Time to come home

Here we are sitting in the Etap hotel 4km from Charles de Gaulle airport. We leave tomorrow at lunchtime. The logistics seem ok so far. The bikes are dismantled and in the back of the car. Tomorrow at the airport we will get 4 boxes at 5.97 euros each, pack them in and check them in.
Until 3 days ago we didn't really feel we wanted to come home. Spending a couple of days in Paris changed that. It would be a cool city to live in for a while but not over summer. The place is already teeming with tourists. We did touristy things, mind you, for the kids. We climbed Eiffel tower (which I avoided doing 20 years ago because it was too touristy), went to the musee d'orsay and Rodin museum. All were smothered with tourists.
Food was good. It was nice to eat non-French for a change and we ate well and cheaply on Lao, Vietnamese and Turkish.
What are our thoughts on France? Here is our grand summary in point form.
Positives:
- the people are wonderful. Warm, friendly and helpful. It helped that I spoke French and that the kids are cute.
- food is awesome. The quality of the produce is outstanding and we need to do better on this in Oz. The basics like bread and wine are almost always excellent and very cheap. The supermarkets are good even and stock local produce. They are also cheaper than ours.
- They look after their countryside. There isn't rubbish on the roadside. 

- they like cyclists a lot and know how to respectfully pass them (mostly). There is a network of minor roads that are really quiet, paved  and perfect for cycling

- they are bureacratic (see below), but are way more relaxed about OHS and other things like hygiene that we have become stupid about. 

- they love dogs and they are really included in everything including going out to eat.

- as a remnant socialist country, their services are great.

 - they don't seem to have bogans and people seem to have reasonable taste as shown by their building styles and gardens. 

Negatives:

- bureacracy. It would be really hard to live here. They love paperwork and are usually ( the bureacrats that us) happy to say "non" or pass you to another department. This is true even for ex goverment agencies such as Orange (telstra equivalent), SNCF (trains) and airfrance 

- their big cities are beautiful in the centres but just horrible on the outskirts with cramped apartments. The upside of this dense habitation is that the countryside is not populated

- they are a bit insular. They mostly speak only French and mostly don't holiday out of France. 

I (stan) would live here in the countryside but would miss the wildness of Tassie. Also, life here that included work might be ordinary especially due to more encounters with bureacracy. 

We would definitely miss all our friends!