Shopping before the May Day Holiday

With nothing open on May Day (1 May) and the TCL metro and buses not running, yesterday I made sure to stock up with goods for at least another couple of days. While at Carrefour though I also picked up some unusual items, which I show here in the photos.

Carrefour is running their "50% points back promotion," which offers you 50% back of the price back in points which you get back in the form of a voucher. So if you buy something (as I did) for 1,22 EUR (4 cans of lentils) you get 0,61 EUR credited. Almost all of these products listed here were thus essentially half-price. In the left photo, canned lentils, chocolate with bits of orange peel in it, dark chocolate with a coulis (sauce) of caramel inside; on the right, salted butter caramels in the black box (not discounted, unfortunately), Saint Agur cheese (blue cheese with parsley in it), well-aged Camembert with Calvados-scented flakes on top, and white asparagus (not discounted).

After Carrefour, I also made a stop in the Chinatown section of Lyon near Guillotiere metro stop, for soy sauce. With Kikkoman running close to 5 EUR ($6) a bottle, I decided to go with the large bottle of Chinese soy sauce costing only 1 EUR. Across the street, on the "Arab" side of the area I picked up desserts: Turkish delight (or something like it); the old standard makroud; and then deep fried samosa-shaped triangles filled with almonds, close to baklava in taste. I had these after dinner with mint tea, and they went very well together.

Finally, on the way back, I stopped by for bread to go with the camembert and blue cheeses, but what a mistake! With the shops closing at 7pm, everyone was doing their last-minute shopping at the Monoprix. I waited for twenty minutes in a line that stretched 15 customers deep just to buy a loaf of bread. What patience these French have! But at least I have bread today to eat with the vegetable soup I made yesterday ...