Grocery Shopping

Today my husband and I decided that we should go grocery shopping in Germany because it is supposed to be cheaper than in Switzerland. For the most part, things are cheaper. However, I was once again hit by culture shock since arriving permanently in Switzerland.

First let me back up a little. I first moved to Switzerland for 1.5 years in 2011. This was a "temporary move" for work. Moving somewhere on a temporary basis is like being on vacation. Everything is new, exciting, and you tend to have a lot more patience because it's just temporary. After this "temporary" time frame I was back in the US for 5 month and then in Switzerland for 3 moths and then back to the US for 4 months. Finally in the middle of August this year, I moved back to Switzerland permanently. This brings about an entirely new perspective because it's not temporary anymore. I will be living this way for the long term.

Back to shopping in Germany. The grocery store was tiny. And when I say tiny, I mean that is was the size of a small Dollar General. However, this is the average size of a grocery store here. There are no gigantic grocery stores with 22 aisles of groceries that have 103 different kinds of salad dressing and an entire aisle reserved for potato chips. I can only wish for this one day in Switzerland. The stores are generally small with only two or three options for an item and many times only one option. While I know this to be true, I still dreamed that when we went grocery shopping in Germany they would have Hellmann's or Best Mayonnaise. I was wrong. I love Hellmann's and never liked Miracle Whip. Here the mayonnaise taste like Miracle Whip and it's called Thomy. It's just terrible. (On a positive note: My sister-in-law just brought me a small jar from England. Although, it's almost empty.)

We were in a total of three stores. Some stores carry more cleaning and personal hygiene items and others have more groceries. The aisles are so small that you cannot pass another shopping cart in them. The workers are also stocking the shelves and have boxes and carts sitting in the aisles. And alas the shoppers have no sense of personal space. As I am trying to find what I need, I have a lady putting her armpit in my face to get something she needs. "Why thank you, yes! I did want to smell your BO!"

These small grocery stores with small aisles and people who invade my personal space makes me miss America. I would love to have some Blue Cheese dressing, DelGrosso's Pizza Sauce, Cinnamon Pop-Tarts, some Middleswarth BBQ chips, and a Yuengling or wonderful American Craft Beer.

Disclaimer: I love living in Switzerland. Don't get me wrong! But there are things that I miss from America.