Today I completed my tour of the big three hypermarchés by going to Cora. There are only two in Luxembourg. It was also my first time taking a trip first by train and then by bus. It was about a thirty minute trip, if that. I think I discovered where men in Luxembourg buy clothes! I was able to get a fall jacket. They even have suits. They also had, let’s leave it in the French, lapin in the meat section. On what started as a brighter note, they had Domino espresso ground instead of only in capsules.

Unfortunately, it was probably the worst coffee I’ve ever had. If I could sue for defamation of character, I would.

I also got scolded by the costermonger, if that’s her title. In the big grocery stores, you bring your produce to a person in the produce section who weighs it and puts a price sticker on the bag for you. (If you didn’t know this, I just saved you a lot of stink eyes. You’re welcome.) I put one pear in a bag. When I put the second one in, it ripped the bag. Not so badly that the pears came rolling out, but badly enough that the bag would no longer be serving its purpose. So I put the two pears still in the damaged bag into another bag and then put a third pear in and brought the whole sack to be weighed. Well, the produce woman wanted to know why I had two bags. Then she decided that I was trying to pull a fast one because it turns out that one of the pears was a different variety than the other two. Now they were all from the same bin and all were the same shade of green, and I think all were the same price. But she would have none of it. I got scolded and was huffily given two stickers on my bag of pears. So, let that be a lesson to you. Either learn French well, or be certain not to intermingle varieties of pears.

One last tip, I have seen older women ask the produce person to remove the inedible portions of whatever they were buying (like the leaves on cauliflower) before weighing them. In one case, I even saw the produce person cutting up the peppers for a customer. I’m not sure if you have to be an older woman to get this treatment or if it’s just something they all do but people rarely ask for.