Grocery Shopping

I don't own a car in France. I thought about buying a clunker, but decided against it because of the administrative nightmares that buying a car would entail. As such, I have three principal modes of transportation in and around Rennes: Pumas, buses/metro, and my bike. In general, I'm more than happy with my urban, environmentally-friendly modes of transport. There are two situations, however, that lead me to dream of my Versa and how nice it would be if I could have brought it with me: inclimate weather and grocery shopping.

Living in the center of town, I have a few options for food. I can go to small superettes near my house which are convenient, but there is little selection and the prices are high. I can go to larger, high-end supermarkets in-town like Galeries Lafayette, but they are even more expensive and entail schlepping groceries back to my apartment. The other option is to go out of the center to an hypermarché, where the selection is good and the prices low, though schlepping is still involved. For last minute necessities, I'll go to a superette, but for my main shopping, I prefer the hyper outside the center. One problem: the distance.

Before I had a bike, I took the bus to go shopping. I had to walk to the end of my street and hop on, ride for 20 minutes and hop off right in front of the store. Not too bad, except waiting for the bus and the time of travel usually made going to the store at minimum a 2 hour affair. While this was a bit annoying, it allowed me to stock up and get lots of food for little money. Now that I have a bike though, things have changed.

The Leclerc super-store closest to my place is just a 5 minute ride west along the river. No need to wait for the bus and no long ride. Perfect, right? Well almost. There is one obvious problem with grocery shopping and transporting the goods home by bike: the bike. Now I've got a system worked out where I fill up my saddle bags and once they're full, I stop. Normally this allows for a decent amount of groceries, but nowhere near as many as I could get when taking the bus. Every once in a while though, there is a problem with my system. I don't follow the system, and I get too much. This occurred yesterday evening.

I decided to stock up on some staple items since I had nothing in my place and went a bit crazy. I had the saddle bags full as well as a full reusable grocery bag. Oops! I was quite the spectacle in front of the store loading and reloading my bike. I spent about 15 minutes doing that and then spent another 5 minutes securing everything. People walked by, looked curiously, some doubtfully, but said nothing. This is a very French trait, by the way: Look curiously, stare critically, but say nothing. Mutter to yourself or someone you're with, but don't speak loud enough to be heard! I love it. Eventually, I got everything loaded and was on my way, down the dirt path along the river, steady, confident. I arrived without incident, proud of my logistical skills. There was just one problem to resolve: where to put all that toilet paper!