I may sound like a country pumpkin but I am amazed by how many errands I can accomplish within a few hours in Grenoble. Living in a big city really has its advantages, making me forget for a short while the big, spacious house I have left behind recently on the other side of the country.
I moved permanently to Grenoble three days ago and it’s time to start exploring the services offered by this city. The first task is to find myself a hairdresser. It’s not a task that I look forward to. Finding a go-to hairdresser will be a hit-and-miss affair. Like my husband says, if the first time is a missed affair, at least I have half a summer left to regrow my hair for a second try before the university year starts in September.
After a quick Google search, I picked La Verrière Sur Cour and reserved a haircut at 4pm. As the venue was only a couple of minutes away from Sephora, I decided to drop by the store before the appointment to get a lip balm and a lipstick. To get to downtown, I would have walked since it was only twenty-five minutes away on foot from the apartment. However, the scorching 30ºC plus deterred me from the short walk. I chose instead to comfortably get to my destination by using my newly minted Sur-Mesure transport card on the air-conditioned tram.
To be exact, I left the apartment at around a quarter past three, walked to the tram station which was just 5 minutes away and then enjoyed the comfortable less-than-10-minute tram ride to Sephora. After spending 20 minutes in the smallish Sephora store smudging different colours on my hand so as to check the comparability of lipstick colours and my skin tone, I left the French retailer with only half of my intended purchases completed—a house brand lip balm. It was a downer to find that the lipstick I spent 20 minutes searching for was out of stock.
I left Sephora with slightly less than ten minutes before my appointment. Unsurprisingly, even though the coiffeur was just a couple of blocks away, I still got myself lost even with using Google maps. Despite the loss of a couple minutes going around in circles, I got to my rendez-vous on time. After a 1.5 hours of idleness in the salon, I left the salon with a summer cut that I was pleased with.
In the last quarter of hour before I left the salon, I could hear the thunder rolling and I was thinking that I might have to either brave a torrential rainfall and run to the tram station or seek shelter somewhere until the rain let up before getting the tram. Fortunately, by the time I left the salon, the rain had lightened enough for me to change my mind about taking a tram. The overcast sky and the precipitation had shaved the temperature off by several degrees to a very tolerable mid twenties. Boosted by the ebullience generated from my new hair cut and spurred by the lingering earthly Petrichor in the air, I decided to stretch my legs by walking home on the recently rain-cleansed streets of Grenoble.
Since my plans had changed, it meant that I could drop by a boulangerie on the walk home to grab a freshly made traditional French baguette (“tradition”) for dinner instead of eating the store-bought sliced bread remaining at home. And, since I was already at the boulangerie, I might as well get an appetising walnut tart covered with caramel to cap off the dinner. It was fortunate that I was carrying a big handbag that day; despite the rain having lightened up, another 15 minutes walk home under the continuous moderate rain would have totally soaked the tradition. So, slightly bending one end of the tradition, I tucked it in the bag with the caramel walnut tart, separately packed in a paper bag, and I continued my walk home under the refreshing rain.
It would have taken another another 15 minutes to get home from the boulangerie if I had gone straight home, except that I remembered that it was a Thursday. Every Thursday, a farmers market (Marché Europole) takes place at the square that is just five minutes away from home. It is not a big affair, with fewer than 15 stands selling the usual produce such as dairy products, fruits, vegetables, bakery, meat, wine etc.
There, at the farmers market, it has my favourite local yogurt produced by La Ferme de Pierre qui roule. This ewe’s milk made yogurt has a super light texture (reminding me of the jiggly almond jelly back home) and doesn’t have the usual industrial processed after taste. Each jar of 400g of natural flavoured yogurt costs between 4€ to 5€ (can’t remember the exact price) but you will get a refund of 0.75€ if you return the jar. It’s definitely more expensive than the big supermarket brands like Danone, Yoplait and Nestle, but I find the taste much better and it’s always good to support the local producers. Hence, I lingered a few minutes at the market, intending to just buy a jar of the natural flavoured yogurt. However, I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from the neighbouring jars of chocolate cream made from ewe’s milk too. I have always wanted to taste the chocolate one too. In the end, I bought one of each, fitting them snuggly in my handbag with the caramel walnut tart and bent tradition.
Sporting a new hair cut and carrying a handbag of local produce, not to forget my little lip balm, I got home around six o’clock. 4 errands done in less than 3 hours, including a refreshing and relaxing walk home. I wouldn’t have been as productive as today if I had had not moved to Grenoble. I would have had to drive to get all the errands done which would have had taken more time and not as relaxing. The convenience of living in a big city…would I be willing to give up this one day and move to a house in the suburbs to be nearer to the nature one day?
