August = Parisians' mass exodus from the city
Another recent Op-Ed article in the New York Times compared the quality-of-life between Americans and the French, particularly regarding the wonderfully copious amounts of vacation-time the French (though really most Europeans) have.
"Perhaps even more important, however, the members of that French family are compensated for their lower income with much more time together. Fully employed French workers average about seven weeks of paid vacation a year. In America, that figure is less than four.
So which society has made the better choice?"
He doesn't mention that with the recent law enforcing a thirty-five hour work-week, companies (such as mine) that continue to work a forty hour work along with the US are awarded even more vacation time to their employees to compensate!
Much of the editorial talks about "living smaller" and "buying less" (very un-American ideals), which allows Europeans to work less and relax more. As the US politicians like to preach "Family Values", in France they put that into practice by spending the month of August with their families on vacation.
Ever since mid-July, the entire city (in particular our street) has been completely empty with all of its little shops and stores (and many banks, grocery stores, department stores, just about everything) closed. This is quite a contrast considering that the expensive boutiques along our street are usually swarming with shoppers buzzing in and out of the stores and glued to windows peering at the bizarre ridiculously over-priced clothing items on display. We have started to get into the habit of expecting the person or group of persons walking in front of us to stop suddenly and press their face against the shop window. But now that all the shops have their "closed august, for annual vacation" signs in the window, there is no one here.
In fact, even our entire apartment building is empty. All of Paris is on vacation, and it's very quiet.
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