Grocery Shopping

Since little Miles is not so little, I decided he should start eating some cereal. I went to the grocery store and a box of rice cereal, that cost about $1.25 in the U.S., costs $5 here. That is almost 5x the price. Needless to say, he won't be starting cereal for a long, long time. And when he does, I will definitely be making it.

Going to the grocery store here is always an adventure. 2 things that I really, really enjoy are that I can get the entire outside of my car washed for $3 while I am shopping and the cart boys at the store always unload my grocery cart onto the belt for me, pack it all up nice and neat, carry it to my car and then unload ALL of it into my car while I am loading up the kids. I was thinking today what a nice perk this is when you are shopping. I just get to stand around instead of being all stressed out checking out.

Another cool cultural thing here is that you NEVER have to clean up your mess at food courts or restaurants. You just leave your trays on the table and they clean it up for you. At first it was hard for me to leave it, but I noticed when I returned to America in December that I was accustomed to not having to clean up after myself in restaurants. I think that's how it should be all over the world. :)

And....each grocery store has about 25 different representatives of different "brands" located throughout the store. They each try to get you to buy their "brand" by giving out free samples. It is kind of annoying to constantly be hasseled, but it is tasty to eat the entire time you are shopping. Sometimes I send the kids around to get all the free samples they can find. How fun!!!