Now that we are up to date on our pictures, I've been thinking about what to write about. A lot of you have asked me what the biggest differences are here, or what I've had to adjust to. I think the biggest differences I've noticed are at the supermarket. So, here you have Jill's top ten list of differences between Luxembourg and U.S. Supermarkets:
10. The radishes look different. Radishes here are oblong and red and white, not uniformly red and round. The Luxembourgish radishes look like they were grown in a special mold, but I am told by my mother-in-law that this is not the case- that they just grow this way. Click here for a picture of Luxembourgish radishes. Fortunately I don't care for radishes, so I'm not forced to eat these freaks of nature.
9. There is an entire aisle dedicated to yogurt. Or yohgurt. And as you probably know, european yohgurt is so incredibly rich, it is like a dessert. It's like adding the "h" to the word forces you to draw out the pronunciation, emphasizing the utter decadence of the european varieites of the stuff. Yohhh-gurt. Fullllll fat. Yummmm. And the aisle doesn't just contain yogurt, it contains all varieties of custards, although frankly, the yohgurt itself is like a custard, so I can only imagine what the custards taste like.
8. They sell horse meat. They don't only sell it, but there is a whole section dedicated to it. Worse is that there is no special word for "horse meat" (as in cow is not called cow, it is called beef), so they just call it "Horse" or cheval. I suppose this is the same as calling chicken "chicken," but somehow with a larger animal it is more disturbing.
7. They sell pigeon. This is sold in the same aisle as the quail eggs. Makes sense.
6. The milk and eggs are not refrigerated. The thought makes me a little queasy, but so far I've eaten both and not gotten food poisoning.
5. Tropicana orange juice costs 7-8 Euros, which is about 9-10 dollars. Fortunately I have found another brand that is 100% juice and not from concentrate, but it took me several weeks to discover it. The trial and error period was very discouraging- I need a solid glass of O.J. in the morning.
4. There is an entire aisle dedicated to processed pork in its infinite varieties. They sell it as sliced salami, bite-size hard salami balls, processed ham, prosciutto, bacon, dried and diced for salads.... This is in addition to the identical selection of fresh pork products at the deli counter. Very useful for a nice jewish girl from connecticut.
3. There are more varieties of non-pork salami than you could possibly imagine. And better yet, so that you are sure that you are buying the correct type, there are little pictures on the packages to tell you what animal it is coming from. So far I have seen: bison (or buffalo?) salami, ostrich salami, some kind of moose salami, ass salami (as in donkey. get your mind out of the gutter), and cock salami (as in rooster. I said get your mind out of the gutter!)
2. One supermarket that I frequent has a very large section that is dedicated to a different special feature roughly every two weeks. When we first arrived, it was Tastes of Asia, and the section was essentially transformed into an Asian supermarket. Following that it was Italian products, and they were selling all sorts of fresh pastas, olive oils, fresh mozzarella cheeses, etc. This week it is dedicated solely to wine and cheese!!! I suppose you'd have to see how large it is, but it is a very big section just filled with wine and cheese. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Oh! and at another supermarket, they have a little machine from which you can sample the wine before you buy it. And the machine is really cute- you essentially turn this little spigot, and out trickles the wine into your little plastic cup.
And the number one difference between supermarkets here and supermarkets in the U.S. is....
1. Many of the supermarket employees' uniforms include roller blades! (Except, of course, for this one black woman who works there, who is dressed in some kind of full African garb (including a huge fabric headdress), whose sole job is to core and slice pineapples. Since all the other employees are in uniforms, I am guessing that it is not that the supermarket is accommodating her and allowing her to wear what she wants to work, but that this is essentially her pineapple slicing uniform. And of course, roller blades would not exactly complement this outfit.)
