Pictures from France are posted and other notes about visiting France

First off, the pictures are uploaded to Flickr.  I was using Picasaweb, but it is gone, and Google Photos is pretty much the definition of awful. Every wrong UI decision that could have been made was made.

All my pictures are located here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147455986@N05/albums

Some notes and observations about my trip:

They are very traditional.  All the stores close by 6, and none of the restaurants open before 7.  On Sunday, a lot of the places are closed.

This might just be Valence, but the center of town was all pedestrians and the occasional scooter, but no cars outside of the occasional police.  There were actually 2 downtowns, one with car access one with pedestrian-only access.

They value actual social interaction.  Every morning, everybody came and greeted everyone else with a handshake.  I also noticed that when we were out walking around town, the only people on their phones were us.  

Likewise dinner was usually a whole evening and more social affair.  They were all multiple courses, and the food was very excellent.  As a cheese aficionado I was happy they use a lot of cheese, but most of it was softer cheese, like goat cheese, which I am not as big on.  On the whole though, the food was excellent.  

Given the quality of food, I am surprised at how small the French are.  I was taller than most, and am not quite 6' tall.  Most of them are skinny and slight of build as well.  To be blunt, I was the fattest person I saw in France.

While it was good that I went with others who had been there before, in reality most people in France spoke English to some degree.  Some of them spoke English very well.  If these trips do become frequent, I would still like to learn some French, but it isn't really required.

Despite being at the same latitude as New Hampshire, it felt more like Kentucky over there.  They don't get standing snow, and people were wearing jackets when it was 70 out.  The AC at the office is set around 80.

The French get a lot of flak in the US for their limited work schedules and the like, and it is true to a degree.  We arrived normally around 8:30, and were one of the earlier ones in the office.  We were often the last to leave around 6.  It isn't uncommon to take a lunch that is over an hour there, sometimes two hours.

A couple of more work related side notes for my next trip:

• Bring a nice laptop.  The work laptop was a bad idea.  It was a POS, and my laptop can remote in just as easily.
• Bring a fan.
• Get a SIM for my existing phone.  My phone should have the radios required to work over there, and the loaner phone from work was a POS.
• Bring a US keyboard.