Hours of Operation

As our schedule of classes here is completely random, on Thursday we didn't have class so we decided to take a short train ride (40 min and 9 euro) to Vichy, a place that the French talk very little about historically due to this town being the place where the Nazis occupied France. Now the French in this area talk about Vichy for its shopping and its "spas", which are really just thermal areas. Interestingly enough, the big hubub is that Vichy has shopping open on Sunday, which is really strange because almost nothing (including the grocery store) is open on Sunday.

We got on an early train and headed out. We arrived and there were huge flakes of snow falling from the sky. As we proceeded throughout the town we promptly noticed that nothing was open. Granted it was only 9:30 am, we should have known that the French are very good at opening at 10, working til noon. Closing for an hour and a half for lunch and then opening from 1-4 and going home for the day. Quite interesting really, how people have time to purchase things while they are supposedly working. The French do have a 35 hour work week, and are very good at making sure they get their time off. Apparently we weren't in Vichy during the right season because we walked quite a bit and, finding not much open, decided to have some hot chocolate. After walking back to the "Boutique Mall" after that, we found it completely empty. Nothing even in the place. I guess it wasn't a hub of activity after all.

When all else fails? Time to eat! After going to two different places that were "closed", yes restaurants closed during lunch time, it must have been since it was January, but anyway, we finally found an Italian place where had a true European lunch of eating, drinking wine and taking our sweet time. As shopping seemed to be the only option after lunch, we headed back to the train station to get our tickets before looking for a place for dessert. As you can probably decipher by now, of course we didn't get dessert because all the places that serve lunch close at 2:30 to get ready for dinner. One big thing to get used to between the States and France, if I want to eat out, I have to be on someone elses schedule, not my stomach's.