Shopping

We have noticed that quite a few people new to this area comment on and talk about how much they love being here but this inevitably leads to a discussion about how their life is different from when  they were in the US or at their last posting in Tokyo or London or Berlin or Stuttgart. One of the biggest changes I have noticed personally (and also when conversing with other newbies) is the shopping; or lackthereof. Back in St. Louis it seemed that we couldn't go more than a day without having to run to Schnucks or Walgreens or Target etc. We always needed something. But did we really "need" it? It seemed that we spent a good chunk of time running around getting things and by the time we sat down at the end of the evening we were dead tired and hadn't seen much of each other. Here, things are a bit different and it suits me just fine, but it doesn't sit well with some of  the other newbies and probably wouldn't sit incredibly well with some of my family or friends. First off, all shops are closed on Sunday. Period. End of Story. The reason for this is Sunday is still very sacred throughout not just this area, but alot of Europe. The Europeans reserve Sundays for rest and relaxation and family time (and a few of them even go to church ;). The roads have been deserted on Sundays and with the nice weather upon us, the backyards of most houses are full of kids and adults sitting around talking, eating, and drinking. It is very nice and I for one am all for it. During the week, stores are closed at about 7 pm. I have yet to see a 24 hour store let alone one which is open until 9 or 10 pm. The reason for this is the store workers and managers etc have families too and the view of most countries over here is that it's better that people who have to work in these stores be home with their families in the evenings. Also, if the stores were open, people would not be at home with their families after being gone all day at work and school. So I quite like this as well.

So we are very fortunate. Each of the last two weeks we haven't been to the store more than a handful of times during the week.  We do our primary shopping at a US Air Force Base which is about 25 minutes away called Chievres. Their Commissary (grocery store) is about two or three years old and I would compare it to a small Schnucks. it's very nice and pretty inexpensive. We buy our honey nut cheerios, peanut butter, and other main staples there. We try to go there on Saturday and only go once for the week because it's a fair drive. We also try to stop at this farm on the way home to buy strawberries (the best and juiciest I have ever tasted) as well as farm fresh eggs and other in season veges). The other place we shop at for some of the best bread and baguettes and other European stuff (most important of which is beer) is a store on SHAPE, the base where I work, called GB. The prices are all in Euros and they have great cheeses and pastries and bread and salamies and other meats. it's more expensive, but we don't buy nearly as much from there as we do at the commissary. Also, now that we are pretty settled in to the house, Jess is going to try to start hitting farmers markets during the week to get fruit and veges. more to come on the markets.

In short, we have had to totally revamp how and when we shop and the result, thus far, has been an incredible reduction in the amount of trips and time spent at the store and more time spent at home in the backyard kicking the soccer ball and talking with our neighbors over a nice plate of olives and a good Belgian beer.

There is definitely a distinct lack of convenience when it comes to shopping here, but what we lose in convenience we gain in time spent at home because we have to ask our selves, do we really need that item or can it wait a day or three?