I find myself somewhat grocery shopping challenged, still, although it is getting better. The store that is most easily reachable for us makes me think “I want to go home” (not that I’d know where that would be, but that’s a different issue). We’ve been to another, supposedly more “European” place, which was better, but it’s kind of difficult to reach. And yet another, in semi-walking distance (which is defined as “close enough to walk there, but too far to walk back with all your purchases”) and all crunchy granola, which is my new favorite. There also is a local farmer’s market, which is nice and decidedly in walking distance. It’s a bit of a potluck (shopluck?) though — last week they had eggs, but I didn’t need any. This week I did, but they didn’t.
Einkaufen ist eine Herausforderung, immer noch, wobei es langsam besser wird. Im für uns am einfachsten erreichbaren Laden denke ich meistens “Ich will nach Hause” (nicht, dass ich wüsste, wo genau das wäre, aber das ist ein anderes Thema). Wir waren auch bei einem anderen Supermarkt, der “europäischer” sein soll, was zwar besser, aber leider schwierig zu erreichen ist. Und dann gibt es noch einen, zu dem man zwar zu Fuß ganz gut hinkommt, aber der Rückweg mit den ganzen Einkäufen ist dann doch recht weit. Ökologisch korrekt und mein neuer Lieblingsladen. Außerdem gibt es einen Wochenmarkt, quasi vor der Haustür, der sehr nett ist, auch wenn man ein bisschen Glück haben muss — letzte Woche hatten sie Eier, aber ich brauchte keine, diese Woche war es umgekehrt.
A funny side effect of living abroad is that my grocery vocabulary is still set to Spanish. I know that I need to buy ‘ajo’ before I remember the English word (garlic). Perhaps this is because I used to write my shopping list in Spanish — to practice, sure, but even more so that I could actually ask for what I wanted, once I had reached the store or the local market (where the photo above was taken).
Eine lustige Nebenwirkung vom Leben in fremden Ländern ist, dass mein Lebensmittelvokabular noch auf Spanisch eingestellt ist. Ich weiß, dass ich ‘ajo’ brauche, bevor mir das englische Wort für Knoblauch einfällt. Vielleicht kommt es daher, dass ich meine Einkaufsliste in Barcelona immer auf Spanisch geschrieben habe — zum Üben, klar, aber vor allem, damit ich im Laden oder auf dem Markt (wo das Foto oben aufgenommen wurde) dann ggf. auch danach fragen konnte.
Tags: fruits, living abroad, macro, moving
I which you a merry grocery shopping.
Grocery shopping in a different country is so disorienting. Are you having trouble deciphering prices, given that you have to convert both USD to Euro and lbs to kg to get to something you’re used to?
Thanks Manu ;)
EGF, to be honest I’ve given up on that — I think converting works for holidays, but since we’ll stay here for a while we have to get used to those units anyway. 1lb is a little less than half a kilo, which works for rough comparisons. 1$ is less than 1€ if you want to exchange money, but groceries here are considerably more expensive so that we usually spend more than it would have been in Euros. I think the most disorienting aspect for me at the moment is that I can’t find some things at all (fresh yeast must be well-hidden, for example) and that the supermarkets are so big it takes me forever to gather all the items I need. But at least the latter will get better over time.
Oh yes, the joy of grocery shopping in a different country! I’ve always found it fascinating to visit grocery stores when we travel to other places… You might have better luck in “healthy” (Whole Foods) type places to find some European things – but there are some that I just haven’t been able to find here at all. I loved Honig und Zimt in Berlin – I’ve only seen it once here at a farmers’ market… had to have some shipped from Berlin after a while ;) Or the nutella that is made with coconut (Samba was the brand, I think), I can’t find it here… so … you learn to interchange things… there’s some yeast in the baking section, but not sure it’s “fresh”… and yes, once you find a supermarket you like, it should be faster :)
We are lucky here because we live in a university town but also in an area that had lots of German and Dutch settlers, so we can easily find some German things at the regular supermarket (curry ketchup! Ha!)… but I had the hardest time, for example, finding marshmallows in Berlin when I wanted to make s’mores to show my German coworkers about them… I had to go to KaDeWe and buy the most expensive marshmallows on earth! They were in the “ethnic” section of their food market.. next to the tortillas and Mexican green sauce!!! LOL :)
SB, seems like you had your own challenges! Finding ingredients for typical foods can be so difficult and/or expensive — I’m sure I’ll run into some more of these :)