Into town.

6_26_2011

Christophe picked us up in the morning to give a short walking tour through downtown Grenoble. Our first stop was the grocery store (marche). It was quite interesting to find that store hours are different from our own; during the weekdays, stores operate from 9AM-8PM, and on the weekend they may only be open from 8:30AM-12:30PM. Certainly we have our own equivalents, e.g. the post office (9AM-5PM), and their work hours do not always coincide with our work hours, but there are always "fall-back" places, places which are open at later hours of the night, maybe with limited supplies, but still nonetheless open. Here, there are much fewer of such commodities, and as a result people in France feel more stressed due greater time constraints, despite the actually work week being 35 - 40 hours. At least in that aspect, we are lucky to have commodities like Taco Bell's "Late-Nite" menu and the like, but, at the same time it raises an interesting cultural question: why do we desire things to be available when we want them (certainly to be distinguished from something we need, e.g. a hospital, in case an accident happens)? I'm confident several plausible answers are available and all would seem reasonable. But I'm simply asking a, "Why," question which looks for an answer that is somewhere deep-rooted in the making of the U.S. culture and society. All-in-all our culture and French, or more generally European culture, are different.

Anyways, Christophe showed us around town, took us through some of the backstreets and some of the more interesting landmarks. We eventually made our way up to La Bastille, a fort built into the northern mountains which provides an excellent overlook of the city. Luckily we didn't have to walk our way up. We ended up taking "Les Bulles" (the bubbles) which are bubble-shaped ski lifts. Below are several pictures from the Bastille.