A million years or so ago, or anyway thirty, I went to France for the summer between my junior and senior years of high school with a group of students led by our French teacher (and travel agency owner) Jeanne Palyok. We were stunned by the new French institution, the hypermarche. (Uh, hypermarket.) The way our trip worked was that we got an allowance for lunch (out of our own money, but still) which we usually spent at the hypermarche. As it was a small allowance, we usually wound up with ham sandwiches and Laughing Cow (La vache qui rit) cheese.
If a seventeen-year-old American went to France now, or anytime in the last ten years, s/he wouldn't be too shocked by hypermarches anymore. They just prefigured Walmart supercenters. And just to demonstrate again how symmetrical life is, at the Walmart the other day, I saw a display of Laughing Cow cheese. I hope any French kids visiting for the summer felt more at home.
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