You Can't Always Get What You Want... But You Get What You Need (maybe)
Going shopping here has proven to be an adventure. Big picture getting groceries is easy and straightforward, but I would describe the process of finding a specific item as chaotic at best. At the risk of being melodramatic and diving fully into main-character syndrome, I often feel like a bumbling, sweaty YA protagonist who has interpreted their vague instructions all wrong but everything still manages to work out for them because the plot demands it.
For example, we've really wanted a rug for the past two months. The floor is polished tile and when we sat on the long part of the sectional, the two pieces would slowly separate until you had to do an awkward half crunch, half roll to get out of the crack and push the couch back together. Plus Humboldt's toys and scratchers slide around on the tile and he couldn't get a good purchase to use them.
So I did a little research and found a few rug places. As I've mentioned before, places here often don't have websites or the information on Google isn't up to date. But I found a place called Nobel Rug and Carpet that had recent Google reviews and pictures of rugs on the results.
When I got there, the outside of the building was advertising for hair extensions, so I started to get suspicious, but the building is directly off of the highway, so they could've just sold the ad space. I walked in the door and tell the people who looked up that I want to buy a rug and they looked at me like I was out of my damn mind.
"Rug? You want a... rug? Here?"
So apparently they didn't sell rugs there. I'm not sure if they ever did. I did clarify that I was looking for Nobel Rugs and Carpets, and they said that was them but they don't sell rugs and carpets anymore. I guess they closed that part of the business. Is it actually just a money laundering front? Who knows?
One of the men did drop a pin in a map, and said I could find rugs there (and this is a direct quote) "Across, underneath the grocery."
So I obviously didn't know what that meant but I figured I'd see if those directions made more sense when I got there and they... didn't. Not immediately at least.
The pin on the map was to a grocery store I had never been to, and it was huge–5 stories! I took a look around and got a few items that I hadn't been able to find anywhere else and noted that they sold bulk soy sauce for $10 cheaper than I previously paid for it, so I will call that a win. I followed the signs that promised me wine but there was no wine to be found anywhere.
Everywhere I went I asked people where I could buy a rug and just never got a clear answer. The store did sell prayer rugs. So after being directed up and down the stairs by various well-meaning but factually wrong people, I gave up and checked out. But as luck would have it, my cashier knew that the furniture division was across the street.
And lo and behold, you had to go to the carpark UNDER the grocery and the furniture store was ACROSS the street. So that guy at the not-rug store was correct that what I was looking for was "across, underneath the grocery." Thanks, man.
There were rugs there. There weren't any I was interested in buying but that's okay.
So that day I went out for a rug and came back with groceries. Another time I went out looking for a rug and came back with Tennesse whiskey and Aperol (tough to find here! so a very exciting score.)
As an aside, this search for rugs took me to a lot of furniture stores and the decor style in most of these places seems like it would be at home in an early aughts McMansion. This made finding a rug tough because when I did find one, it was not the decor style we were going for.
Kevin had very similar adventures looking for a new cord for our immersion blender which we somehow forgot to bring with us. One electronics store was actually just a field and the other was closed (or something else similarly unhelpful.) We even tried ordering one online, but it wasn't the right size.
However, just this week, Kevin went out looking for an anniversary present for me (he was looking for a pair of leather sandals for the leather anni.) And of course, he completely struck out because that store also didn't exist but there happened to be an electronics store nearby which had the cord we needed! After that he tried to get a new bank card... no luck but it was right next to a RUG STORE! That had exactly two rugs that didn't look like an ornate Persian rug (those can be lovely but not right for the vibe we have) and we finally got a rug.
And the last example of this scenario: it was my turn to go out and try to find sandals for Kevin, and I came back with powdered sugar and black beans. Black beans are particularly tough to find here, and I think if the school were going to start a prison-style black market, black beans would be our cigarettes. (There are a lot of vegetarians here I think.)
The other thing that makes shopping here more adventurous is that inventory can be really unreliable. Some products can be in stock for months and then be out of stock for months. For most items, there might be other brands available. But we were told several times that if there's something you really like/need, you should just clear the shelf. I've never bought literally all of something because that feels rude but I have stocked up heavily when I've seen particular products that don't have a workable substitute, like Kewpie Mayo (ifkyk!)
And this is what led to me buying a truly unhinged number of canned green beans. For those of you who don't know, Humboldt was overweight because our first vet told us the wrong amount of food to feed him. This led to another vet telling us to cut his wet food with green beans because they are filling but low in calories so now every night, he eats a little bit of green beans mashed up with wet food.
But we didn't realize that canned green beans aren't common here, so we only bought like 7 cans when we first arrived. That lasted a while but we ran out and we were supplementing with mixed veggie cans. But one day they actually had canned green beans, so I bought 23 cans (after already having discovered that black beans were also in stock, so there were a lot of cans.) I felt like (and was) the most ridiculous person in the whole world because explaining to the bemused cashier that the 23 cans of green beans were for my cat would not, in fact, help my case for normalcy.
The rotating stock, plus my unfamiliarity with brands means that I feel like I have to scour every inch of the shelves to make sure I don't miss a hidden gem and read a lot of ingredient labels to figure out what's going on with new-to-me products.
Adding me to looking odd in grocery stores, I took some pictures of one of the grocery stores if you're curious about what a standard store here is like. It's not the most gripping content but I did throw in a few bonus oddities for intrigue.
If you're not sticking around for grocery store content, I don't blame you. If you are, please follow this link and play the remix no one asked for because this song plays every time I go to my most frequently visited grocery store.
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