Grocery Store Visit

We met Chris at the grocery store around 4:15pm yesterday.  To back up about 15 minutes, the kids and I tried and tried to no avail to use the bluetooth on my iphone with the stereo in the car to listen to Christmas music.  After tossing in the towel, we decided to venture into some tunes from the radio.  This was most definitely the right choice, we had such a blast driving down the motorway listening to the different stations, most of which were American songs of the latest pops stars to classic songs of decades ago.  We listened to Michael Jackson (Thriller), Jason Mraz,  Mariah Carey (Hero), some rap song that the kids had heard of that I knew nothing about, the Beach Boys (Surfin' Safari).... they liked 96.3 not country music like in DFW but called the FUN channel.
We got to the store and I realized I had forgotten our grocery sacks at home.  No paper or plastic here - you either bring your sacks or pay for new reusable ones.  We opted to keep it simple and buy new ones.  Thankfully, they are pretty decent & lots of fun green & pink colors.
We ventured into the store with our "chariot" key in hand and got inside with little delay.  Hooray!  It's always a comforting thing when I have moved to a new city when I finally get the lay of the land in a grocery store - it just helps.  It can be so daunting to have a grocery list and not know where a single thing is....then add in a foreign language.  The main points to point out is we made it through with little need for external help from employees (ok well we needed help twice - but were met by friendly people).  The first was when we needed chicken broth for a stew we are making.   So after a couple loops around the canned food aisle and an aisle with all the soups with no luck - I found a lady with a small child and asked, "pardon madam, poulet bouillon?"  She quickly, showed me where to find bouillon cubes and was so kind and gracious.  She smiled and said, "anglais?"  "oui, madam - Merci, beaucoup!!"  Then we felt like we conquered a major hurdle in finding the type 65 flour, the brown & white sugar, vanilla, but where was the bicarbonate de soudre (baking soda).  Chris went off to find it with a few of the kids, while we went to find some toiletries.  You should have seen them as they returned.  Picture Meet the Parents with Ben Stiller returning with the fake Mr. Jinks in the cage from the animal rescue shelter.  That was Chris with the baking soda in hand coming down the aisle - the hero of the store!  Although thankfully it wasn't fake - but the actual ingredient we needed to make apple cake.  He said he had to ask the lady behind the seafood counter & she asked him in French if it was for washing clothes or for eating.  I would have been totally lost - so thankful he knew what she was asking.
We counted our venture a success and sat down to a good ol' fashioned bowl of, spaghetti.  Well actually tortellini with spaghetti sauce - but spaghetti in our Blocker lingo.  It was fast & easy after a few hour journey to the store.  :)