As Ferris Bueller would say...

Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I feel like Parisians (and actually many of the people that I've met here) live life with that attitude. You see many a Parisian sitting outside a cafe by themselves with an espresso and c'est tout. No cell phones, no laptop, not even a newspaper. They are merely just sitting and enjoying their solitude and their surroundings. Or you'll see two people at a cafe sitting down to enjoy each other's company and they won't be constantly checking their phones every 5 seconds to see if something better is going on. All the parks here have hundreds of chairs where people can sit and appreciate the beauty around them. And they do. You don't see much of the sitting and appreciating in Canada I feel. Everyone's attitude is go, go, go. Get the coffee to go and check my emails on the go and walk to work head down, staring at the blackberry and ignore anything that's going on around you. Well one day, you're going to walk into a pothole and neither your starbucks nor facebook app will be able to save you.

I must admit that I am somewhat of a crackberryhead (you probs all know that) but I want to learn the Parisian's way of living in the now, in the present, and appreciate what's going on around me and not on a 2 by 4 plastic screen.

The South American's seem to have that down. Last night I was invited over to dinner by some Argentineans from one of my classes. We sat down to dinner around 9:30 and I was really surprised when they said it was almost 12:30. Save for holidays and special occasions and what not, I don't think I've ever sat at a dinner table for almost 3 hours. But they said that was normal for them, even at lunch time, to have long meals where everyone sits and enjoys each other's company.

The other problem with letting the time fly by like that is that not all services follow the leisurely pace rule. The metro closes at 12 here on weekends so I had to take a cab home from the 16e. However, there is nothing quite like taking a cab home with rain dripping down the window and the Eiffel Tower in plain sight for most of the trip. Beauty.

Fresh air. Take it in. Feels good right?