Shopping Online
Things are expensive in Europe and it pays to shop around.
The same Futon (599 Euros) at Lafayette Galleries in Paris can be found at Conforama
in Flers (199€ ). Lamps and furniture vary greatly in price and style. By
shopping online it is easier to get a feel for what things are selling for.
Amazon has websites serving England, Amazon.co.uk and a website serving France,
Amazon.fr. The difference in prices is often surprising and the delivery
charges from Amazon in England are often very low.
Alice wanted to buy a crock pot like she had back in the
states, but they were hard to find in the stores here. The few we found were
smaller than she wanted and cost about 149€. That seemed ridiculous. I checked
online and found crock-pots, called slow cookers, for 89€ on Amazon France.
The same style and size crock-pot on Amazon England was 49€, 59€ with shipping.
No brainer! I ordered that sucker right away. Three days later it arrived by
post. No UPS man, everything goes through the post office.The postman pulled up in his little yellow truck, beeped the horn to let us know we had a delivery, and then he brought it to the door and waited for us to open the door and accept the delivery.
I was impressed, that was great service at a good price. We
opened the box and there was a beautiful stainless steel crock-pot. Alice was
excited and we ran out to buy a chicken and vegetables for a home cooked meal.
After returning home with our “poulet,” I finished unwrapping the crock-pot and
began to set it up on the kitchen counter. OOPS. England uses a different
electrical plug than France. Oh yeah, I knew that. No chicken tonight.
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The next day a trip to the hardware store (Bricoman, yes, its even orange like Home Depot) solved the
problem.
We have a converter that changes the houses 220v to 110v that the computer plugs into, an American-to-French adapter that the camera battery recharger plugs into and now a British-to-French adapter that the crock pot uses. We will soon have a house with every imaginable adapter.
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