Having lived in the Midwest most of my life I had no idea that the rest of the world lived so differently.
Farmhouses, corn fields and cows were my normal and I had only been to the big city a couple of times in my life.
Once was when I was on a field trip with school and the other was a weekend with friends celebrating my best friend’s wedding. Both of those trips were short and a bit scary if I must admit it. Anyway, none of them prepared me for my month-long stay in Paris. European lifestyles are certainly very different from ours in the United States. Apparently sitting in a restaurant sweating profusely is acceptable there. I was sent to go to a training school for my company that took place in France. I thought it would be an exciting adventure but instead I spent the time in very warm spaces that had no air conditioning. I guess it is quite common to “enjoy” the natural state of the outdoors and many places do not have any sort of cooling systems. Thankfully my hotel room was climate controlled so I was able to get a good night’s sleep at night. Spending my days in training and then trying to find a comfortable place to have a meal was hard enough and if I wasn’t able to sleep at night it would have been pure torture. I was thrilled to get back home to my normal way of life. The training was great and I will be able to implement what I learned to enhance our production area and at least all of our work spaces are fully climate controlled too.