Things I love about France:

• The food

• The wine

• The fashion, and the way a woman can look totally pulled together without her pants or dress having to be spray painted on (as I saw in Italy and CR)

• Did I mention the food?

• The cheese, which I guess is a subset of the food

• All the people have normal, 1940s-sized bodies… OK maybe I should go with 1950s-sized, since during the 1940s people were either in the throes of global conflict, or existing on government issued food ration coupons and the mysterious disappearance of various neighborhood pets

• The subset of society that originally embraced the hippie movement, and the youths from each generation who keep this social experiment alive (would that I had had bigger cojones in my own youth, to follow my natural inclination).

• Hanging teaspoons

Things I'm not really crazy about in France:

• While you're sitting on the sidewalk under trees, eating the aforementioned fabulous food, unbeknownst to you cannibal ants are also dining - on you - leaving the freakin itchiest bites you can imagine... which you scratch bloody in your sleep... and then they serve to mark your legs for all to see as definitely not belonging to an elegant French woman

• a dearth of strong, secure wi-fi in any hotel

• the advertised whiff of wifi in the train stations which will register on your phone but will not allow you to perform any operation on said phone

• the T****-esque 5000-foot-high digital wall that immediately renders Italian or Spanish cellular coverage null and void the minute you cross the border

• unfathomable highway directions

• after spending 2 years in Spain where lunch BEGINS at 2, I arrive with my Madrid-conditioned stomach to France where lunch strictly begins at 12 and ends at 2. Sharp.

• They don’t pick up the poo! They turn dogs of all shapes and sizes into well-mannered family members, living elbow to snout with them in 5 story walkups. But they cannot be bothered to pick up the poo on the street where they live! It reminds me of a Chris Rock - Jesse Jackson interview I once saw, where Chris kept pressing the point of cleaning up your own yard. (Coulda got him slapped!)