Shopping in Paris



This morning we went exploring.  We went out to a Carrefour that is in Paris but is a large store.  The really large store is not on the Metro system.  You must use the railroad system to get there.  Extra travel costs.

I don't have a picture of the store or the pigeon because I was so preoccupied with getting across the busy streets and past several construction vehicles and rather stunned by the appearance of the store that I totally forgot to take a picture.  The store at Port d'Auteuil is built under a park.  The kind with green grass.  It is literally under ground.  I am convinced there is a fascinating story about this store being built but even if I could find it on the internet, I probably couldn't read the language it was in. Which came first?  Was it the store and then they covered it with soil and planted grass?  Did the permit bureau tell them they could build on that spot only if they did it under ground?  Was the park already there before the permit to build?  I doubt if I will ever know and it seems doubtful that I will ever return to the store.

It was huge.  A lot like a FoodforLess in the US.  Very much a warehouse feeling.  Some electronics and kitchen supplies, but other than that it was definitely a food market.  With almost endless options.  Except for sliced cheese.  I need to have the Professor look for cheese with me.  I suspect that the only type of sliced cheese here in Paris is what we would call Swiss - gruyere.  That was not the case in Helsinki.  You could buy sliced mozzarella, muenster, havarti and so on.

Leerdammer (Dutch pronunciation: [lɪːr.ˈdɑ.mər]) is a Dutch semi-hard cheese made from cow's milk. It has an aging time of around 3–12 months. It has a creamy white texture and was made to be similar in appearance and flavor to Emmental, but it is rounder in taste.

As you can see I already have to eat my hat because the cheese I just bought is from the Netherlands and has only been sold since 1977.  The package I bought is cut in pieces to fit in a baguette sandwich.  To my inexperienced pallet all of the white sliced cheese taste pretty much the same.  



The logical solution is that I need to shop at a Fromagerie and get them to slice my cheese or do it at home. However, I am a monolingual coward.  Or I need a baby French/English dictionary to carry with me.  

Besides going to some place to shop that was new to us (including a new Metro stop), one of the only other interesting things we saw was the pigeon that was shopping and tasting on the canned goods aisle. I did not get a picture of that either.