Adventures in grocery shopping

A couple of months ago, when out doing other things, we happened upon a huge "newish" grocery story about thirty minutes from home.  It was a Globus--which is a brand that Dave is familiar with from his travel in northern Germany.

By "huge" I mean about the size of a Target or maybe even a "Super Target" in the US.  It is unusual to see stores that size here in Germany--especially grocery type stores (we do have some big, multi-level department stores in any city; similar to a Macy's but other brands of course).

On that day we stumbled upon it, Globus was celebrating their 1 year anniversary in that location and had cooking demos, Legos out to play with, prize wheels, etc.  It was a cold and gloomy day and we ended up hanging out in the store and "playing" for a while that afternoon.

Last Saturday, we went back.  We had plans to try our hand at making sushi with our friend, Jaochim, and figured that, being so large, it was a store that would have everything we might need.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that even on a "normal" Saturday, this store seems to be making an effort to be more than just a grocery store.

There was some very good music playing as we entered, and it sounded like it might be live.  Heading off in search, we quickly found the band set up smack dab in the middle of the wine aisles (sorry for the blurry photo):

The music was played on the sound system store wide, in case you really just wanted to shop and get out, but there was also plenty of space to just stand around and listen for a bit--and many people were.  We happily joined them :)  Throughout that section there were also several vendors set up with samples of breads, cheeses, olives, chocolates, wines.  All there for you to much and sip while you listened, no high pressure sale--it was pretty obvious what item was what and vendors seemed to be counting on the quality of the products to sell themselves.

I'm not sure, but I think in most places stateside you could not easily have the wine samples without a special license, and having to check IDs and the like.  

After a nice half hour of music and snacks, we finally did do our shopping.  They DID have everything we were looking for.  Also, the "Welde Girl" (Welde is a beer made locally and sold only in a 60 km radius) was going through the aisles with a big container of their new Radler (half soda and half beer--this was "Natur" natural lemon juice and beer).  She gave everyone a free, full sized bottle to take home and try :)  That was a nice extra little bonus.

I think we may have to trek out to Globus every month or two--it sure made shopping pleasant.

--Hadley