the mystique of grocery shopping

or: my adventures in Billa (that's the grocery store). Never have I hated grocery shopping as I do in the Czech Republic. Yes, it's only been about two weeks, so maybe about three visits. But seriously, when I say mystery food, I mean cross your fingers and pray. I must look ridiculous, meandering through the aisles trying to decide what sort of meal I can create with my as-yet-to-be-identified ingredients. Even figuring out what's yogurt and whats...tarvoh? (some thick cheesy sorta ricotta sorta sour creamish dairy product that's actually better than yogurt: my first mystery food challenge of Prague)...is a challenge. And then there's the lines to consider. After my aimless searching, it's time to pull out some serious game if I wanna get through the checkout line before my yogurt/dairy adventure-products go bad. It's like this: you're standing in line, minding your own business, and you start to feel the person behind you edging closer. Before you know it, that guy's pulling around to the side and attempting a full-on hockey check to get in front of you. I've learned to create a sort of barrier in these sort of lines, using my basket to take up the extra space where hockey-man might try to make a move. If the line is more or less "open air," however, I'm pretty much screwed. So that's the deal there: my first rant. My strategy for the immediate future is to just keep grabbing new stuff until I have an arsenol of less-mysterious food to work with. Gotta head back out to class. Toodles :)