Shopping for Food

Summary of topic: you'll fall in love with French food.

Supermarkets

If you use self checkout, always tap for your receipt. For some supermarkets, you will need a small barcode to get through the barriers at self checkout. These will print separate to your receipt. However, if for some reason this doesn't print its always good to have your receipt to show you paid. If you forget don't worry, I think they can somehow track that you had paid and let you out.

When buying vegetables/fruits sometimes you need to put them in a bag, weigh them and then a barcode sticker will be printed for you. It's easy to use, just make sure you do this before going to checkout because if not then you'll have to go all the way back. It's not like this for all shops so just have a look around to see if the machines are there.

Bakeries

This is going to sound really odd but for the first wee while I was in France I was so intimidated about going into a bakery. I think it's because I didn't know much French and I was worried they'd have no idea what I was saying. I genuinely avoided going in as it meant I'd have to speak to a French person...

Now that I've been I realise how silly that was because they were really nice to me in there. I've never had anyone rude and even though sometimes I don't say the words right, I get there in the end! Pointing also helps too...

I overheard someone ordering saying : "Je prends une baguette s'il vous plait". So I just ran with that and said the exact same thing haha. It's strange because this isn't how we'd say it in the UK, we wouldn't say I'm taking or I take. 

Also, for ordering a baguette there are always so many displayed and no labels so I just say baguette and they seem to hand me the right one! If you are ordering for yourself you can say une demi baguette for the half sized ones.

Here is me so chuffed that I worked up the courage to get my baguette. I was so happy taking this because only in France is it normal to walk around holding a massive baguette... haha!

Paying Methods

I think due to COVID, they often asked how I was paying when I went to a till or self checkout. They will say:  "Vous reglez comment?"  The first time they said this I honestly had no idea what that meant... they very quickly realised this and rephrased it as: "carte ou espèces?". Thankfully I knew carte was card so I understood. So yes, this is a phrase you may hear. You can respond "par carte" or "en espèces".

All in all it's easy to shop in France for food. It's a little more expensive than the UK but oh my are the fresh pastries and cheese amazinggggg!