Grocery shopping has always been one of those things I've enjoyed doing. Probably because it involves being surrounded by food. Food that when thrown together can make a delicious masterpiece. You can imagine my excitement when arriving in Oradea, Romania and seeing a ginormous grocery store. I let out giddy screams knowing that I would have an abundance of ingredients to get creative with in the kitchen. So far, it has been an adventure grocery shopping in a foreign country.
First, it is five kilometers from where we are staying to the grocery store. So before any shopping is done, we have the pleasure of getting a run in. I don't even want to know how crazy I look running down the road with my backpack strapped on. It gets really exciting when we make it to the 2 busy roundabouts. I learned that the best way to get across is to just go for it and hope for the best, letting out a high-pitched scream for dramatic effect.
About the time that we are dripping with sweat from choosing to take on such a task in the middle of the afternoon, we see the giant sign for Real grocery store. Finally! The next 5 minutes are spent looking throughout the parking lot for a loose shopping cart. Here in Romania, the shopping carts are locked and can only be accessed by inserting a 50 bani coin into the handle of the cart. Being on The World Race and having a missionary's budget, we try as best we can to avoid this added cost.
I always like to stroll through the produce section first, which is another adventure. While in America the scales to weigh the fruit and vegetables are more for the customer's sake, here in Romania, the produce must be weighed at stations where the price tag is printed out and then stuck on the bag. I think this is a great idea, but definitely an inconvenience when you don't know about it and find yourself confused at the angry checkout clerk who doesn't want to have anything to do with your produce. Lesson quickly learned!
Finding the right ingredients becomes a fun and entertaining guessing game. This is where pictures on the packaging come in handy! There's been several occasions where blind guessing was involved and you just kinda hope for the best when cooking with that ingredient. So far no real disasters have taken place!
One thing to always remember when shopping in Romania is to bring your own grocery bags. Upon reaching the checkout counter you will find a nice selection of plastic shopping bags in a variety of shapes and sizes…with a price tag next to them. Again, we are a tight budget and can't possibly splurge on such luxuries. This is when we pull out whatever bags we've collected along the way to carry whatever we can't cram into the backpack.
The walk back is always a fun one – trying to get there as quickly as possible so that the dairy doesn't go bad but not having quite as much energy to run as on the way there.
It sounds like a slightly daunting task shopping here in Romania, but as soon as you smell the garlic sauteeing you begin to feel like it was probably worth it. And when all the food is brought to the table and everyone is gathered together, sharing stories of the day and laughing, then you know without a doubt it was worth it.
