They had the 35-hour work week for ages. You might have heard that now they’ve passed a law, making it illegal to answer work related e-mail for French employees outside of office hours. Not bad of a work-life balance, or as the frenchies would say, pas mal.
We’re reporting directly from Toulon’s party district: no baguette for the breakfast, no milk for the coffee. Also, people didn’t make a big ruckus on the streets for New Eve, didn’t see/hear any partying hard. I guess people here were preparing for the 1st bath of the Year.
Have you ever wondered how a typical new eve on the French Riviera looks like? I hope you are now. If so, you are very welcome to keep reading. Be aware: all the conclusions are based on a one-time visit, so what feels typical, it’s not necessarily a must in these regions.
A lot of things happened this year. I learned a bit about myself and about the world. It was a good year.
I realized that I love discovering the insides of new cultures and I like analyzing societies on a macro, social level. I like sports and writing.
A roughly 600-words post is coming, after the Oslo Reports could be a bit long, so brace yourselves. I tried to make it interesting, let me know in the comments if I’ve succeeded.
This year I’ve got a bit into the Christmas spirit. That didn’t happen since I was like 12. It was not the stressing, cumbersome experience, that I perceived it to be every year. Maybe in part it was, because I wasn’t at home, during the annually held “Great Siege of Romanian Supermarkets”. No one took my parking space, no one almost ran me over on the zebra. No one was irritated at the overcrowded supermarket. I didn’t wait in seemingly interminable queues. Queues that are so long, that one might ask: are these people waiting in line for getting in heaven? You know, the small stuff that always matters.
Wondering when? As soon as they step foot in Norway.
Pictures speak louder than words. Let them shout, shall we?
Norway could be called awful, boring, depressing. For a lot of reasons. And rightly so. It is cold. Days in winter go like dark-very-foggy-dark. But boy have they invented the best thing since the wheel. That’s right, it all comes from Norway, packaged in the disguise of an ordinary, overpriced thermos. A thermos that costs 299 NOK. You can buy it from 1st of December at gas stations. But this is not just another item that it is double-triple the price here, just ’cause they can. Not at all.
This blog about travel, marketing and coffee is on a slow but sure path of transitioning into small bits of Oslo-life observations. Press read-more with caution, strong Oslo-obsession based content up ahead…
Until I can dwell into more complex subjects such as Norwegian society I can only share with the world (OK, mostly family and friends) the more superficial differences in Norway. There are many. But this post is dedicated to only one. The fine art of parking.
These days I’ve been thrown back into the Windows world again. Forcefully, I have to add. Given the job, I stay most of the day in front of a laptop that it’s running Windows.
I haven’t been around since the XP. So I skipped the shitty Vista and the nice 7. The – O my gosh, they took away the start button – Windows 8. I went straight on to Win 10. What are my remarks?
