Grocery shopping

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Bill writes --

When you travel to another country you run into minor and sometimes not so minor differences in daily activities, such as getting a shopping cart at the local grocery store. Well, I had my first solo grocery shopping adventure today and getting a shopping card was part of the adventure.

I left IBTS a little while before ten this morning and walked to the bus stop in the village. It was a wet, cold morning. I and three others had about a ten minute wait for the bus. The end of the bus line is at the second stop and the grocery story is nearby. This one is a much larger store than the one that Harold and I shopped at last week. I walked into the store and looked around for a shopping cart. I didn’t see any. Then I saw a man coming toward me, carrying a bag of groceries and pushing a cart. I thought that perhaps he would let me have the card. But he didn’t. I watched as he pushed the cart through the door and out onto the sidewalk.

“Hmmm, I thought, no one is running after him yelling ‘stop thief,’ so it must be all right. I’ll just follow him and maybe I will find where the carts are stored.”

I was right. He went out the door and made a hairpin curve to his left. There under a shelter were the shopping cards, each one neatly chain locked to the next. I walked over and saw there is a coin slot in the handle of each cart. A short chain runs from one cart to the next and a key plugs into the cart behind it. I took a 20 Krown piece out of my pocket, but it was too large for the cart. Turning around I saw a women approaching with her cart. She slid her cart into the one ahead, picked up the ‘key’ and slid it into the slot. Miracle of miracles a coin slid out of the coin slot. She took the coin and dropped it into her pocket.

I approached her and ask, “What size coin do I need?”

She ask in German, “Do you speak German?”

Well I really don’t, but I did understand enough to know what she was asking. I replied, “No.”

She took a 5 Krown piece out of her coin purse and handed it to me and I, in turn, handed her the 20 Krown piece I had tried to use. She reached into her coin purse and gave me change. I thanked her. She nodded her head and we parted.

I slid the five Krown coin into the slot, the key on the chain popped out of the handle and WALLA I had my shopping cart.

The shopping itself is very straight forward, just like a grocery store at home except for one minor detail, the labels are in Czech. Thank goodness for pictures and brand names. Hunt’s is Hunt’s, Colgate is Colgate and a picture of corn on the can, or peas is a pretty good indicator that there is corn or peas inside the can. All in all I found most of the items on my list. The one item I could not find ... and I know they have it ... was butter or margarine. I look through the dairy case and then checked it twice more, but I never saw anything that made me think it was butter. It did not help matters that I had no idea what the Czech word is for butter. Once I was back in the apartment Nancy and I looked “butter” up in our phrase book. The Czech word for butter is, “maslo.” My phrase book does not have the word margarine in it, so I am still totally in the dark on that word.


Groceries bought now all I had to do was catch the bus back to Jeneralka. Carrying my ten pounds of groceries I walked back to the bus stop and waited. There are three busses, I don’t remember the number of these buses at the moment. Finally a bus pulled up, but there was no number showing on the electronic sign at the front of the bus, only two Czech words which meant nothing to me. After everyone else was on the bus I got on and asked the driver, “Jeneralka?”

The driver looked at me and said in Czech the equivalent of the English, “Huh?”

I repeated, “Jeneralka?”

He shook his head, ‘yes.’ I climbed aboard and rode back to the seminary

We are living in a one room, efficiency apartment. It is approximately eighteen feet from the door to the window and thirteen feet the other direction. In our room there is a desk, a TV, a sofa, a double bed, a dining table with four chairs, a refrigerator, a sink and an electric stove. There are cabinets above and below the sink ... and we have our own bathroom. What more can we ask for or need. The apartment is one of two handicapped equipped apartments. The primary difference in the room is there are grab bars in the bathroom and shower. The hand held shower also has a pull down seat. The toilet is about nineteen or twenty inches tall. On either side of the toilet are two swing down grab bars. It has been a long time since either of us could sit on the ‘throne’ and swing our feet like a small child. Also in the bathroom is a heated towel warmer or should I call it a heated towel rack. The rack is not only great for drying wet towels but also for drying any wed clothing. The rack is rather like a wall mounted radiator only with spaces between the bars on which clothing can be hung. I wish we had one at home. The floor in the living area is carpeted while that near the stove and in the bathroom is tile. The walls in the living area are painted a nice soft off-white and the bathroom walls are covered with white tile almost to the ceiling. There are also two free standing clothing cabinets that are large enough that all the clothing we brought with us fits into them very nicely. It is a nice warm room and we are enjoying living here very much.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Wonderful Descriptions
Bill, You write in wonderful detail...love the pictures....do you need earmuffs...if so, I need your address. I am printing out your daily comments and sharing with Doris and Sharon. Please don't fall in love with your new found home too much...we want you back! - Joyce Miller

[Hana]

Hi, I jusr ran across your blog. Just wanted to let you know that the word for margarine is "margarin". I am Czech :-)