So last night, I went to grab dinner with 2 other girls so we'd have a proper break from all the studying. We've all had it with the grumpy convenience store guy on the way to school, so decided to buy some soda to have in our room (caffeine is a must when you have about 8 hours of class a day!!).
The grocery store closes at 8:30, so we got there no later than 8:15. Closing time is definitely different in France compared to the US. In the US we definitely do a few things to prepare for a closing, but I don't think any store actually thinks they'll lock the doors & leave at 8:30. Well, in France, things are a little different. Possibly becasue of their 35 hour work week? So maybe they don't pay their employees past the 8:30 closing time? That's my educated guess. When we walked in, the guy at the till was counting cash & doing some cleaning around his station, so we knew they were starting the closing routine. Well, when we got to the back of the store where the coca cola is located, we encounter the floor cleaning guy. He had a big machine, sort of similar to a street cleaner. We thought he'd see us consumers in the soda lane & pick another route. Not the case. He came forging ahead right at us. I actually sort of squeeled & jumped out of the way.
It kind or reminded me of when I was a child - for some reason, I was really afraid of the vacuum cleaner, so sometimes when my sister Emily would vacuum, she'd come towards me & I would jump out of the way due to a strange sense of fear/danger. Well, this was apparently a repressed fear that resurfaced when I came head to head with this floor cleaner guy. It was like playing chicken with oncoming traffic - who was going to move out of the way first?
So that was our interesting experience for the evening! I got quite a bit of teasing from Elsa & Adrianne - they thought it was funny how fast I moved & sort of 'hid' from the floor cleaning guy in another aisle.
After the grocery store experience, we stopped off for some savory crepes at a place down the road. The one I had was DELICIOUS. Had steak, ratatouille, and gruyere cheese. Was the perfect way to cap off what was a sort of long day. Actually, when I ordered the steak one, it actually said 'Steak Hache' on the menu. With my limited French, I thought this meant the 'hash' dish mom makes back home with leftover steak quite a bit since it's one of my dad's favorites (basically finely chopped meat w/ potatoes & onions - a delicacy in the eyes of my father). I was ordering it to sort of feel 'close' to my dad since it's something he absolutely loves. I was wrong on the translation - Steak Hache actually means ground beef. Was still wonderfully delicious.
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