This post will continue on what I was saying about the grocery stores from the last post.
Milk - Here the majority of the milk is the long-life milk that comes in boxes. It is not kept in the refrigerator, rather just on the shelf in one of the aisles. It doesnt need to be refrigerated until you open it. They do have some milk in the cooler but basically it just the long-life boxes taken off the shelf and kept refrigerated. I really havent seen any milk in a plastic or glass container in the cooler. The taste is a little different than the great milk back home, but Katy and I have gotten used to it and we love our milk.
Drinks - When we in Australia they had something a little different than back home, which was new to us. It was hard alcohol, like jack daniels, jim beam,vodka, or something else, mixed with cola. It was very common to see someone drinking a can of these two things mixed. Here they have something like that, which is new to us but yet a little different. Instead of doing hard alcohol mixed with cola or something flavored, here they have beer mixed with flavors. So they have beer mixed with bannana, beer mixed with blood orange, lime, apple and ginger, energy drink, cola, dragon fruit. Pretty much any common flavor is mixed with beer...and contrary to what you might think they are not that bad. They do have less alcohol in them and I think somebody one time even called them ladies drinks. But if you want something that isnt quite as bitter as beer it might be something to try.
People - This can be quite interesting. When you are in the grocery store it seems at times the people can be a little rude. Back home if someone is looking at something in aisle and you need to cut in front of them more than likely you would say excuse me or pardon me or something like that. Here it doesnt happen, in the 7 months we have been here I dont think I have heard it once. Sometimes we get a kick out of it. As we will be almost touching the food, choosing what we would like, and someone will cut right in front of you. I wonder maybe if we are ghosts sometimes and people cant see us. There have been a couple times where I thought someone was going to tackle me into the dairy case. We get a laugh out of it and try to have fun with it. This past week I was walking into the store...and here at the store we go to there is a big revolving door where there is plenty or room for you and your shopping cart to pass through. I was walking in and about to take my place in between the glass panels of the spinning door when I looked to the side and saw a lady take 3 almost running steps to push her cart in front of me and cut me off. For a moment I thought I was going to get lit up and looked around to see if anyone else had seen. Maybe I exaggerate a little but it made me chuckle a little after the fact. Sometimes people just go about there business and dont worry too much about the rest.
We asked some German people here if it is just us, or what is going on. They said that it is just the way people are. That in general something that we would consider to be polite, like saying pardon me, just doesnt happen. That if you say excuse me (in german of course) they might look at you funny as it isnt said that often in the grocery store. Its not that it is good or bad, it is just a different way. Just the way things are and interesting to see.
Check out - Here when you check out they dont have baggers to bag your groceries for you. They also dont have paper or plastic bags for you to use. You either need to bring your own or purchase the ones they have at the checkout counters. The people here at the checkouts can also fly when they check you out. We have a hard time keeping up with them when they check us out. We will have only part of of our food bagged when they give us our total and we have to pay. Then we are stuck scrambling to try and finish bagging while they are ringing up the next person. We should make a game out of seeing if we can get it all bagged before we have to pay....next time.
Thats all for now...If I can think of anything else I will post it in another post.
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