ça fait combien? (how much does this cost?)

A lot of people have asked me about the prices of groceries over here.  Overall, wine and cheese are very inexpensive.  Fresh produce is a bit pricey.  I'm not watching much tv these days, so I took the opportunity to convert the prices from Euros to USD below...


Small can of whole tomatoes   .50
Small can of red kidney beans .66
(Yes, I made chili for dinner)
Creme fluide                       2.08
(I thought this was half and half.  As it turns out, it's not.  It's probably more like heavy whipping cream.  If I come back 50 pounds heavier, this is the reason why. I have tried to "make" my own half and half by diluting this with milk.  But of course, I had to drink half the bottle first.  Oy.  It's really rich.)
Ketchup                             2.55
Mayonnaise                        3.25
Penne (one "pound" box)     1.53
Olive Oil (.75 litre)              7.49
Box of Muesli                     2.85
Mouton Cadet Bourdeaux    12.23
(I really love this wine.  It's probably a little more expensive in the U.S.  Unfortunately, I thought it was like 6 euros when I was drinking it, so I probably didn't enjoy it as much as if I had known it cost twice as much.)
1 dozen organic eggs           3.34
(Instead of calling things "organic" here, they call it "bio.")
Milk (1 litre)                       2.89


You can buy the best baguette sandwich with a ton of camembert cheese on it for 3 euros.  A baguette is like 88 centimes.  A pain au chocolate (Gaius' favorite after school snack) is about 1 euro.


Today at Ikea (YES!  We actually made it to Ikea today!) we had lunch in the cafe there.  They had wine for €1.20.
BTW, I just called out to Christopher, "How do I type the euro symbol on the computer?"  and he told me.  He is sort of like Rain Man in this respect.  Just right now, on demand, he has called out to me from the other room the instructions for typing the following:


é, à, ô, ß, ç


I don't know about you, but I'm impressed.


So, wine by the glass is very cheap, except for in Paris, where everything is expensive.  But, really, who cares?  It's PARIS!


We failed to lease our car today.  That's how we ended up at Ikea.  I loaded up on bright, soft, fluffy towels and I am now very happy.  I wanted to tell you more about the cafeteria at Ikea.  They serve beef carpaccio there.  It was pretty gourmet.

So, I think I might have mentioned that we get lost a lot.  A couple of days ago, we got lost a few times heading to Les Ulis Carrefour to find a rehausseur (booster seat) for Gaius.  This is because the airline lost ours and we didn't report it.  And, we were paying like €13/day to rent a booster.  Anyway, our landlady told us that we could go to Les Ulis (about 22 km away) to find a booster seat.  It was kind of a nail biting trip.  Anyway, long story short (too late) I was shopping at our local grocery store and found a display with FIVE DIFFERENT BOOSTER SEATS for sale.  That's really annoying.  Next time we need anything, we'll check there first.  But at least we know now how to get to Les Ulis (sort of).


This weekend, we are going to try to survive without a car.  Christopher was able to drive back to the car rental agency in Massey to return our rental car(only making one wrong turn).  I think we'll walk from our home to the RER (train) station.  And then we'll take the train into Paris.  Wish us luck!


à bientôt!


PS- I really should mention that in the meat department, they sell horse meat.