Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Ich liebe Deutchland und Lidl!!!!

Today I successfully booked a airplane ticket to Germany to visit my friend! I'm leaving the end of October to travel for nine days in mainland Europe. I have no idea what I'm going to do yet, but I don't care. Traveling alone, despite being a little bit stressful, is always an adventure.

This afternoon I was not in such a good mood. After being frustrated with my art projects for the better part of the morning, I was ready to take a break and decided to find a discount grocery store called Lidl's. The food is exorbitantly priced here no matter where you get it - and the products are teeny-tiny (unless its made of chocolate). I've been training too much, so with my metabolism I can't make 30 dollars worth of food last more than 3 days. It's pathetic.

When I left to find Lidl's I didn't know exactly where I was going, so I got lost. After a good 30 minutes of extra walking I finally found the store. The carts were stacked outside, so I tried to pull one out, and realized that they were all locked together. I tried yanking on the chain, twisting, pulling, and the cart wouldn't budge. So I ran around the store trying to find someone to help me. After looking like a complete idiot for a good amount of time a nice woman informed me that you have to put a pound in the cart to use it, then when you lock it back up it gives you your coin back. Sheesh!

Shopping was also an adventure. Lidl is a German company, so all of their food labels are from Germany or in some other language I can't read or understand. I took a risk and bought something that looked like curry sauce and was written in what looked like arabic. (I ate some tonight and survived! Hooray!) In addition, OVER half the store is devoted to stocking sugary biscuits, candy and cookies. I the UK has a serious addiction to bad food, you wouldn't believe how cheap candy is compared to bananas (like half the cost).

At the check out, the cashier thought I was nuts - I didn't know that you had to buy plastic bags to carry your food out in, and he had also never seen a credit card that looked like mine... he kept staring at me like I was some from other planet, and also made a comment that I looked confused and didn't know what the heck I was doing...

By that point, I didn't care. I walked home, put everything away and got on my bike. By a twist of fate I met a really really nice guy who told me about some close mountain biking areas, so I found one venue and rode around for awhile. It was also a dog park, so I got chased by some friendly hounds. Then I crashed and WHACKED my knee out really hard.

But I was ok and made it back to the Margaret Mac. House before it got pitch-black.

Well, that's all folks!!!

2 comments:

Alex Lacey said...

reading your blog makes me feel like i need to go workout! haha! craziness.... good luck figuring out all those little tiny differences between countries; they create many an awesome awkward moments!

Susan said...

So excited to hear that you'll travel in Europe for nine days...this will be fantastic!If you venture into Spain, try Toledo or Segovia. El Greco is "the man" in Spain. Prado Art Museum in Madrid is excellent. I hear that Mom is going to visit you! Dad will come here -- now, who will have the most fun?! ha Love, A. Susie