a point. After almost three weeks of dealing with these changes in culture, I've started to get used to them and even appreciate them.
Example: I choose not to go out to dinner if I don't have enough time, since I know it will be an ordeal. Therefore, I save money and every cafe visit is that much more special.
Another example: I have gotten to know people really well because we have so much time to talk and discuss during meals/waiting in lines for everything.
The example that gave me the idea for this post: I spent five hours lying in a park today. A friend and I had un petit pique-nique, including (a teensy bit of) cheese (with a lot of lactaid pills to add some spice), a baguette, a salad, a meringue, and of course some white wine. We spent five hours lying around, eating, pretending we were French, philosophizing, people-watching, napping, and generally enjoying the fact that we were in Paris in a park on a beautiful day.
Five hours! I can get used to this relaxing French ideology.

Yesterday, I went with a friend to a famous tea room, called the Freres Mariages. It's the oldest tea company (I think?) in France, and was started when two brothers (...the Freres Mariages...) both traveled around the world and came back to France with an intense knowledge and taste for tea. I thought the place was going to be like the Teavana I go to sometimes in the mall.
Not at all. The French have to be classy about everything.

We walked in to the shop and immediately were confronted by shelves and shelves of different teas. Men dressed up in suits walked around and asked us if we would like to smell anything, and we spent a good half hour wandering around and smelling different pots of tea leaves. Eventually, we decided to splurge and sit at the cafe in the tea shop, where I dropped 9 euro on one pot of tea and a muffin. However, it was FRENCH tea and a FRENCH muffin. So obviously.... very different.
And it was delicious. Tea is a science at the Freres Mariages. They take themselves very seriously, so we decided to take them very seriously as well.
After about an hour and a half of sitting, drinking tea, talking about intellectual things, and eating my perfectly baked muffin, we finished our tea (we went through two entire kettles of tea. Yes we did.) and went back into the world.

I was very relaxed. I took a small nap after that.

Anyway, my point is that Parisians know how to live. They eat well, drink well, and rest exceedingly well. Having spent the last two days trying my best to eat, drink, and rest like a Parisian, I'm starting to be a big fan.