a piece of home?

on my first walk through the city i passed the simply (a large chain of supermarkets here). even though it was cool because it's below street level, i looked at it and felt an air of familiarity. supermarkets are the same everywhere, right? wrong. i mean, they're the same concept, but the little peculiarities make the supermarket here a really interesting experience.

when you arrive you notice the first difference- if you want a buggy, you have to pay! i believe once you return the cart to the station your coin is refunded, but i'm not sure. even still, a security deposit on a SHOPPING CART? how strange! fortunately there is a free option. it's sort of a hybrid between the normal shopping baskets at home and a buggy. it can be carried basket-style, but this can be a bit awkward as it is significantly deeper. it also has wheels and a handle so you can pull it behind you.

then we come to the produce department. here in messina everyone wears gloves to handle the produce, whereas at home everyone just picks it up with their bare hands. also, once you have picked out your produce you weigh it yourself at a little weigh station which then prints out a sticker with the price and UPC for your to put on the bag. at home those things are taken care of by the cashier, so this was a little odd to me. 

another oddity i encountered was that you must pay for your grocery bags! it's not much, .05 euro (which would be about six cents in america) per bag, but still... i have been told that this is a fairly recent policy aimed at encouraging people to use more eco-friendly bags instead, but rather than bringing their own bags the people here are just paying. a friend of nathalie's who is from new zealand was telling me that she's never seen anything like it. she told me that she's been to many places where they've implemented this sort of system and everywhere else the people stopped using the grocery bags and began using more sustainable options. however, considering the sheer amount of garbage i see in the streets every day, i'm exactly shocked that the people here haven't taken to this. 

and something i have yet to personally encounter but have been told about: apparently there are people, people who do not work at the supermarket, that walk around the place trying to make an extra buck. they will offer to help with the selection of your produce, bagging your groceries (which isn't done for you here- apparently being a cashier in italy is a pretty easy job), etc for some extra change. how crazy is that?! that would NEVER happen back in the states. firstly because most of the things these people offer to do for you already gets done by actual employees. and secondly because they would get shooed off the property by the management for "harassing" the customers.
i also included some strange food pictures because i love that kind of thing.

it's the little things like this that make every day an adventure here.

1. a shopping cart showing the little chain thing where you have to pay for it

2. me with one of the basket/buggy hybrids... quick shot because this wasn't actually mine 

3. eva showing the gloves in front of the produce weigh station

4. all the sodas come in these skinny bottles

5. nutella to-go cups... heavenly

6. eva told me that these things are ice cream. they each have two little single serving cups. in the store they aren't even refrigerated! totally liquid! you just take them home and pop 'em in the freezer... i guess it's not made from milk so it won't spoil... i don't really know the specifics obviously because it's in italian.