For the last four years I have produced the travel TV show “Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations”, ran around the world, ate some funky things and ended up moving from New York City to Berlin, Germany….. I’m a TV Producer, Camera woman, Travel Journalist and now humble foreigner in a new city!
July 30, 2008
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Ahhh the little pleasures…like grocery shopping
After living in Berlin for 6 months, I finally have a little perspective on my life in the new world. I feel so wise nowadays. While I have made a few mistakes, some minor disasters, a few lost keys, some purchasing of unknown items due to the language barriers, nonetheless, I have LEARNED from most of them. Yet there’s still one puzzle I must solve once a week and with serious effort.
The Grocery store is my enemy. I have yet to be able to bag my groceries in a timely fashion. And in Germany, precision is key. What once seemed like a leisurely trip to the store is now a stressful, panicky ride through vegetable hell. On my first trip I casually threw my goods on the conveyor belt, only to find out that the belt led my food to purgatory…. a “No Bags Land” where they sat and sat and sat until I found SOMETHING to toss them into. Which turned out to be a long-sleeved tee-shirt tied at the end. Classy. Very “Girl Scout” of me.
Lesson number Eins:
There are no free bags in life.
This mishap led to a cog in the Food Machine which probably caused trains across Deutschland to derail and workers in state offices to retire three years early. It also led to a line full of people to “tsk tsk” at my foreign ignorance.
There is also a method to bagging and ordering one’s food on the conveyor belt in Germany. It’s a simple physics problem really and since I never made it past Pre-Chemistry it poses an issue of great concern. I imagine the problem as such:
Heavy shit (I guess weight) + Light shit (tomatoes and such)
Divided by glaring cashier
= PANIC ATTACK
so…..one must shop accordingly. For example you must purchase all soft items first: One’s tomatoes and salad must die a slow death to the weight of Potatoes and canned goods. It may sound crazy, but this will allow the heavy stuff to get bagged first so that you can equally distribute the weight on your bicycle while riding through the pouring rain, uphill and for 20 blocks to your apartment building without an elevator. Enough said. It’s a problem anyway you bag it.
