Globus, Döner, and Jungle Jam

 One of the things we had to do the first week we were here, was to going to one of the big supermarkets. Iris said, Globus was kinda of like our Walmart. Which it is with food and other household items as well as clothing and games and things. However, this store was MASSIVE! The first thing I noticed was the biggest rotating door I have ever seen. It was made for people with carts obviously, but without carts it would fit at least 15 people comfortably.  The first floor was all groceries and upstairs was everything else. The first place we stopped was the chocolate aisles. Yes I said aisles! There are three aisles dedicated almost exclusively to Chocolate! We had to pick of a couple of bars. We found what I think is the best chocolate bar ever. It is in celebration of Milka's 111th birthday. It is milk chocolate with pop rocks on the inside. It is the funnest piece of chocolate ever. There were other kinds as well that we have tried: Caramel, one with extra air to make it "fluffier" (not the biggest fan of that one), white chocolate, strawberry, and Chris tried one with Oreo bits (one of his favorites). There are lots more for us to try so I will keep you updated on which ones are the best. 

Back to Globus.... Besides having a gigantic rotating door, it has an escalator for carts. A grocery store with two levels is new to me in itself, but how you get up and down was cool too. I didn't get any good footage of the escalator,so you will all have to suffice with the really crappy picture I was able to get off the camera. It was really weird to stand on the escalator. I kept feeling like I was going to fall backwards while we were riding up, and when we went down I didn't want to think about trying to keep a heavy cart from reaching the bottom before you. Upstairs they had some costumes for Fasching, and I had to take a picture of one of the displays. The poor mannequin needs a bit of help don't you thing?

Besides the cool technical things I saw in the store, what amazed me was the amount of selection there was. The meat counter ran the entire length of the store just about and all of it was fresh. The are lots of different fruit and vegetables we don't see all the time in the States as well. But when it came to the caned and boxed foods, you know those items most of our grocery stores are filled with, there was practically nothing. They don't have hamburger helper, or frozen dinners. Everything gets to be prepared by hand. I like that I am forced to cook, but at the same time when I am not thinking about what I want to eat next, and all the sudden I am hungry, I miss being able to just make something really quick.  But I am learning some new tricks and recipes. I will be good to get used to cooking again. 

Other things I am going to have to get used to is that the milk is not fresh. Everything else is, but the milk has been processed to have a longer shelf life, and doesn't need to be stored in the fridge until after it has been opened. I guess that it a particularly good thing, otherwise the tiny fridge we have would be full of milk to keep the amount of milk we go through good until we can go to the store again. It is packaged in liter containers, and that lasts... oh... about a day or two is all. I have already gotten used to drinking sparkling water. I am not at the point yet where I will drink it plain, but I will mix it with different syrups or juice. It is to the point where I think I am going to have to buy a Soda Stream when I get home, so I can continue to make drinks like Apfelschorle. I think that is my favorite drink so far. It is apple juice and sparkling water. It makes it into a kind of apple soda. Messo-mix is another drink that I like, but didn't think I would at first. It is a combination of cola and Fanta. A little different at first but good. 

 That night after we went to Globus we went out to dinner. Of course the day you go to the grocery store is usually the day you decided to go out to eat. :p
We had Döner Kebabs. They are kinda like a Gyro, but different. The one I had was made with pork and it was on a plate with Fries. I had it with a yogurt sauce. The veggies on it are cabbage and lettuce, with tomatoes onions and peperoncinis. It was supper delicious. I had so much food that I couldn't eat it all, and the so I had my leftovers for breakfast the next morning. And let me tell you it was good the second day. That is how you know you have good food right? I have been wanting to go back since, but I need to be careful about how much money I use the first part of the trip to make sure I have enough to travel on.  

After dinner we played a game called Jungle Jam. It was really fun and it was nice I was able to understand when the instructions were being read. It is little times when I can understand that I do a little celebration in my head. I think "Yippie, I am understanding German." But then again there are those times when I hear German and I don't understand. Then I think "Oh crap, I really don't know anything." I am sure the longer I am here the more times I will be celebrating and the less I will be saying oh crap :)