Stores are open weird times here. A lot of stores are open Tuesday-Saturday, with Saturday & Sunday off. And, in small cities such as this one, many have 2.5 hour lunch breaks, and then close at 6 pm. The customer service sucks here compared to the US -- but it's part of the culture to not have happy people working I guess. It still trips me out.

Oh yeah, and everything shuts down in August. August is "vacation month" so many employees have the whole month off. You cannot do construction in August because everyone is on vacation and it makes too much noise. I guess not as many people take all August off as they did in the past, as France now has a 35 hour work week and people take more long-weekend style vacations then a whole months worth of vacation at once.