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Living Like a Local: How To Spend Sunday in Paris (Part II)

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What’s In A View? Enjoying Paris’s Best Perspectives

Packing for Paris: How to Dress Like a Parisian

Becoming French 101: How to Live and Work in France

November 16, 2012 by Paige Bradley Frost

Making Magique & Janellie

During my recent visit to the U.S., my sister told everyone that I live in Paris just to marvel at their reactions.

“Just stick a dagger in my heart, why don’t you,” came the response from a cosmetics salesman. “I’d give anything to live in Paris…” It garnered me bonus points in San Francisco’s chic boutiques and even scored us a table at an impossible-to-book restaurant. “My sister’s just in from Paris… hoping you might have something for us at eight?” Pas de problème.

bestarns

Every expat who lives here knows the feeling. Why? Because Paris is the culmination of our romantic dreams, the city upon which we project our fantasies of a life well lived. We’re the lucky ones who’ve somehow pulled it off. But how?

Posted in Parisian Living | 25 Comments »

Working in Paris: Strikes, 35-hour Weeks and Real Lunch Breaks

April 19, 2012 by Victoria Wall

35 hour work week – time for gazing at the Seine - Christophe Hue

Many associate French working life with 35-hour weeks, strikes, long long lunch breaks and even longer holidays. This is certainly the image that I’d carefully conjured in my idealistic head before setting foot in France.

The big question: does reality live up to this delightful worker-friendly dream?

Well, I can confirm that the 35-hour week does exist (at least for a privileged minority), strikes do take place on a not-infrequent basis, lunch breaks remain sacred, and holidays are considered to be an untouchable national right (right up there alongside liberté, egalité, fraternité).

However, beneath the shiny and appealing veneer, day-to-day work has its fair share of up and downs.

Carin Olsson

Posted in Parisian Living | 4 Comments »