It's not the super nice people. It's not the amazing public transportation system. It's not even the chocolate or the beer. It's the grocery shopping.
Okay. I know. I like grocery shopping anyway. In fact, I'm a huge fan of grocery shopping. It's one of my absolute favorite things to do. Whenever I am feeling stressed or upset or whatever, all I need to do is find a grocery store and walk around it and I will feel much, much better.
Perhaps I should explain. I have a few strange personality ticks that date back to the first time I was in Germany, for ten months as an exchange student. One of them is my complete inability to be anything but awkward on the phone, even if I know the person super well and can ordinarily talk to them without discomfort. Another is my stuck-up attitude toward any beer with lower quality than a Sam Adams. But one of the biggest, strangest personality quirks I gained in Germany is my love of grocery stores. Don't ask me why, I don't really know. But whenever I was bored, or feeling terrible, or skipping school and needing something to do I would head to the nearest Rewe and walk the aisles. I'd have to buy something small—a yogurt or a chocolate bar—for being there because there are little barriers that stop you from leaving a grocery store here except through the check out aisles. But I loved looking at the different products, the things I just couldn't find at home or had never noticed before. I could spend a few hours in there without getting bored. And I still loved doing it even after I got back into the States.
The point is, though, now that I'm doing my own regular grocery shopping here I love it more than I ever had before. And why is that? Because everything here is SO FREAKING CHEAP. Don't get me wrong, Germany is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. The clothes, the mail, the bus—all more than I'd ever want to or have to pay back home. But the food...that's where the Germans get it right.
For example: I went grocery shopping today. I haven't been home really in a week and had nothing left to eat. I also wanted to start picking up some staples, such as flour and sugar, so that I may begin to bake things myself rather than just buying them. I picked up my empty backpack (plastic bags cost extra here, they don't just throw them away like confetti as you might find in your typical Walmart) and grabbed the bus to the local Aldi. Now I should tell you that Aldi is known for its really cheap stuff that still is somehow at a generally decent quality. But I went in with my 20 Euro I'd budgeted for this week's foods and grabbed a metal basket and filled it until it was too heavy for me to carry properly. Here is what I bought:
2 bags of flour
1 bag of sugar
1 small box of milk
1 package of prosciutto
Half a loaf of bread
6 Brötchen (rolls)
2 boxes (6 servings) of the German equivalent of Pastaroni
1 jar of raspberry jam
1 jar of tomato sauce
1 wedge of Brie
1 box of Mohrenköpfe (dome-shaped marshmallow cream on a wafer dipped in chocolate)
Want to know what it all cost??
That's right. Under ten euro. That's about 13 dollars.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love grocery shopping here more than anywhere else.
Aldi <3 it's mad cheap here, too, but people don't go there nearly as much as they do in Europe.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you're having a good time =)
There was an Aldi right next to an Edka, as in side by side in the same shopping building, a half km from the Studentenstadt. People would buy the usuals in Aldi but go to Edka for the special stuff. I was amazed that both seemed to do good business.
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