Esselunga Madness

Today we had our first Italian grocery shopping experience! One of the main supermarket chains in Italy is called Esselunga. First of all, we probably picked the most inopportune times to grocery shop... Saturday morning. The grocery stores are only open from 8am-1pm on Saturdays and I will start off by saying that you have never seen a mad house until you go to an Italian grocery store on Saturday morning. We are very fortunate to have the grocery store literally around the corner from our apartment. As we approached the store our two Minnesotian roommates were a little confused as to how to go abouts getting a shopping cart. Luckily, Becca and I, being the great experienced bargain shoppers that we are (having such experiences as shopping at Aldi and Save-a-lot) knew that you had to slip a euro into the slot on the shopping cart to release it from the cart train and you get it back when you return it.
So first of all, I have never seen so many people in one place! Ok... I have, but never in a supermarket. It's funny because there is no "excuse me" or "sorry" when you are in the way or run into someone. No.. you better barge your way through that market or you're not going anywhere. EVERYTHING is in Italian, so thank god we had a dictionary to look up whether we were grabbing chicken or turkey lunch meat. Esselunga has their own generic brand of food so I was able to grab the cheap version of most items. In orientation yesterday we learned that the second phase of Culture Shock is depression/ hostility.... I think I made it. I am hostile about Italian supermarkets for the following reasons:

1.) NO BUTTER
2.) Soda is more expensive than liquor
3.) A box of tampons is 7 euros
4.) I don't know whether I am buy lotion or conditioner because I cannot read Italian
5.) No cheddar cheese.... anywhere
6.) Did I mention there is no butter?

Ok... So it really wasn't that bad but how the hell am I supposed to eat pasta without some god damn butter?? This is where we are supposed to develop a sense of humor, laugh it off, and emerge ourselves into the Italian culture. The checkout lines are hilarious. You wait in line for close to 10-15 minutes. In doing so, you get ran into close to 50 times because you're obviously in the way, old women and men straight up jump in front of you in line and mumble something in Italian which probaby is something like: "Get out of my way you American bitch", as the person behind you in line is ramming their cart into the back of your heels. The woman checking me out does not speak English (which is extremely common I have found out) so when she tries to tell me something about the tomatoes I am buying I have no idea what she is saying. Finally, she gets frustrated and just puts the tomatoes behind her so I guess I wasn't buy tomatoes. I think they weren't heavy enough to ring up, but I really have no idea. She points to the total I owe and as I start to get my credit card out she rolls her eyes and kind of shrugs her shoulders and thats when I quickly grabbed cash instead. People get very frustrated when you try and use your card, I guess its just a huge inconvenience in their day. I ended up purchasing tortellini, spaghetti and sauce, some fresh vegies, breads, jam, some canned and jarred items, 4 bottles of wine, some lunchmeats, swiss cheese (light), and some other shit I don't remember all for just 45 euros so it really wasnt that expensive. We put all the wine (8 bottles) and two bottles of alcohol in my 60 liter backpack that I brought, bagged up the rest of our food in plastic bags (which cost 4 cents each) and high-tailed it out of that crazy ass mad house!

It really wasn't that bad, but I will never go on Saturday ever again. However, nothing can seem that bad when we get to return to our beautiful apartment with views such as this: