By now most of you have heard my harrowing tale of the largest supermarket ever but I will post this for those of you that haven't. After eating Wendy's then McDonald's, then Wendy's, Pizza, Wendy's again... we decided we should go grocery shopping to fill up our empty cupboards of our new rental. I woke up early to try to get it done before the girls woke up. I ended up going to one like 20 minutes away which was one thing but you should also know it was Labor Day weekend so it was already packed. This store was huge and it was all food. At first I was fascinated but that was quickly eclipsed by my hunger. Unfortunately I was just at the beginning end of the largest supermarket that I have ever seen in my life. I was not familiar with the layout or the products, so when I started out in a section that had separate kiosks for hot dogs, provolone cheese, a separate one for the mozzarella cheese, salami and pickles every way you turn, I started just grabbing stuff because when I looked past this section I had another mile to cover and I who knew if I would see this stuff again? Turns out that was the gourmet section and I did see the cheaper counterparts of these products later on, but I didn't have the energy to switch everything out. I kid you not, by aisle 6 I was feeling completely exhausted, overwhelmed and my stomach had successfully consumed half of itself. I wanted to give up and cry, really the tears were starting to well.. but I knew I had to return with food and I had to finish what I started so that hopefully I would not have to return for a long time (incidentally I have had to return about every other day since). I have never seen so many aisles of pickles or varieties of pretzels in my life. I had to make decisions with everything, taking into account price, sales, volume and then trying to decipher which products were the eastern equivalent to the brands I knew on the west that would be similar to what the kids were used to eating in NZ. You just don't think of these things when you move overseas. The moving and the unpacking and the long nights of cleaning finally got to me and a few days later I opened the freezer to find that I had put a map in there. THEN I tried making Mark I really yummy sandwich with the special gourmet parmigiana cheese I bought from the specialty aisle at the supermarket when I didn't know where I was. He wanted a taste so I gave him one. It seemed like really soft parmigiana but I figured it was just the way this variety was, not so. I am sure that in looking at this picture you will see why, but I was so disorientated and overwhelmed for days apparently, that I did not notice the obvious. I was about to give Mark several slices of fresh Italian butter. It was worth it though to have a real good laugh for the first time in days of moving with Mark.
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