Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Expat Shopping

The first time that I went grocery shopping in the US, I felt very much like a fish out of water. Milk was no longer in cartons, Kraft Dinner was no longer Kraft Dinner, and there were aisles upon aisles of beer, wine, and other spirits (in the grocery store!). I still remember the shock of learning that one could buy both firearms and beer in a single Wal-mart shopping spree.

It was, therefore with much glee that I read of US expat, Kelly Garriott Waite's, initial trip for groceries in Canada:
The cashier is friendly. "Did you find everything you were looking for today?" she says with a bright smile. Should I ask her?

"Well, I couldn't find where you keep the beer."

"Beer?" she asks, confusion all over her face.

Do they call it something different up here? What's the French word for beer again?

"Yes, beer, I say. You know, the drink."

"I know what beer is. You can't buy it at the grocery store. You have to buy it at the beer store."

"You're kidding," I say.

"No," she says, beginning to pass my groceries across the scanner belt. "I'm totally serious. You new here?"

I don't bother with explanations. "What's the name of this beer store?" I ask.

"The Beer Store," she replies. A clear "duh" tone in her voice.
You can read the entire article here, Comparison Shopping in Canada. It is definitely worth the read and offers quite a chuckle for those who have found themselves in a similar position.


Tip o' the toque to Orla. :)


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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:00 PM, August 31, 2005

    A couple of weeks ago, we were at our local Vons. There were two guys with me in the liquor section and one of them was marveling over the fact that we had alcohol in our grocery stores. I asked where he was from and he said, "Georgia." I remember when I was in Georgia, I was shocked that a "package store" didn't sell boxes, that it sold booze. Freaky. Also, here in Nevada, we can buy alcohol 24 hours a day, every day. There's no such thing as "last call" here.

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  2. Anonymous5:02 PM, August 31, 2005

    Funny, same thing happened to me when I went down to the States. I thought it was so cool and convenient to have the liquor right there in the grocery store. Also, some of the product down there are neat too. Wish we had some things like they do in their grocery store.

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  3. Anonymous11:41 PM, August 31, 2005

    The hell? Milk in bags? Why? I like to think I'm kind of worldly in regards to food, but I guess not.

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  4. Expat11:27 AM, September 01, 2005

    I agree Sam, there are tons of neat products here. I love the selection of pop and American Taco Bell kicks Canadian Taco Bell's butt. (I just wish that they had Fries Supreme! LOL)

    As a child, we used to get milk delivered in bags. I am not sure when that changed and we went to the cartons in Saskatchewan.

    Here is what Wikipedia had to say about milk containers:

    In the United States, milk is commonly sold in gallon, half-gallon and quart containers (U.S. customary units) of rigid plastic or waxed cardboard. The U.S. single serving size is usually the half-pint. In much of Canada, a 1 1/3 litre plastic bag (sold as 4 litres in 3 bags) is the most common, while 2 litre, 1 litre, 500 millilitre, and 250 millilitre cartons are also available. In Europe, metric sizes of 500 millilitres, 1 litre (the most common), 2 litres and 3 litres are commonplace (in the UK, some stores instead still stock the equivalents of old Imperial sizes: 568 ml (1 pint), 1.136 l (2 pints), 2.273 l (4 pints), or rarely a combination including both metric and imperial sizes, such as a choice of 568 ml, 1 l, 2 l and 3 l containers).

    I have not seen milk in bags in forever, Flippy. The concept is even weird to me now! LMAO

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