Well, not really.
Actually, CW doesn’t have a kingdom. Not even a small fiefdom. But that’s beside the point, which is, in case you were
wondering, that shopping in Switzerland Stinks (with a capital ‘S’)! But wait, you say, I didn’t think CW
was a ‘mall-y’ kind of guy. He’s
not. But go back to the point a
couple of sentences ago.
Seriously, it’s really stinky here, and this in a land renowned for
stinky cheese. Allow me to
explain.
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| A Disney store! |
CW is convinced there are only about a dozen stores in
Switzerland aside from small boutiques.
And Italian restaurants.
But these same dozen stores are everywhere. They mostly sell the same stuff at more or less the same
price (competition doesn’t mean much here with respect to price or
service). But not worry, what we
lack in selection, we make up for by low quality and high prices. Or at reasonable quality and even
higher prices. [Except, of course,
for watches. But not everyone can
spend $390k on watch--Brad
Pitt watch] But for us mortals, as an example, go to Sears or Penny’s back
in the States and pick out a polo shirt.
Now reduce the thread count (yes, CW knows (or at least pretends to
know) terms like ‘thread count!’) and pay 3 times the label price. That’s what it’s like shopping here. And none of that would really be a
problem if we didn’t have three pesky kids who seem to keep outgrowing
everything. Mail order helps, but
it only gets you so far.
 |
| They even have a water show every half hour! |
So imagine our surprise (and on SweetSwissTeen’s part,
unmitigated joy) when we learned that the largest mall in Europe was less than
two hours away. CW must admit he
had certain doubts about the term “largest mall in Europe.” It sounded a bit like being named the
prettiest girl at the South Pole.
Nevertheless, on Saturday morning (SweetSwissTeen, dressed
and with purse on shoulder, roused us up out of bed at 6:45…a.m.), we launched
off on an excursion to Lyon, the second largest city in France. It’s an easy, lovely drive through the
Jura mountains. It is quite a
scenic route traveling through tunnels and down onto the plain of southeastern
France. Lyon, we’re told, also has
a wonderful old town as well as great restaurants, but we had no time for
that. We had shoppin’ to do!
We arrived and went straight to work. By which CW means lunch. And where do we go? Subway! Yes, we come from a land of freshly baked baguettes (though
admittedly skimpy sandwich fixin’s) and went to SweetSwissTeen’s favorite
American fast food chain. So,
first mission accomplished! In actuality,
it wasn’t quite the same but it sufficed.
From there we shopped for the next 8 hours. Le Part-Dieu actually is quite a large mall—about 300
different stores, restaurants, services, a movie theater, etc. They had quite a few boutique stores,
but also Foot Locker, GAP, Levis, Timberland, Claire’s—in short a good
assortment of American stores to supplement the local brands. SweetSwissTeen and SwissSis found a few cute outfits
and AAB found one or two things in GAP, as well. And all at prices about half of what we would have paid in
Switzerland.
 |
| Ah, the excitement is palpable! |
SoulSwisster was quite pleased to find a very large ‘Bricolage’
store. Basically, it is a small scale Hobby Lobby—but ENORMOUS
for European standards. She’s
loaded up and ready for fall crafting.
Alas, we did learn an unfortunate fact while we were
there. The French have small
feet. Unfortunate, obviously,
because the Ahlstroms do not. CW
takes a size 12 or 13 depending on the shoe, which in Europe is about a 47 or
so. Shops in France seem to stop
around 43 or 44. SweetSwissTeen also
had trouble finding the right size.
We’ve decided we may need to go Germany or Holland to find shoes for tall
people. Either that, or hope the
shoe elves will come to Switzerland.
We ended the day with dinner at the Hippopotamus Grill, a
nice outdoor place where we had steaks (not hippopotamus) before heading
home. There was actually a Mexican
place there, but we decided not to press our luck. This time.
Yes, we’ll be going back. Not soon, and maybe next time we’ll check out the rest of
Lyon.
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| The player piano |
Quote of the day from SweetSwissTeen: “You know that expression “shop ‘til
you drop? Well, I’ve dropped! Can we go home, yet?”
