Je suis en France

This week I've been in Annecy, France to attend the Connecting Health Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CHORDS) Conference. CHORDS is a group of regional disease surveillance networks that works together to improve regional and global infectious disease surveillance, and SACIDS (where I work), is apart of that group.

Upon my first visit back to the Western world in almost 8 months, a couple of things that have struck me:
1. White people driving. For some reason I get a little surprised every time I see a car go by me and there are only white people in there. Random.
2. WINE. There is wine in TZ, but it generally comes out of a box. I had a glass of wine the first night I arrived (the French are unfailingly civilized and serve wine even during lunch...at a BUSINESS MEETING!) and I have to say I was shocked at the taste. SHOCKED. I picked up the bottle b/c it tasted so good I was sure it was something special....instead of French table wine. :)
3. Couples holding hands. I was walking today and noticed several couples holding hands. Is that a French thing? I can't remember if you see that in the US (outside of teenagers). In TZ you NEVER see couples showing affection in public.
4. Wifi. I can't even explain how awesome wifi is. You go to the NY Times homepage and it loads IMMEDIATELY. You can watch videos. You can download stuff. I just uploaded these pictures in like 10 SECONDS! (this generally takes about 10 minutes at home). It loads so fast I'm not even ready for it!

Here are a few pictures from around Annecy. Tomorrow I will take a train to Paris and meet up with my great friend from grad school, Brooke, for a quick visit for the rest of the weekend before heading back to real-life in TZ. Sigh...