First Impressions 3 - Shopping

There is a little supermarket 5 min up the road from where we are living at the moment. It is like an IGA feel but has less choice than an IGA. We have now, however, been introduced to a big supermarket (more like a cross between Kmart and Coles) called Hit Supermarkt. It is much bigger and has much more in the fruit and veg department as well as every thing else. There’s even a section (a whole building) of the shop just for drinks. We’ll be going to Hit from now on. Also, when you want to get a trolley, you have to put €1.00 into a little slot which then disconnects it from all the other trolleys and then when you’ve finished with it, you chain it up again to the other trolleys and your coin comes out. We actually have a “Hit” coin (plastic coin size thing instead of €1.00 which you mightn’t have on you).

There are various little shops all over the place, especially bakeries. You can buy bread, cake or danishes etc anywhere. I think that there are more bakeries than any other small shop around this city.

Shopping has been somewhat challenging as all the ingredient lists and packaging details are in German. Shopping with a dictionary is very time consuming. We miss being able to find cheddar cheese, “normal” yoghurt and just right cereal. The fresh produce however, is very tasty and cheap when in season. Here is a picture of some cheap, sweet, in-season strawberries. YUM!!!

During the week the shops open until either 6pm or 8pm. On Saturdays they open either until 6pm or only for half a day until 1pm. On Sundays nothing is open.

Money is annoying. They still have 1c and 2c coins as well as 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, €1.00 and €2.00 coins. It is very confusing as the 1c, 2c and 5c coins are all the same colour but different in size and the 50c, €1 and €2 are the same colour. It’s a pain to count out the exact coinage in the supermarket where the checkout ladies are quite grumpy looking to begin with.