mood

Yup, walking everywhere when I briefly lived in Europe was huge for me, both for my physical and mental health.

I really miss having a reason to walk all day, like when I was in university. Now I work from home, and while I can walk around the block of whatever, it just isn't nearly the same.
- Another option is to install StreetComplete on your phone and do something useful for society while on a walk
- Get yourself into photography. You don't need anything expensive, if you have a phone camera, that will do.
  
  Document the strange and interesting things in your environment. The people, the architecture.
  
  It gets you out of the house a mission per day. It gives you a goal.
- I WFH a couple of days per week and living in a 15 minute walkable city is wonderful for walks compared to when I lived in the suburbs. But that's me and having an endless amount of actual stuff to walk to compared to an endless sea of cookie cutter houses and grass is my idea of heaven vs hell, in that order.
- I can recommend GPS games like pokemon go or Jurassic World Alive. Gives you some motivation and entertainment to walk once you get into it.
- The same for me. Although I could and would game in the dorm as much as I liked, I'd have pretty regular evening walks with friends over 2 hours with sitting for a bit on good places around the campus. On top of regular school stuff that'd amount to 4k-5k steps, these walks would add 5k-8k more on top, sometimes totalling 20k and not a single step or minute would be boring or hard to find motivation for.
- people giving you reasons here to leave the house - amateurs, just install an under desk treadmill
- Rescue a dog, my guy.
- Get a dog, if you can't then dedicate an hour or two to walking, make it an obligation.
  
  I WFH and walk 5 to 10km a day... If you had the time to do it before and don't have more obligations than before then it's on you if you don't do it anymore...
- I found excuses for myself to walk and it's made a difference. YMMV depending on what's around you, but like my friend and I walk to a nearby coffee shop for our lunch dates, and I've got a decent walk to get to the gym, which impacts how my legs/back feel hugely.
  
  Even just walking to a corner store to get a sparkling juice or whatever is nice.
  
  You got anything like that where you're at?

Complaining about things over a two hour lunch break *with a glass of wine

Sorted that for you

Works without wine too.
- But works with wine and without lunch as well.
- But not without whine.
- A lot of people reckon the small glass of wine is necessary to help digest the ridiculously fatty food without absorbing the fat
  
  See the French Paradox

I know this is a joke, but also I want to see how she is in 6 months. An interruption to your current monotony could be all it takes - once you settle back into routine, will you still be fixed?

Lots of walking to and from places throughout your day is super good for your physical and mental health, all else being equal. Afterall, we're descended from nomads.
- There's a balance to be struck, I think most people myself included would benefit from more walking and standing but I remember reading that a study showed people who are on their feet all the time for work had more joint problems. Which isn't surprising.
i would imagine it peters off after a while, hence why we have vacations.
- You guys have vacations?
- Yeah but France also has way more vacations.
A good thing about walking is that there are so many more possible routes than with driving so the monotony can continually be remediated.

And since it's personable, unlike sitting in a car alone, each walk could automatically be novel.

I would argue the monotony may take much longer than before to appear.
- Even walking the same route is enjoyable. You get to notice the small things - moonrise, birds, people walking the same or opposite way each day
  
  I'm 30 km from my workplace so I cycle, and have a choice of about three paths. When I travel at the same time, same way, I see the same people walking their dogs, jogging, cycling (passing me; me passing them)
  
  It's the shallowest acquaintance, but still nice
I felt the exact same way after 48 hours in Austin.

Was browsing Zillow in bed most the rest of the week.

She should go to Spain and take a nap after complaining during lunch. You reach a next level of consciousness

Does that 2 hours come out of your work day or do you have still stay 2 hours later? I don't even use my 1 hour lunch break because not using it let's me get off earlier.

Depends on your job, and what it's being offset against. Some workplaces care more about your work that your office hours. OTOH some workplaces are run by psychotic control freaks who've forgotten what the point is 🤷
- Sometimes the point of a job is to be in a certain place at a certain time, so job places requiring you to follow the clock makes sense in a lot of cases.
  
  If your job is to make at least 25 "thingies", and you make 25, you should be able to go home.
Doesn't come out of your hours so yes in practice you finish later and/or start earlier.
- F that. I guess it's nice if you need to go to a doctor or something but no way as a standard thing.

There are better places than Paris for hiking...

Paris is a lovely walk-able city, though.
- Too bad there are so many French people
That’s completely subjective.

Depends on what you want to get out of your hike. Want historic sites and a café? Go hike an old city. Want mosquitos and beautiful open vistas? Go hike a mountain trail.
- Well, i'm swiss and hiking is something you do on mountains to me. Visiting a city is taking a stroll.
That's not hiking, that just happens in a day
Paris really is beautiful, I have seen many places as nice in Europe, but Paris stands out

Moving out of Paris actually did wonders to my mental health. Worst city to live in in my opinion.

The question would be how did she get hired haha