Hard at work.

Just to make a point, I'm writing this post from the office (we call it the low-cal) where we work. We had to ask special permission to come in late today (our train from Rennes didn't get in until mid-afternoon), and so far we've been here for two a half hours and have done absolutely nothing. OH wait, I lied... we've all checked our facebook and talked religion and sat around a bit.

A word on French work ethic: nul. Worthless. Useless. Hopeless. And for us, very frustrating!

Basically, no one works hard, and no one works a lot. It's kind of strange for us, because we are used to actually doing things when at work. But for us here, a normal day follows a schedule more or less like this:

10h00- We take our time getting ready in the morning.
10h30- Get to the Local. Bis everyone, put down our bags, get out our books/journals.
12h30- Everyone stops "working" and winds down for lunch: facebook, checking email, etc.
1h00-2h00- Lunch.
2h30- Everyone winds back up for work: facebook, checking email, etc.
5h00- Everyone goes home.

Sometimes we have visits in the afternoon. These usually take up about 2 hours-- 1 hour going to and from, 1 hour for the visit. Give or take a half an hour. Some days we have two visits for one afternoon. Other than that, we might make some phone calls to set up visits or invite people to come to activities here. And a few afternoons a week we host those activities: playing board games or the wii with the elderly people who show up. So, Lisa, yes, I did come here to work. But seeing as how there's not much work to be done...

Oh, and did I mention what takes up the most time?

Welcome to France.