Shopping in Poland...(pictures to come later)

One of the great things about living in another country is getting to see how everyday life can be different...sometimes better, sometimes more frustrating. Shopping is an interesting experience in Poland. Of course the initial challenge is the language. Imagine going to the grocery store and finding all the writing in a foreign language. Furthermore, there are no familiar brands...no arm and hammer on your baking soda. How do you know the baking powder from the baking soda? The bag of sugar from the bag of salt? Not surprisingly I learned the Polish words for food and the words "I'm looking for..." very quickly. Other differences include:

1. You have to pay for bags unless you bring your own. This is even true at IKEA. Only one grocery store would give you bags, but their prices were higher so I felt like I had paid for the bags anyway. I got used to carrying my empty bags around with me for a trip to the store.
2. No one ever bags or sacks your groceries for you.
3. If you are paying in cash, they will always ask if you have the grosze (cents) or enough zloty so they only have to make change in paper money. I think the Polish mint must be very, very small. The whole country appears to have a coin shortage.

Of course the selection of food is different. The small grocery on our street had a few shelves of cabbage or beet salads in a jar, but they had no canned green beans, cheddar cheese, tortillas, salsa or beef. The produce is very tasty. As a visitor said, "Wow, the tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes." They had cabbages the size of beach balls. But, you couldn't always get what was out of season. There were times I'd go to the store and couldn't get bananas, broccoli, cauliflower or zucchini. Seedless grapes were also hard to get at any time of year.

My own personal challenge was having to carry all my groceries home. To get a feel for this experience, next time you go to the store just get 2 of the hand-held baskets. Once you've filled them up, pay for those groceries and walk home. If you need more food, you have to repeat this process or wait until a family member comes home to go to the store with you and carry more. As you can see from the pictures, I did get bigger bags to carry more, but then I had the weight problem. My personal (and the family) record for most groceries carried in one trip: 60 pounds!!! Yep, the bags were so heavy I actually weighed them when I got home. There are many things I'll miss about Poland, but I'll be happy to load up a week's worth of groceries in my car and carry them in the house a few bags at a time. Whew!