In which we get wet

Saturday morning dawned dampish. Not exactly raining, but not not raining either. It was sort of a light mist, the kind that results in permanently foggy glasses. So on the way home from the bakery, I zipped the baguettes inside my jacket (and was awarded with some very odd looks, perhaps I should have brought an umbrella instead). In any case, it meant that we spent the morning inside, for the most part.

Around 11:00 the sun came out, and Cherry and I headed over to get groceries. In true Cherry fashion, she checked to make sure that I had a one euro coin to use in the shopping carts, and then insisted that we go get a cart from the basement.

A note of explanation: In Europe it's quite common to have to use a coin to unlock your shopping cart from the one in front of it. The coin is then held in a little box until you lock your cart back up again to the one in front of it, when you can retrieve your money. As a method of preventing cart theft it's probably useless. As a method of preventing parking lots from being overrun with stray shopping carts, it's brilliant.

A second note: The Auchan has 3 parking areas. The first is at ground level in front of the mall complex. Given my preference, this is where I would pick up my shopping cart. The second is underground, and requires riding a moving sidewalk down to pick up a shopping cart, and then back up. This is Cherry's preferred place to pick up a shopping cart. The third parking area is on the roof. Please don't tell Cherry about it.

After lunch, Blaise suggested that we walk to the local market, since I hadn't been there before. (This is not the one that I went to with my mom.) Although it was sunny when we left, at least sort of, by the time we'd gone half a kilometer it was raining hard. Since we had only one umbrella, we sought refuge under a tree (no thunder) and waited for it to let up. Then we continued on to the market, which was nice, but not overwhelming. There wasn't much there that I would be unable to find at the grocery store, unfortunately. (The market in Nogent-sur-Marne had more things, but it's also twice as far away.) We did find a needlework store (mostly embroidery and needlepoint, but some yarn, I think), though it was closed for lunch so we couldn't go in. On the way home, it poured again.