Lait Chaud

Sitting in le café (the place where you order drinks) for hours and sipping...un café (a coffee) is quite simply a required part of life in Paris. It's part of the cities charm. People fly here from all over the world to engage in this activity. The French love to take it easy. They work 30-35 hours a week, compared to the U.S.'s 40. Many businesses close several days a week, and almost the entire country takes the month of August off. I have been trying my best to fit in around here. I walk around town with my baguettes, down bottles of wine, ingest the stinkiest of cheeses, stroll by the Seine, and refuse to take the elevator to the top of Le Tour Eiffel. See, I didn't even call it The Eiffel Tower! The one thing, though, that I cannot do, is drink un café. I have never reacted too well to coffee, it makes me nauseous and jittery. The French version would make me even worse since they only serve espresso shots here. Every time we stop at a café I get overwhelmed with fear. There is one other warm drink that I ordered back in the States, although I called it by another name. Here in Paris, I ask for un lait chaud (a warm milk) which tastes like sugary melted butter. Sure, le serveur who delivered my lait chaud yesterday set it down and said "pour l'enfant" (for the child) with a smile, but at least everyone sitting around me saw my steaming mug of liquid and assumed I was just another Parisian, enjoying the sweet life.