Day was devoted to driving. Have to learn path to airport as I will be taking S on the 15th. It’s only about 20 minutes away so S made me drive it over and back twice. It’ll be a bit tricky. There are no street signs in France. None. And those damned circles will be the death of me.
Need to do some more in depth grocery shopping and need to get a cell phone so off to shopping.
Now picture this, a super Wal-Mart times 3, ok got that, now stick a mall onto the front of it. I kid you not. Mall and then the other half is this ungodly huge store. 60 check out registers across the front of it (alright perhaps that's a slight exaggeration there are probably only 30 check outs). 3 security check points to enter through. (In case you shopped in the mall they check and tag your packages before you enter). It’s like a super Wal-Mart plus a Best Buy plus a Home Depot plus Office Max. You can buy groceries, clothes line, light bulbs, door stops, printer, cell phone, and DVD’s. We visited two such places today ‘Carrefour’ which is closer to our house and ‘E.leclerc’ which is near the airport. Craziness I tell you, craziness! Because everyone works M-F 8hr til 18 or 19hr (They get 2 hours for lunch – everything closes between 12hr and 14hr except the restaurants and some stores), they all have to shop on Saturday (closed Sunday) the crowds are insane.
An idea who’s time has come: When you go these mega stores, or any market for that matter, you will only see carts neatly parked in the cart corral. Why? Because each cart is fitted with a lock and chain that attaches it to the cart in front of it. When you need a cart you put a 1 Euro coin in the slot to release it from the others. When you return the cart to the cart corral and lock it up you get your Euro back. A Euro is currently worth a little over a dollar. Let’s picture the parking lots of Super Wal-Mart or target with no free roving carts.
Didn’t get cell phone because despite finding several places to purchase one, the crowds were huge and we would need someone’s undivided attention to get past the language barrier. Hopefully next Saturday.
Did, however, hook up phone service and order DSL. Phoned the phone company (S’s cell phone) the call was handed off several times when it was discovered that my French was, well, not good. They finally found one nice English speaking lady to help me. When I gave her our address, she told me that that address didn’t exist. I assured her that it did as we have received mail here from our banks and UPS delivered to us here. She asked me if I knew the name of the previous tenant. Luckily I remember the Canadians names and was able to give her the info. She found it immediately and said that in fact the name of our street is ‘Avenue Louie Delherm’ not ‘Rue du Doctuer Delherm’. Ok, but the landlord told us our address and mail gets here so what gives? There are no street signs so there is no way to clear this up. Am not, however, going to change anything as, as previously mentioned, mail is arriving. (Maybe not all of it?) Who knows! DSL will take a week. They are sending modem and service will be hooked up by Friday (9/12) Two weeks without internet access! The mind reels.
