I really recommend downloading the Duolingo
app if you are trying to learn a language fast. It was about 3 months before I
was supposed to leave and I realized that I did not know any Italian. I started
doing lessons during commercials while watching TV and whenever I had free
time. Pretty soon I was doing new Italian lessons instead of watching TV
because I enjoyed doing them and learning way more than what I was watching.
Doing these lessons provided me
with enough knowledge to go grocery shopping. Even though I cannot translate
all of the words on the package, I know enough to buy the basic essentials.
Grocery shopping takes an extremely
long time because everything is in a different language. (Well shopping in
general takes a long time) I really only know what the app has taught me which
isn’t very much but some is better than none. I can read basic things like:
chicken, turkey, fish, beef, cheese, tomatoes, apples, grapes, eggs but after
that…. I’m pretty much on my own. If we can’t tell what it is by just looking
at it, my roommates and I just go by the pictures on the package. If there are no pictures, we try to guess
what it is by looking at surrounding items (depending on the aisle were in).
This can work out well or go very wrong.
I say this
can go wrong because one of my roommates needed to buy laundry detergent and we
didn’t know what words to look for on the bottle. But using our method of
looking at the pictures on the bottle, we picked up the one that had the washing
machine on it. She did laundry a couple of days later and thought it was
strange when the “detergent” wasn’t making suds in her hands but she thought
nothing of it. Soon after her load of clothes were done, (After 6 hours!) I
decided to look up some of the words on the bottle. I typed “ammorbidente” into Google
translator and found out it was fabric softener. We all had a good laugh at
that one. (At least her clothes were semi clean, smelled good and very soft!!)
Some
random facts about the grocery store:
The
first thing I noticed that was different when we were in the store was that
they don’t refrigerate their eggs…. At. all. At this point in my trip, I’m not
really sure why but when I find out I will let you know.
Peanut
butter is really hard to find. It is almost 5 euros for one very small jar of
Skippy’s peanut butter.
They
don’t really use syrup here. The syrup that we did find was close to 8 euros
and it was a small bottle (either 12 or 16 oz).
It was in a big supermarket that is comparable to Wal-Mart but it’s a
30-45 minute walk from our apartment.
Pancake/Waffle
mix is not really available either.
Oatmeal
is not really a thing here also. So if you really like oatmeal, I suggest you
pack your own. (One of my roommate actually packed her own)
