There’s no experience that quite matches a trip to a French hypermarket.
Yesterday, being a Sunday, all supermarkets were closed. Despite being in France for more than a week now, we sort of forgot about that in terms of arriving in Quillan. So we found ourselves unable to buy even a bottle of milk, and rationed ourselves off leftover lunch sandwiches, one small packet of crisps and one banana between four for our evening meal.
Starting with nothing in the cupboards, the shopping list today was long, and we drove half an hour to the nearest hyper market to stock up.
First trick was to figure out that to get a trolley with a baby seat required handing over a form of ID at the information desk in exchange for a special ticket.
For our next trick, Nick wee’d all over himself while changing, and I’d forgotten the change of clothes.
Three hours and 265 euros later, we emerged exhausted back into the sunlight, with a full trolley. Of course we are not yet used to the fact that French supermarkets do not give out plastic bags, so had left our bags at home.
Luckily my credit card still works, as the bank seems to have mysteriously blocked Stephen’s despite being notified of our travel plans. Sigh.
And the first items have already been added to the next shopping list.
Wow no shops whatsoever open on a Sunday is hard to adapt to after NZ! I’m interested in the price of groceries compared to home – what did you think?
My impression is that things work out mostly at an equivalent cost, though some things (that would be imported at large cost to NZ) like cheeses are a lot cheaper here. As a random example, tins of baby milk formula are roughly equivalent – perhaps a fraction cheaper. Chocolate is generally cheaper, I think. Though it may just be that there is a greater selection to choose from.