Odds and Ends and Groceries

First, I want to welcome a new reader – Hi, Dad! Not that I actually have any clue how many people are actually reading this, other than a few people who have told me. But Mom reads (Hi, Mom!) and she is my primary audience. But, she informed me that my Dad has started reading it, too, so I guess I have to be extra well-behaved :). So, if you are reading, I would enjoy any comments.

Okay. So, today I had 2 interesting grocery shopping experiences. First, I went to Albert (local chain where I got yelled at for not weighing my veggies) to get a loaf of bread. But not just any loaf of bread. It is my new love. I love this bread so much I would marry it if I could (to which my friend Meredith reminded me that what I do in the privacy of my own home is my business…). Anyway, I discovered this bread one night after Czech class. Class ends at 8pm and by the time I get home I'm hungry and don't feel like cooking so I've been doing a basic meat (see the next section on chorizo), cheese (specifically hermelin), bread, wine and sometimes olives. Just a little nosh while I relax. There is an Albert next to the tram stop that I use to go home so if I don't have something I stop in to pick it up. I found my new love one night when the pickings were really slim. This bread is a twisted loaf of dark wheat bread, with a light and airy inside and a hard and chewy crust. Yummy! Anyway, I was popping into Albert today before I did the rest of my shopping at the other store (it's bigger and has more of what I want). The loaf costs 20 Czech koruny, or just under a dollar. I got to the cashier and had a 100 koruna note but she wanted change. I counted out 19 koruny and she took that. It's not like I was trying to get away with not paying full price; I had the bill in my hand. But she wanted change for some reason – she wanted it so much she gave me a koruna off. This is unusual. First, I thought that she was being nice, but then I realized that she got what she wanted at her own expense so…I don't know what exactly was going on. I guess she was low on change in her drawer.

The next experience is a fear faced. I shopped at the meat counter! I know, it's a bit silly to be excited but the deli counters scare me. They use metric. I have no idea – none – how much a gram, a kilo gram, etc is. Heck, even in the US I just say I want 4 slices of something instead of a quarter pound or something. But, I am trying to be a little more fiscally conservative and here was a way I could. I was buying chorizo for my evening nosh. Now, I could have bought the expensive, comes to the store packaged chorizo for about 50 koruny (about $2), that would have lasted me 2 meals. I had been doing that until I discovered that the deli counter pre-packages some of their own. This is about half the price (or cheaper). Today, they didn't have the chorizo. They had a variety of salamis but not what I really wanted. I checked the meat counter and they did have it so I looked at packages of meat, weighed them in my hand, compared what their listed weight was, etc in order to get an idea of how much I wanted. I decided on 20 grams. So, I got in line and asked for "dvácet gramy od chorizo" – not grammatically correct but the words were correct…the meat counter lady went to the correct meat (success #1) and grabbed a big handful. Okay, I'm thinking "what did I tell her?" I watch her weight it and it's 21 grams. I said that it was good, that was all I wanted and took my order. 21 grams is apparently about 5 or 6 meals worth of meat for about 50 koruny. Of course, the other side of the issue is that you are suggested to eat the meat within 48 hours of purchase. So, I have a couple of Ziploc bags of chorizo in my freezer :).