Latin blood in Northern France

I know that after 10 years of living here, I shouldn't expect people to be on time. But I do.

I rushed out of my office to get to my orthoptie appointment and then sat in the waiting room for 20 minutes. When the orthoptist came to get me, no appologies, no nothing (and she was probably wondering why I was a little rude).

When I lived in the South of France, I could understand the "Provencal 15 minutes". People were always late because, they claimed, of Latin blood. But up here in the North? There's as much Latin blood in Lille as there is just over the border and the Belgians seem to grasp the concept of being on time (at least the Flemish do; the Walloons are notoriously unorganized). Granted, the Spanish did rule Flanders for a while and we do have speculoos thanks to them. Maybe it's that overarching "Lack of respect for others" thing the French do so well.

And then to top it off, as I waiting in line to get my sandwich some idiot was pretending to be American. I almost said something snide but decided I was already too worked up to get in a fight with an idiot. Besides, I hate confrontation. Maybe I should learn to be more confrontational if I'm going to survive another 10 years in this country.