GROCERY SHOPPING

We went to the grocery store on Monday night. We couldn't stay very long because we were both about to crash from jet-lag. The grocery store is a brand new one right behind our house. It is really something to the people here because it is such a big store. It is kind of like a Wal-Mart because it has groceries and household goods and stuff. We started to buy a little artificial Christmas tree there, but all they had left was black. BLACK????

When you first go to the grocery store, you park in a covered parking garage. Then you get a shopping card, or a "trolley" as they call them here. They are in the parking garage in the cart returns. Every single person returns their cart to the cart return. Do you know why? Because it costs you a euro to get a cart. You put the euro into a slot and then unhook it from the cart that it is shoved into. After you take your groceries to your car, you take the trolley back and snap the hook into the hook of the one in front of it, and viola! The slot comes back open and you get your euro back! I think the US needs to do this. Think of it! No more shopping carts all over the parking lot!

After you get your trolley, you go inside the store. When you enter you are on the parking garage level and you have to take an escalator up to the store. But wait, you say. How can you take a trolley up an escalator? Well it is an escalator that doesn't have steps! It is just a moving ramp. As soon as you push the cart onto the ramp, the wheels lock and you can't push it any further. You step on and ride it up to the next level. As you get close to the end a mechanical voice tells you that you need to push the trolley off the ramp as it comes to the end. You do so and voila - the trolley starts moving again.

I was happy to see lots of our US brands in things like cosmetics, lotions, soaps, shampoos, ets. What I found: Dove bar soap, Palmolive liquid hand soap, Vaseline brand lotion, St. Ives lotion, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Sliced cheese, Brillo pads, Pledge disposable dusters (like Swiffer). I couldn't find any Curel lotion. Darn. Also I was going to buy some bacon, but their meat section was bare. Come to find out they had a recall on ALL Pork products. I guess some hogs got fed some bad feed and since they can't track hogs like they do cows for some reason, they had to recall ALL the pork and pork products.

I thought it was funny that their sandwich bags are the size of our quart-size bags. I bought some so I could freeze our bread and only take out a few slices a day. When I went to put some of the bread into the bag, I realized why the bags were the same size of a quart bag. It is because the bread is that shape and they fit perfectly into the bag. Tall bread. :0)

We had to buy 4 plastic bags to put our groceries in because I only had one "green" bag with me. The rest were in our stuff being shipped. They charge about 22 cents a bag. Next time we'll have all our "green bags". That is, if we remember to take them to the store.

Oh, we also got an application for a shopping card. Like the kind Smith's has. Geez, you can't even get away from that in Ireland! :0}