I did it myself

I survived my first solo trip to the grocery store this morning! Besides the fact that I hate grocery shopping in general (regardless of what country I’m in), this is a big deal because it meant that I drove somewhere by myself for the first time since moving here.

Important things to remember:

1. I’m not a very confident driver.

2. I refused to drive in Kyiv, therefore, I’m pretty out of practice.

3. They drive on the wrong left side of the road here.

4. To get to the grocery store from our house, you have to go through 4 roundabouts.

4a. I hate roundabouts (I have been known to go way out of my way just to avoid them.)

4b. See Number 3 – entering a roundabout from the wrong left side can be mind-boggling.

Add all of this to the fact that Bahamian drivers can be rather erratic, and I think you can see that this morning’s trip was quite an accomplishment for me.

The grocery store itself was not too bad today. I got there kind of early, which helped. Unfortunately, it was a bad produce day. I have never seen so many green tomatoes for sale. The trick here is that all the produce comes into the island on Thursday, so it’s best to shop late in the week. But I get the feeling that we get the Grade B produce, so sometimes it’s pretty sketchy. I have to remind myself that we hardly ever had fresh produce in Kyiv (I think Ukraine gets Grade X or something), so I shouldn’t be disappointed about having to go a week without here.

I can’t remember if I’ve said much about the grocery situation here. It’s pretty weird that we can get almost anything we would get in the US. Of course, you have to be willing to pay for it. The first few weeks I was obsessed with looking at the price of everything. I still find myself looking at all the prices, but I don’t freak out as much anymore. It’s typical to pay almost $4 for a half gallon of milk, or $5 for a bag of chips, or $6-7 for a box of cereal. But then some things are priced about the same as in the States, which is where it’s all coming from, of course. Very strange.