It all goes back to that Schmidt thing.....but quite honestly today it happened.....I made my way to the local grocery store and was doing some last minute shopping before a trip to Austria. A very nice man working in the store spoke a little English.....and then I about fell over...he said, "you speak really good English for a German". Need I say more? Just ponder that one for a moment. I was trying to ask him where hamburger buns were.....and just as a side note - I did find good old American Hamburger buns...but they just aren't the same.
Things have been busy here in my 'new normal' Deutschland. I thought I'd share a bit about grocery shopping. Keep in mind the refrigerator in my kitchen is like one of those dorm fridges you buy at Wal-Mart before heading off for college. There are no trips to Costco...so surely there 'ain't' no buying in bulk....I knew I've become a bit 'European' as I pondered over buying more than one jar of pickles....did I have enough space to store them.......wow I think I've been away too long!
When is the last time you bought unrefrigerated eggs? That whole 'ecoli' thing always is in the back of my mind every time I buy them.....but as soon as I get them home I do what any American would.....stick them in the fridge! Of course by that time who knows what is brewing in those cartons.......
I realize I am living in the land of 'wurst' (pronounced vurst) but buying hot dogs is a real adventure...this is just a glimpse - now just close your eyes for a minute and picture aisle after aisle of things that resemble hot dogs....not refrigerated of course....but just imagine. I will say we've found some pretty good 'dogs' and some darn good 'wurst' over here! We're definitely expanding our box!
There are so many different kinds of ham and salami that you just close your eyes and point to one....you ask for 500g (there's that good old metric system again) and you're on your way!
When you go to the grocery store or any store in Germany you have to be prepared at all times. There are no grocery bags - you must BYO! I can't tell you how many times I've gotten there...dug for my 'happy coin' (more to come on that later) and forgot my bags.....not to mention the fact that the cashiers at the checkout must have taken the 'Evelyn Wood' speed class at some point - because I'm 6 weeks in and can't keep up.....my stuff is always piled at the end of the lane holding people up...and then just imagine not having any bags to put it in......can you see "L" on my forehead. I now have 'junior' packed for all occassions - I even have one of these cool things that you can line up your milk and it collapses down to the size of a postage stamp when you're not using it....
Speaking of milk....once again some of the milk is not refrigerated....haven't gone there yet. I buy litres of milk. 1.8% is the cosidered 'low fat' and can you even fathom how many litres of milk a family of 5 goes through? Remember, stores aren't open on Sundays.....basically we go through a litre a day!
The other crazy thing about grocery shopping here in Germany is the whole cart situation. I mentioned a happy coin - when we first arrived I was told to always have change in my pockets. Now keep in mind there are several different coins in German money - really what you need in your pocket is a 1 euro coin. Any time you want to get a cart at the store you need to insert a euro to release it.
When you are through shopping, you simply plug the cart back in to the proper spot and 'voila' you get your Euro back! Now the benefit is that there are no carts taking up parking spots...and you can't be lazy and not return your cart...because you really want your euro back! One of our first weeks here I had the kids with me and we headed out on our daily 'outing'. This time we were to check out a REAL store (pronounced RE AL - and it doesn't live up to it's name - not real great) - it's a little like a Wal-Mart but not really. It's freezing cold, and I'm digging through my purse to find a euro to release the cart. People are darting right past us and getting their carts...and they weren't going to stop and help. We were digging under the seats of the car, through pockets...until this very nice German woman came up and handed me 'gold' - truly it is like gold. It's a little plastic coin with a smiling face on it that works as a euro and releases any cart, anywhere......I don't leave home without it. Last week I took Tim to the store with me...we used the happy coin, we had our bags with us , we were golden..until it came to putting the cart back. The cart has a color-coded band on it...and it has to be returned to the same place - same color row that it was taken from.......it took us awhile to figure that out......sometimes you just need to laugh! And before we even left the parking lot we devoured the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (King Size).....found that baby in the International section of the store and paid 2 Euro and 50 cents.....worth every penny - a taste of home!
Really, that's not me!
