Sunday, September 7, 2014

To Market, To Market

So when I got hungry enough to want to eat lunch at 10pm, I ventured out to find the closest grocer and get some nommins. I already knew where from all my walking earlier in the day. I set out and got there pretty quickly. And everything I thought was going to be true, was. The food is different! ACK! What is this stuff!?! I had seen black pudding available at the breakfast place but hadn't been brave enough to try out. I started in the meat section and found chorizo and prosciutto and was super happy. Because those meats are so good! I got something called Edam cheese and then some salad dressing (we'll see) and mustard, because mustard. Salt and pepper as essentials, and then found potato chips. Some of the flavors are seriously what. the. heck. Chargrilled Chicken, Flame Grilled Steak, Bacon Sizller...how are these potato chips?! I got lettuce, cucumbers, chick peas, peppers, potatoes, carrots, and bread. Enough to tide me over. And what I had thought earlier was in fact true. Food is DIRT cheap here. Like crazy cheap. I got a bunch of chicken too.

Went back home and made a chorizo and edam sandwich. Decided it should have mustard because that's a yummy sandwich. I didn't have any of my dishes in the kitchen yet and didn't want to go back to my room so I just spread it on the sandwich and then licked my finger off. YIPES!!! HUGE MISTAKE!!! WOW!!! MOUTH ON FIRE!!! WHAT THE HECK IS IN THIS MUSTARD?!? WOOOOOO. Tasted like horseradish and wasabi together. That was some kick! Holy wow. Needless to say that piece of bread didn't get eaten, because wow it was too much. Lesson learned. Food here is different even if it looks the same. Eep. Ate some of the chips I've bought too. Salt and Malt Vinegar (they were okay) and Bacon Sizzler (tasted just like I was eating bacon!).

Then I played some and went to bed around midnight. Got woke up at 830am by the complex swarming with garbage trucks! Rude. And noisy. I was annoyed. After a bit, I managed to get back to sleep and got another 4 hours. I thought about unpacking but voted against it. I made another sandwich, with prosciutto this time, and decided what I would do with my day. Ate a giant carrot too.

Met my first flatmate. She's a girl from Germany, so that answered my question about would I be in co-ed or male only housing lol. She seems nice but the walls here are pretty much paper-thin, so we are already having trouble with noise. :/ And only 2 of us are here. That's frustrating.

I needed to find an actual grocery store to get things like shampoo and TP and paper towels. I googled walmart near scotland and came up with something called Asda superstore. Wrote down directions. It'd require the subway. Maybe the pass wasn't a bad idea. I seem to go back and forth on that, huh?


I took this shot for my mom so she could be jealous. It's the view right from the hill as you set out from my complex. The one I struggled to get my luggage up the end of the first day here. Right at the top, I came upon a walking path I hadn't noticed the previous day that seemed to go around the infirmary just north of my place.


Here's a nice shot from the hillside where the walking path took me. That's the landscape here. Gorgeous. I followed the path and yup, it spit me out just near the west end. Cool.


This is a shot of the river I have to cross that's right by my house. There are through streets everywhere, so you have to pick wisely to get a bridge. This is on the way to Byres Road. I went north, but got lost because I couldn't find the subway entrance. I knew I'd missed it, but kept going west to see if I could find another. If all else failed, I go up Byres Road when I got that far. I stumbled across the grocery store that my flatmate had mentioned was this way and went in. Found shampoo and conditioner, not a bad price. Got TP and paper towels. Cleaning wipes for the bathroom, a couple more bars of soap, and started home. On the way, I found the subway station I'd missed, so that was helpful. Dropped the stuff I'd gotten and set out again. I wanted shower shoes, and that supermarket hadn't had anything but food, though much more than the small shop I'd gone to the previous night.

This time I knew where the subway was and it was easy to get on. Rode three stations the other way from where I'd gone the previous day and went under the river Clyde. When I got off I went the wrong way and came upon a down only escalator. Oops. Righted myself and got out. This was a much older part of the city, I could tell by the architecture. Well. After I took a better look around I realized this wasn't even really the city at all. I could see the UofG spires in this distance, and I was not close anymore. Way southwest of my house. I set off to find the street I needed to get to this superstore. Quickly came against the predicament that these streets didn't see to come with names. None that I could readily see anyway. Took a guess and ended up on the wrong one, but righted myself soon enough. This was definite suburbia mixed with industrial. Some serious warehouses and compounds out here. Not to self: Don't go here at night. Probably not safe.

Eventually after a longer walk than I'd guessed I found said superstore! Yay!!! I went in and started off upstairs at the clothes. I found flip-flops for only £2.50! Steal. All the clothes were cheap. If I'd know how cheap clothes were I wold have chucked the 3rd bag, not lugged it across half the continent and just bought clothes here. Sigh. Stupid perfect hindsight. Oh well. I bought the flippys for shower shoes and went downstairs. I didn't intend to buy anything. But wow! This was the equivalent of wallyworld. Prices were ROCK BOTTOM HERE! I found more meat for sandwich with 3x as much meat inside as the price I'd paid last night! So I bought some. Then I found Dr. Pepper! Score!!! I went to find a basket and got 8. I bought some rice because I want to make a stir-fry without remembering that I don't have a pot to cook in :/ I got some pancakes because they are everywhere and that's apparently a thing here. So I needed butter. And then there were eggs, and why not? They were cheap. I also found pringles! So M can stop worrying now. I bought some Salt n Vinegar. Then I was done. Less than £20 for the whole shabang. Winning the day. I popped a DP as soon as I exited the store. Ah. Not quite the same flavor, but it would do. The trip home was uneventful.

Post-shopping I ate more carrot and took a real shower, now that I had shoes and shampoo and conditioner. I had some pringles too but they are again NOT the same. These hardly had any flavor at all (lame!). There were so many foods at the superstore that I've never heard of. Half their confectionery (candy) and sweets are nothing we have in America. Same with the biscuits (potato chips). I'm excited to delve into some new culture while I'm here. Same is not the same, and that's okay. Living and learning, that's what I'm doing. I have a list now though of things I need to buy still. Maybe I'll go to IKEA and see if they have them. That's even further in the burbs though.

2 comments:

  1. Yay for Pringles! I will officially stop worrying now. You've got DeePee and Pringles. You'll survive.

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  2. I though biscuits were cookies and crisps were chips?

    ReplyDelete