Ni glass ni crystal

With all the time I’ve spent in France, I’ve never bought a souvenir. I’ve never been interested in trinkets that I can hang on the wall, so I dragged my friends into town on the Sunday morning to find a shop that sold red wine goblets. A small store on a sharp corner did the trick. It carried a bizarre range of stock from boomerangs to silver platters and in the front window sat a box of four glass goblets of the type I was looking for. I wanted at least six glasses, but the lady behind the counter quickly informed me that she only had the four. In the end, I took a box of six taller, narrower goblets that were somewhere between glass and crystal. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but she tapped one on the counter to show how strong it was.

Once again, the lady was extremely friendly and helpful, speaking French unless it was obvious I didn’t understand. And she went out of her way to package them for the trip home – bubble wrapping each glass, padding around the first box inside a second – all at no extra cost. Perhaps it’s only the Parisians who are so unfriendly to outsiders.

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Categorized as France

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