Today was a good day. Although I never would have verbalized it, I was getting concerned about how I was going to furnish a home and sustain our family with the sparse shopping I'd encountered so far. I remember saying once when we moved from the west coast to the east coast that I'd be fine just as soon as I found the Target and the Costco. (A girl has needs you know). Well since neither Target nor Costco exist in Spain I was left to my own devices to find um, anything. Up to this point I've been doing all the shopping at Supermercado Natalia. More of a small 7 Eleven than a supermarket.
Because August is vacation month (and no one is home, at all) not many markets or any stores have been open. Now you see where my feeling of desperation is coming in don't you? We've been living in our not so lovely 'apart hotel' which is basically like camping with a few pieces of less than appealing furnishings. Our air freight shipment which was supposed to arrive with us, has been delayed and may not be here for another week. That means we've been getting by on what we brought with us on the plane. That my be all well and good when you are on vacation. But the kids were starting school tomorrow and I was feeling very unprepared. This is a feeling I really don't like. All this to say that we arrived at the new parent orientation yesterday feeling rather beat up and harried. In my heart I may have been a bit downcast, but trying to chin up for the family. Just before we left I ran into another American Mom who had just arrived a few weeks before us. We swapped stories and realized we weren't alone! She off handedly remarked about having to buy pillows, which as mentioned in an earlier post we NEED, at Carrefour. I inquired as to this place and she said the magic words, "it's like a Target". The angels sang and my heart had hope again. We said our goodbyes, loaded the kids into the postage stamp of a vehicle and headed out of town a bit to the Mecca of shopping. The kids had no school supplies since they are in our air freight, which was supposed to meet us here - did I mention that? After wrestling a bit with our Tom Tom GPS system we found our way. Dear Husband says we should rename Tom Tom "Dumb Dumb," and I concur. When we pulled up it was really something like the feeling of warm fuzzes I get when I enter the Target lot. I know it's sick, but true. I have posted any pictures yet, but I had to snap this one for you all. (What? she moves to Spain and the best pictures she can send is of a shopping trip?) So I'm still more American than Spanish, shoot me. Here she is in all her glory. The parking lot alone was something spectacular, just gargantuan. The place must get really packed, but lucky for us it was still vacation month and it was not busy at all. But I get ahead of myself.
As we were walking up to the store we found another little gem. "Hey look kids there's a McDonald's here". Squeels of delight followed, and for once I was actually really happy to be going to the golden arches. It was the sweet familiarity that drew us. Lord knows we were all in need of some comfort food. We were all delighted that we knew exactly what we were ordering.
You know you are in Spain when you can get some Gazpacho (tomato soup) with your hamburgesa.
Yup, we're lov'n it!
After our happy meal, we headed into Carrefour. What should greet our curious eyes? Wide open aisles filled with every delight. Right away Dear Daughter found her favorite series of books in Spanish : Junie B Jones and Geronimo Stilton. Since our air freight STILL isn't here and the kids have no books we let them pick out one each. Littlest brother even found and entire section of Disney's Cars books.
After a cruise through the toy section and the housewares for some basic items like dish liquid, a sponge and some towels to make doing dishes a bit easier for me, we rounded the corner to find an amazing grocery selection. As I said before these Spaniards are really into their cured meats, aisle and aisles of it.
Including jamon (ham) right on the bone, include the hoof. The boys loved it, us girls not so much.
Oversized salami and cheeses.
Beautiful fresh produce. Which we had to leave behind. Apparently you have to weight and add a price sticker before you get to the checkout. At that point the kids weren't going to withstand one more minute of shopping so we apologized in broken Spanish and explained it was our first time there and left our fresh food behind.
We came home and filled up our little refrigerator. What a joy the simple things are. It's Friday and it's been a long week, so tonight we are going to stay in. We'll enjoy a frozen pizza, some salad and a movie in English on my little laptop. That is, if I can ever get it to finish downloading. If been trying to download Rango for 3 + days, super slow Internet in this hotel.
