This past weekend we went to the grocery store on three separate occasions to Tescos. Once to Alberts and once to Auchan (pronounced Ah-oo-han) to round out our weekend of grocery shopping. You may wonder why so many trips to the market? My response follows:
1) We have to eat.
2) We know how to get there.
3) Our refrigerator is not that big.
4) They sell liquor 24/7.
Where to begin...
Shopping carts: The Polish are budget conscious. Why hire a cart boy when the shoppers are perfectly capable of grabbing their own cart from the parking lot? It only took us two trips to figure why we couldn't find carts INSIDE the store. Our apologies to the shoppers who left their cart unattended - we really didn't know any different. I must admit the carts are pretty cool. The wheels allow them to spin in circles. Michael would have had a blast as a kid playing with those carts! The handicap carts are actually walkers with baskets. No battery-operated buggies for the Polish people! Our biggest surprise was at Auchans. You had to pay one zloty to unlock the carts!!! Come on people, we are coming to spend money why the need for more of my cash? We opted to use the free baskets. We actually ended up buying a lot of merchandise so probably looked a little funny hauling an ironing board, six baskets, towels and a few food items in a basket!
Fresh vs. Frozen: Fresh is definitely best! No need to worry about cleaning the vegetables before using them - they still have the dirt on them! Rest assured there were not hundreds of factory workers handling my produce. It is rare to find packaged produce. I've seen apples in bags but everything else you select and bag yourself. There is not a huge variety of vegetables or fruits available but the staples are well represented. Frozen vegetables: Corn or beans. That's it! Same with canned vegetables. There is one caveat though - you can make your own vegetable mix for freezing. They have a person who will bag the vegetables for you. I did see an added selection of cauliflower here. I didn't see the mixings for green bean casserole - how do they exist? One last comment: When you purchase fresh herbs you get the whole plant!! I've started an herb garden. You don't need to read a label to figure out what you are buying!
Product Selection: Definitely not what we have in the US. No fat free, low sugar, low salt, no anything. You get the real deal here. I have not found 100 calorie snack packs, cool whip (what will I do with my leftovers?), chocolate chips or any of the junk food I've subsisted on in the past. I don't have a scale (I'd have to figure out how to convert kg to pounds) but I can tell I've lost a few pounds since being here. Even though the snack packs are only 100 calories they are processed and preserved foods - not what our bodies are built to burn I think. The cracker and snack food selections are not the best. We found pretzels with sesame seeds which we find kind of interesting. Don't bother with packaged cookies. Not one of them even looks remotely tempting. No Oreos or Twinkies anywhere to be found. The ice cream selection is not bad but we haven't broken down yet. No fudge-covered peanut with caramel varieties; basic vanilla, strawberry and chocolate is about it. I must admit a minor temptation but no break down yet.
Poultry: Interesting...there is a butcher in the middle of the meat department who will actually bag your poultry for you. I guess you know the chicken is fresh when it looks like it was just butchered in the morning!
Odds and ends: I've never seen so many different eggs in my life. I still haven't seen a white egg. You can actually buy quail eggs in the store. Not sure I'm up for that yet. By the way, eggs are "jaja". Since "j's" are pronounced "h" eggs are actually hahas. Makes me laugh everytime I walk past them. At least it takes my mind off the quail eggs! Check this out....this morning I looked at the "use before date" on the milk carton. It was March 2008!!!! Remember, you buy it off the shelf, not from the refrigerated section. Since I have milk everyday it must be ok. Oliver gets some too and he isn't feeling any ill effects either.
Don't expect to find ziplock freezer or sandwich bags here. Sandwich bags are either tiny paper bags or small, thin plastic bags with twist ties (they actually make better poop bags - sorry)! We still haven't found aluminum foil. We thought we did but it ended up being plastic wrap.
Check out lines (Tescos only): No matter what time of day we've been there the lines have been long and slow. The check-out ladies sit back-to-back operating two lanes; however, if you use a credit or debit card they share the machine so one lane has to wait for the other. I think they need to move to cash or credit lines. Another factor making the lines so slow are the plastic bags used for bagging. I can't tell you how hard they are to open. It isn't even funny! I think I have it down now - you have to lick your fingers and then pull the bag apart. I sure hope the butcher and vegetable lady aren't licking their fingers...I'll have to check it out!
Recycling: We can co-mingle the recycling and it is picked up daily. I bring out the garbage and someone digs through it and takes out what they want. I must admit they aren't very neat about it either!
Last, but not least.....
Never, and I mean, never try to open the door handle of our car before it is unlocked. It causes the car alarm, flashers and horn to activate. After a particularly trying shopping experience I managed to set off the alarm. Craig was not able to shut it off so we stood in the middle of the parking lot with our stolen cart and freshly selected chicken with all of Wroclaw wondering what was going on. I think Craig's jacket gave us away. It has Minnesota Timberwolves across the back of it. Yes, those dumb Americans!
FYI: Our car is a Ford Mondeo. I don't think they make them in the US.
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