Grocery Shopping

Maybe those of you who live in a big city are used to always "carting" everything around but I am certainly not!  Going grocery shopping is one of my least favorite tasks in Paris.  It would be quite romantic to take my cute wicker basket and fill it up daily at the little market one block away but it is just crazy expensive and not very practical, they just don't carry everything you need!  My shopping routine used to consist of getting in my warm car, moving my little toes to take me to the store where I would park as close as possible and then finding everything I needed.  It now consists of rolling my little black cart for a 15 minute walk to the metro, getting on the metro and going for two stops to La Defense at which point I have to decide whether to fight the crowds and walk through the whole mall to the store or walk outside in the cold to the closer entrance.  I then go about finding 1/2 of my list and finding substitutions for the other things (ex. cheddar cheese, sour cream, pepperoni, etc.) and then putting everything in my little black cart.  One of the scariest moments is the check-out where I just pray that my credit card works.  It didn't for the first few times and it was tres embarrassing, but I think I have that figured out.  Then after I re-load the groceries back into the cart I take the escalators back down to the metro, ride it two stops, get on the bus for 4 stops and walk the block home.  Today the down escalator to the metro wasn't working so I had to walk around until I could find one that was...I just couldn't muscle a grocery cart full of food down 20+ steps.  Someday I will have Jeremy take a pic of me and my cart since he takes great delight in watching me roll it down the street!

I'd like to imagine I look like this:

But it's more realistic that I look like this lady: