When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.
Miguel de Cervantes
So here I was in Spain ready to attempt my first try at the grocery store. On the plus side, I had survived three visits to the DMV in Denver the month before (see my earlier entries) so I was a least prepared for some stress!
I took Jeremy with me for support and plunged into the Super Sol, which I had been told by “my people” was more “English-friendly”. Ha! That’s what I get for listening to the British!
We actually sailed through the shopping part quite smoothly. The gal at the deli taught me the word for turkey (parvo) and I meandered up and down the aisles repeating it over an over so I could sound smart in case I am at a Spanish cocktail party and need to jump into an in-depth discussion of the merits of white verses dark meat. And although it’s a long shot, if I do come across a large dumb-looking bird gobbling whilst out for my morning constitutional in Spain, it would only be the polite thing to do to address it by name, don’t you agree? Of course I was lulled into a sense of false security, which became quite evident when we went to check out. Piling everything from my basket onto the belt, I gave my friendliest “hola” to the clerk and began fumbling for my credit card. The first few items slid through without incident, but when she got to the fruit, there was much gesturing and rapid speech, indicating that we’d obviously been remiss in something. Damned if I could figure out what it was, however.
“Maybe they don’t like selling fruit to Americans,” I postulated to Jeremy, “perhaps it behooves them to keep us vitamin-deficient…or (gasp!) even constipated!” No, that wasn’t it. After a few more points and inarticulate syllables being flung our way, we warily picked up the fruit and shuffled back to the fruit department. Apparently we were supposed to weigh and bag the fruit there ourselves. I found the scale, but as I didn’t know the price of bananas or what the heck a kilo is, it wasn’t much help. Finally a kindly English lady took pity on me and told me that I had to bring the fruit over to the gal who works in the department and she’d be happy to weigh, bag and price it for me—which she was. Back to the line, where the people behind us were being mercifully patient, I gave the fruit triumphantly to the gal, handed her my credit card, even understood what she wanted when she asked for identification (although I felt compelled to offer an apology for the Bush administration as I handed her my U.S. passport) and we were off—relatively unscathed for a first attempt, I felt. Ha! I didn’t cry once!
Of course, the way Jeremy and I eat, this paltry amount lasted barely a day and then we found ourselves once more in need of sustenance. Having had only the one issue at the Super Sol, we felt confident to venture into the Supermercado, which caters primarily to the Spanish community. That’s where the adventure began!
Keep in mind that space in most cities in Europe is tight. This is not Texas, my friends, so parking is always at a premium. Don’t think for a minute that it’s like dashing to the Safeway for a gallon of milk. After circling the underground parking garage for about as much time as it would have taken us to go out to lunch, Jeremy finally squeezed the car into a spot. We alighted full of energy and ready for our first real Spanish shopping experience. Spotting a man returning his cart to the queue, I smiled and held out my hand to take it from him (figuring that was pretty much a universal gesture). To my chagrin, he threw me a malevolent look, slammed the cart in to nestle with the rest and then, glaring at me reached over the tip of it, where he picked up a lock that was hanging there and bolted it to the cart in front! Glaring at me once again, he stomped off to his car. I desolately walked back to Jeremy, who was having his own issues-- fiddling with the elevator buttons, trying to see if the store itself was above or below us. “They don’t let Americans use the shopping carts, I lamented—they lock us out of them. I think you have to know some secret Spanish code to get them unlocked!” “That’s crazy,” said my beloved, “we’ll go into the store and figure it out.”
Sure enough, upon alighting from the elevator, we came upon more rows of locked-up carts. Upon further investigation, we found that the secret of freeing one of the coveted wagons was to insert a fifty cent piece into them. Doing so popped the lock as if by magic! Bristling at having to pay fifty cents for a shopping cart (yet relieved to find that everyone has to pay, not just the tourists), I opted for one of their smaller baskets, which are a little larger than the carry-around baskets we’re used to and they have wheels and a pull-handle so you can wheel them around behind you like a wagon. So they two of us started out with our wagons, Jeremy shaking his head about my refusal to spring for the big cart and me spouting epithets about the people who try to make a buck off absolutely everything!
To be continued……
No comments:
Post a Comment