Grocery shopping

Well, today I went officially grocery shopping for the first time instead of picking up an item here or there. I was hoping I left the store spending under E100. Yeah! I did very well! We will see how well I planned. A lot are interested in the differences and commonalities with the States so here goes. The stores are smaller but it is a good selection of stuff. (However one store is a dept store and grocery store together. It is like going to JC Penny's and going around the corner and getting groceries. I would say WalMart but it seems nicer). The easiest way to describe it to Georgians is a small scale Publix-but not much smaller. The refrigerator/freezer section is huge.

There is a smaller selection of food but many new things. For instance you can find plenty of potato chips, but just not 25 different varieties-which is fine with me. I cannot imagine having a bigger selection. I will be able to tell you more in a couple weeks/months when I get more familiar with things.

Some of the immediate differences I saw were: The deodorant is spray or roll on instead of solid. . The coke bottles are different. They even have different tasting 7 up. The breads and meat selections are wonderful. There are lots of variety juices and drinks. Their cookies ("biscuits") generally come in a tube wrapper-like what you would find at a Brazilian grocery store in America. I even saw hot cross buns for the first time. I thought it was just a children's rhyme. The selection of fruit and veggies was good. There is a lot more fresh stuff than canned and not as many preservatives. Their wheat bread is about 5x as dense as ours-real wheat bread. It makes ours seem like we are eating air.

There does not seem to be a lot of processed meat except sausages. They have sausage links that are wrapped in puff pastry. Those are great. Especially when you are away from home and need a warm bite to eat. They can also cook potatoes 1 million different ways. I have not had anything bad yet.

The gas station convenient stores are a lot nicer than the States (i.e. hot bar where they serve you fresh food, not the tamale that has been sitting there for 14 hours :) ).

Things are a bit more expensive here but nothing stood out as outrageous. Toothpaste and razors were higher than I am used too.