The Land of Convenience

Let’s face it; in the United States, we live in the land of convenience. We can have whatever we want, whenever we want it, given we have the means to purchase it. I never realized this until I moved here and was faced with…gasp…such INCONVENIENCE.

Oh yes, the horror of it…I was unable to purchase my favorite eye cream, immediately. I ran out of bread on a Sunday. I cannot find for the life of me, my favorite style of Levis (unless I want to pay 65 euros for them). No Taco Bell at 1:00 am, no shopping for shoes on a rainy Sunday. I can shop online for anything but then I’d have to wait. I’ve learned to wait.

It’s almost funny what we take for granted. Think about it, even Wal-Mart in Lisbon is open 24 hours, isn’t it? You can buy just about anything there. Incidentally, Wal-Mart in this area in Germany CLOSED. Can you imagine? It just wasn’t popular enough. It didn’t catch on. There are similar chains here, one such is called REAL. It’s like Super Wal-Mart, although I can’t imagine too many folks buying in bulk here. You really don’t need a store like that, because shopping, well, food shopping is different here. The refrigerators are half the size of what we’re used to in the US, so people shop for meals and staples to last a couple of days at a time; Another thing to get used to. Besides, there’s zillions of “convenience stores”. They are like small grocery stores, but in their center aisles you will find anything from electric guitars (this was at Christmas time) to lamps, clothing, etc. It’s crazy. Unfortunately, their shopping hours are just as lame as all the rest.

But oh, the inconvenience of it all! It took me a year to get over the fact that just about everything is closed on Sunday. Some restaurants are open, but not all, and no stores. Nothing. Unless you can buy it on the military base, you’re out of luck. Part of the inconvenience problem is that the military bases don’t carry every brand of everything, so you just might have to settle for something else. I know it’s unimaginable, but true.

There are a few occasions that shops in town are open on Sunday. For example, if there’s a fest going on in a "dorf" (town or village), as a “treat” the shops in that area might open that Sunday. During the holiday season, the bigger shopping districts are open all weekend and later at night, but this is just hearsay. I didn’t witness this myself. The real kicker is that it’s only been during the past 5 or so years that shopping could be done on Sat.! In most small town shops, they stay open to 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday. I don’t understand this. The malls, I am happy to say, are open later, 7:00 or 8:00 pm, but they’re so crowded because this is the only time one can really spend some time shopping, so I try to avoid them. Malls are open during the week, but only until 7 or 8 pm.

What prompted me to write about shopping today was that a big, brand new shopping center opened today on one of the bases here. People were lined up at 7:00 am waiting for it to open. I find this pathetic, but that's just me. This resulted in the closing of all of the "convenient" shopping I had available to me on the base that I work on. I just can't win.

Oh well, it’s amazing what we can endure.