Monday, and then it was Friday...what happened to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday?

As I sit here chilling after my second full week at work, I look back at how much better it was than last week.  There are two main things that I think has brought about this change:

1) I am really getting to know everyone in the office very well and developing not only working relationships but also friendships.  They each have their own unique qualities and personalities where the amazing interaction between the team makes the days go by much faster.  

2) I have been leaving the office for lunch.  With an hour and a half lunch break, most of my colleagues get something like Picard or Thai takeout and bring it back to the office and eat in our little kitchen.  I was doing that the first week and found that I wasn't really taking advantage of my break.  Gigi is never there for lunch and she invited me this week to join her at the park where she goes everyday - Parc Montholon a 5 minute walk from the office.  The weather week was so beautiful in comparison to the damp weather of the week before that it was so nice to get out of the office and enjoy the sun and chat with someone in French about non work related stuff.

I was told by a friend who went to school here for a while and has a lot of French friends that there is a big difference between the notion of being "friends" with the French versus the Americans.  He used the analogy of a coconut versus a peach and I feel it holds true - at least for what I have experienced so far.  He claimed that French people are like coconuts because like the fruit, it is very hard to break the surface, but one you are in you are stuck for life.  In contrast, with Americans, it is very easy to break into a peach but once you reach the pit you can pull yourself out quite quickly.  There is this notion in the US that you must be friendly to everyone and have lots of friends and this ultimately results in you having a lot of surface friends.  I am lucky enough to have found some really amazing people in NYC that I consider true friends...you know who you are, but I can see the other side as well.  I was taken aback at first with how cold the people here seem, as opposed to what I am used to in New York, but now I see it is just a different approach - something more true and honest.

I feel that during my first week, I was trying desperately to hammer my way into the coconut and this week, I have really managed to break through.  Everyone has welcomed me in with open arms, and there are a few which I feel even after I am done with this stage I will continue being friends with.  

Today, it is raining, and as much as I would like to be motivated to go out and explore, I am feeling like calling it a pajama day.  I forced myself to sleep in till 11am, as I truly need to catch up on my sleep - 6hrs a night with 13hr days is just not cutting it.  I have been feeling like I sleep 1hr nights.  

Tomorrow, it is the Barbès Market.  I invited Gigi to join me and am very excited to go with her.  She is from Morocco and works as one of the Commericals at the office and has this very negotiating nature.  I am sure this will be an experience and for sure a blast going with someone else.