So my first night in Barcelona--2 October--I'm completely exhausted, running on adrenaline, and need to keep moving to avoid my own stink--I'm in Spain, not France, so people notice (sorry Jane)--and I ask Jordi for directions to the nearest market so I can pick up some food and basic personal hygiene items while I wait for my luggage. Jordi sends me to a bargain market called "LIDL"--no idea what it means. My first challenge is to find a shopping cart, which is harder than it sounds.
I enter the store and the first thing I notice is the security guard. He's a large, neatly dressed, uniformed guard--didn't see a gun--and a secure entrance to the store that would rival many American banks. You can enter this way, but you cannot get out unless you pass through the cashier lanes or are escorted by the guard...which I am when I ask about a cart or basket and the clerks point me outside. I can't get out the way I came in so the guard rolls his eyes, pulls out his giant chain of keys, opens the idiot gate and shows me out. He points to the shopping carts outside the store. First thing I notice is that they are locked together with some very strange security system.
An elderly lady, in her early sixties, comes out pushing her cart and I see, but don't really comprehend, that her groceries are loose in the cart and there's one or two plastic bags on top. The cart rolls over my foot and I stop it. She gives me a suspicious look when I continue to hold the cart and offer to help her load the plastic bags. Hey, I'm a Boy Scout, I'm supposed to help little old ladies, right? I smile and she smiles briefly then quickly rolls her eyes at me when she thinks I've looked away. Well, when she finishes loading her bags she pushes the cart over my foot again and gives me a suspicious look as I wince in pain but continue to hold the cart. I say "Yo quiero..." ("I want") and point to the cart. She begins pushing it forcefully toward the locked carts and says in an alarmed voice, "No! No!" and rolls it over my foot again--I've now lost feeling in the toe. My friend the security guard comes waddling out and begins assessing the situation. I smile and say again, "Yo quiero..." and point to the cart. The woman yelps, "No! Yo quiero mi Euro!" and points to the weird little box on the handle of the cart. The guard comes over and looks at me with concern, I step back from the woman's cart, she rolls it into the corral and says something to the effect of "You have to pay for the cart you moron!" She grabs the cable from the cart in front of hers and pushes it into the box on the handle. A plastic lid slides left and a 1? coin pops out. She waves it in my face and says, "Mi Euro! Paga...[something something something]" grunts at me, and turns and scurries away with her bags.
The security guard laughs at me, points to the cart handle's box, and grunts at me. I then realize I only have a 5? bill on me. I figure out that I have to ask for change inside, and after getting my cart and going inside, that LIDL is a gross little discount hole of a grocery chain...something on the order of a cross between a skanky gas station mini-mart and an Ames--before they cleaned up the chain. I decided the produce was inedible, the meat was all frozen for a reason, and I would not buy milk or the discount, repackaged jogging suits from eastern Europe. Eeeewwww. A toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, and frozen pizza were the only things that looked safe to buy. I then checked out and discovered after I left that you have to BUY your own grocery bags. What a pain in the ass.
The point of this story is not about how primitive this country is compared to the U.S., just the opposite. It's about how Spain, like America, has skanky discount stores that take advantage of the growing market of truly lazy people who don't feel like walking the mile to the larger chains. With Jordi's assistance the following day, I discovered a mall with many nice stores, a supermarket that would make Wal-Mart blush, the Spanish equivalent of Best Buy, a Dunkin' Donuts (no, I haven't been), and a monsterous movie complex that unfortunately doesn't show English-language versions.
I don't blame Jordi for the confusion...his English is FAR better than my Spanish. I realize now that I had asked if there was someplace I could pick up a few items and he said there is a "small market" nearby when he apparently meant the equivalent of "mini-mart" and all the icky things that implies. When I told my classmates at school I went to LIDL, they all looked like I had just boasted about drinking from urinal in a Grand Central Station restroom at rush hour. I told them it was only for the toothbrush which they said was probably a good deal. I don't dare tell them about the frozen pizza which was quite tasty considering I hadn't eaten much in the previous 36 hours.
Next time I'll tell you about my first experiences in front of the classroom teaching students English and about the workload I'm facing for this course.
