Holy Cow!

I'm still trying to recover from my trip to the grocery store this morning. I knew it would be bad. The Friday before Easter as well as the Monday after Easter are both holidays in Germany. That means that for a four-day span, in which many food-filled celebrations will be had, there is only one day when shops are open. Not only are our cupboards bare from being on vacation, but we are going to have a family Easter dinner tomorrow and have the 6-member Foster family over for brunch on Easter Monday.

So I got up early this morning so that I could be at the Edeka when the doors opened at 8 a.m. Surprise! Apparently on this special day, they open even earlier. I got the very last parking space. Keep in mind that this grocery store is nowhere near the size of grocery stores in the US. It's about the size of Wild Oats in Little Rock--without the vitamin department and coffee bar.

The produce section was extremely hazardous. Unless it is priced by the piece, you have to weigh your own produce and print out the bar code. One of the two machines was not working, so I worked at finding pre-bagged produce (which is already price) or items that were priced by the stuck. .

I got in line at the meat counter behind 15 people. Tomorrow, in honor of my making it through Lent meat-free, we're going to have Austrian beef which I mistook earlier in my time here for Ostrich. Who knew Oesterriech simply meant it was beef from Austria.

I only had to wait for five people at the cheese counter, and the bread would come from the bakery that sits outside the cash register. I didn't get everything I meant to. My cart got too full to fit anything else in. The carts are about 2/3 the size of a US grocery cart. When I got in line at the cash register, no one got behind me until I got to the point where I was putting stuff on the conveyor belt. And remember, no one bags your groceries here, so I just had to put everything back in the cart and wait until I got to my car to bag and box my groceries. There is a counter just past the check-out lines where I normally pull over and do that, but today was far too crowded to use that space.

But before I could get to the car, I had to stop by the bakery. The thing that was most surprising about this morning's experience is that everyone formed orderly lines. At the bakery there were even two lines--one for people with carts and one for people without. This was very unusual. As orderly as Germans are, they do not generally que up. They are clumpers. I guess the sheer volume of people forced everyone into lines today. I got a free colored egg with my bakery purchase.

The parking lot was even worse when I got to my car. Someone saw me push my cart to my car and waited on me. It was clear that I had a full cart and was going to have to bag and crate everything and return my cart before I could vacate my spot, but they just waited. It was worth the 5 to 7 minutes to be guaranteed a spot!

Fortunately, if I had to be face with such a chaotic situation, it was at the grocery store. When it comes to food, my German is pretty good. I was glad I had looked up the German word for "nutmeg" before I left home. I don't think I would have gotten Muskatnuss on my own!

So we should eat well for Easter Sunday and Monday, but Maddie will have to wait until Tuesday for any juice boxes or her favorite yogurt.

Happy Easter to all