When I got up this morning, Don was already up watching the Survivor show we’d TiVo’d for him. It was already his second time through the show. (He’s in charge of some Survivor game they play at work which means knowing when each contestant is shown naked, or puking or other lovely things) Kaitlyn got up and went downstairs for breakfast and was thrilled at the idea of the tv being on in the morning. That’s normally way off limits. I was afraid she’d seriously resist going to school, but since it wasn’t the Disney princess edition of Survivor, she left without a fuss.
Debbie was up much earlier, which meant we could do something more exciting. Shopping. Real shopping… not shopping where they chop the heads off little bunnies headed to the stew pot. That meant going downtown.
I managed to find my way downtown without needing the GPS. We wandered the streets of the pedestrian district. Right away, some guy asked me where the post office is. When I told him I didn’t know, he asked me if I have an accent. Yes, I’m American. Then he burst into perfect American English. Me too! Oregon! Then he proceeded to tell us he’s lived here for 11 years because he fell in love with a French woman but now he’s getting a divorce… which he’s happy about because she is controlling. People will really tell you anything. At least, American people will. I was glad to get away from him and hoped not to cross his path again; I was really afraid he’d latch onto us. Then some guy in a delivery truck hung out his window to holler something (friendly like) at us. I had no idea what he was saying. I held out my arms and shrugged. So he said it again… and again. Finally, I just said non. That seemed to satisfy him or at least convince him to give up and he drove away. But we did choose to take a path that wouldn’t lead us past his truck again!
We shopped and shopped and shopped… but bought nothing. I saw a couple of pairs of shoes I liked, I need to go back and look again. I didn’t stop to buy anything because it seemed like this was Debbie’s shopping trip. She didn’t even want to go inside any of the chocolate shops we passed. The jet lag must not have worn off yet.
For lunch we walked across the river to eat at pizza row. Never disappointing. And unlike lunch yesterday, the waitress spoke to us the whole time in French. Finally toward the end of our meal, she realized I was the only one at the table doing any talking. She asked if we speak English. Yes. She only speaks French and Italian. So even if she’d wanted to give up on me, she couldn’t. Ha! Well, we did fine.
Then I dragged Debbie through the Grenoble History museum, to show her the piece of the ancient Roman wall you can still see in the basement. I’ve only gone once before and Kaitlyn was along, so it was hard to go slow enough to learn anything. We didn’t go super slow, but I did get more out of the trip.
After a full day of shopping, I ended up the only one who bought something. I got two boxes of Shredded Wheat at the Irish store.