Pondering #2: No Sunday Openings

During our first few weeks in Dijon, we discovered many things that were new to us. The biggest shock to our system was that nothing opened on Sundays. The streets of Dijon are completely deserted in the morning except for a few desperate people who can get up early and catch one of the few supermarkets that open until midday (hey - midday's early on a Sunday!). Bakeries also open early for a few hours but it’s not until about three in the afternoon that the tea shops and patisseries open for the afternoon strollers, presumably the time when everyone has finished having lunch with their families.

In Australia, most supermarkets are open every day of the week, including most evenings until late. This means that no real meal planning is necessary. If you need something on a Sunday, you can just step over to the local supermarket and buy it. Not so in Dijon. We learned from fairly early on that we needed to plan our Sunday meals in advance, something that took a bit of time.

The adjustment was hard and in the beginning we were resistant, complaining to our friends about the fact that we couldn’t buy any provisions or do any shopping on Sundays. But then once we got used to it, we gradually started to enjoy the fact that everything stops on Sundays. We have friends in the retail business in Australia and they never have days off together, let alone a Sunday, to spend just relaxing with their family or friends. We like the idea that it’s basically a forced day of rest for almost everyone, and those that do have to work on Sundays usually get Mondays off to make up for it. 

In the end, we enjoyed it so much that even though we now live in a place where shopping is possible on Sundays, we still provision ourselves and avoid the shops!