Well, after living here for almost a month, I finally made the first trip to the local supermarket. Up until now we’ve been living off of food we already had before we moved and from Metro, the wholesaler like Costco & Sam’s Club which we have here in Germany. But we decided to cook tacos tonight for dinner so I needed to run out to get everything besides the tortillas (that would have been quite complicated to pull off at this place).
The store is literally about 3 blocks from us but it’s been raining on and off and I am still American by nature so I drove there. I think my expectations about what I might be able to buy were also still a bit skewed at that point. In our old neighborhood, we had a similar little market which was quite well stocked. Just about anything I needed, I could usually find there. But this new store is not at all the same. It’s about half the size of the old store with 4 rows of goods and one of the smallest produce sections I’ve ever seen. They do happen to have some fresh rolls that are delivered in the morning and if you look hard enough you can pretty much find one of everything…but with the atmosphere of bargain basement shopping. There’s even graffiti on the building and our neighborhood isn’t THAT bad.
So next time I guess I will either try the farmers co-op which is also just a few blocks away to try out their produce (and see what else they might have to offer) or go to the next larger town over; Bad Vilbel, which has quite a few options to choose from. There still aren’t any huge major grocery store chains (that I have seen) but I do know that as soon as we enter town, there is a Lidl (discount grocery shopping) and a Tegut (more upscale, focusing on organics, but still supposed to be quite decent) right next door to each other so between the two I think I should be able to fulfill most shopping lists. After this experience, it really does feel more like we’re living in the country lol.
