5.8.2011 Shopping

One of the interesting things about moving to a new country is to figure out how to shop. The things you’re used to back in America are not necessarily available plus you have to try to understand new labels and new prices. It’s been an interesting experience for us these past 10 days. At first, we ate out or on the go a lot. We went to an Italian restaurant the first night. We had sandwiches and mini pizza type items from local bakeries. Subway and Kebob have been the only chain restaurants we’ve been to. But when you eat out it gets expensive. So we’ve also been trying find the best place to shop.

Subway Sandwiches in the Park.

For those of you who know Heather, she is a very good shopper. She looks for and finds the best deals. She has saved our family hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the years. So it was frustrating for her to not know where to shop or where to find the best deals. The first few places we went were at the train station, in the middle of the city, or at a corner market. We were told that those places have the same prices as elsewhere. Well, for most items maybe, but we were able to find a few others that had much better selection, or maybe we just didn’t know what to look for at first. We found a grocery store in Northern Weimar in what seems to be where more of your average Germans live. The store had more of a Winco/Fred Meyer type feel to it. Huge selection, and we found some very good prices. Our whole trip which was two Ikea bags for 10 Euros. We had earlier trips for less items for more money. Currently, our favorite inexpensive brand is “ja” (German for yes).

Heather working in our small kitchen on some amazing meal.

One of the differences here is that you buy less at a time, and no that’s not because we have such a small place. Germans will buy what they need for that day and some for the day after. You don’t go and do a week’s worth of shopping. You won’t find the big shopping carts you’d find at an American grocery store. Then on Saturday you do your shopping for two days. Kind of like the Israelites in the wilderness would collect enough mana for one day, and then on Friday they would collect enough for Friday and Saturday (the Sabbath). The reason they do the same here, is because on Sundays, most everything is closed. So on Saturday you get what you need for Saturday, Sunday and breakfast Monday. It’s neat how there is more respect for a day of rest here. Some find Sundays really boring around here, but it’s nice to have that change of pace day. We accidentally found that the thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is to go for a walk with the family. We went for a walk and saw a ton of other families doing the same. This was

confirmed when by another teacher from the school when we saw her and her family on the walk. Another difference in Germany is that at stores it is BYOB (Bring your own bag), good thing we brought a few favorites with us. Bread is a must. Our favorite is Brotchen (a Kaiser roll/French roll). It was odd though on the first couple of days the director kept insisting we have fresh bread for breakfast. We’re from America, bread is not a staple item for breakfast. However, by the time we come home it might be. :-)

Heather preparing one of or great dinners.

Pasta, chicken and salad.

It has also been interesting transition because during the past 3 years we’ve been part of Birch Community Services where we were able to shop at their warehouse that contained items that were donated from different companies around the Portland area. For those of you who were familiar with this, or our pantry, you would know that we had lots of miscellaneous items. The mind set was what did I get at Birch and how can I use this? Now, Heather has to switch gears to what do I want to make, so what do I need to get? I say Heather because I do not cook. If it was left to me, we’d be eating cereal for breakfast, Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for lunch and who knows what for dinner (I can’t even think of something simple to write down let alone make). As you can see in some of the pictures already, Heather has been doing great. She is making some wonderful meals, and keeping us well fed. It is hard with Stanley

right now because he is going through a picky phase. We want him to try new things, but we also want him to eat. So Heather tries to pick things that he’ll eat, but not cater to him. She won’t fix him a separate meal from the family. For example, one night she made peanut butter pasta with chicken (she used a slight variation of a Thai Peanut Sauce recipe she knows). She then had some extra peppers, basil and spicy sweet chili Thai sauce for the adults that we could add on our own plates. Stanley and Holly loved it!

Holly loving her Ritz Crackers and Peanut Butter.

She heard Peanut Butter is good for the skin.

So right now we are doing much better being frugal in how we spend our money in regards to groceries. This is necessary because we are down to 29 Euros. We’d rather not use our debit or credit card and get hit with hefty overseas fees, and we’re still in the process of getting our German Bank Account set up. I thought we’d have our moving stipend and reimbursement for my plane ticket already (I put in for them on Monday), but when I checked in at our bank today we had a balance of -5 Euros. Since I don’t have my Visa yet, my account is not fully active either. I don’t have a debit card (that comes once I have my Visa), and I don’t know how to transfer money from our American account to our German account. I doubt the bank is open Saturday and I know it won’t be open on Sunday. In the meantime, we are practicing our frugality, and learning more on how to shop, eat, and live in Germany.

Cleaning up after dinner.