Trip to the grocery store

Today's entry was supposed to be called "Sight seeing, part 2," but when you are traveling in a foreign country, sometimes things don't go according to plan. That's my excuse for the fact that I slept in, didn't feel like going out for a while because somehow it was simultaneously foggy and -15F (which made for awesome frost on the trees. pictures later on. we have to go in chronological order here), and I ended up spending 3 hours at the grocery store. So this post is now called "Trip to the grocery store." See what a flexible traveler I am?

Up until now, my attempts at food purchasing have all taken place at the Alepa grocery store across from my apartment. Alepa is a chain of grocery stores all around Helsinki. Here is a picture from out my window since I am already in my pajamas and don't want to go outside:

[I totally just felt like a sniper leaning out of my open window in the middle of the night aiming at something unseen. but no one seemed too concerned. I guess they don't have too much trouble with snipers in Finland.]

Just to show how well my Finnish is coming along, I feel like I can pretty safely say that the name "Alepa" means something like "savings store," or "discount store," or something like that. And I'll tell you how I know that: I've notice that lots of stores have signs saying "Ale" on them, and (since I've already deduced that it doesn't mean "beer") I'm assuming that means "sale" (I know, it seems too obvious). So I'm thinking that Ale + pa means something like "place of savings." Pretty good, ay? Anyway, back to The Story.

Although the Alepa is conveniently located, it doesn't offer much of a selection. So I went on a search for a better grocery store.

After some time hiking from bus stop to bus stop and getting rather lost (this is when I realized not all the buses run on Sunday) I found a big shopping mall type place that had both a "K-Market" and an "S-Market" inside of it. They were directly across from each other (the check-out lines kind of spill into the center of the mall) and from what I could tell there was no obvious difference between the two. I ended up choosing the "K-Market" (K for Kesi, although I guess I could have just as well gone with S for Stoneking...).

The K-Market was much more like what I'm accustomed to in terms of a grocery store than the Alepa had been. There was your typical produce, frozen foods, dairy section, etc, etc. Grocery shopping usually takes me awhile anyway because of all the weighing of ethics vs health vs frugality stuff. But shopping in Finland added a whole new element to the matrix: figuring out what the heck each thing was. There was an entire half of an isle with nothing but these giant toothpaste like tubes, similar to what you can sometimes find tomato paste in, although bigger. They all had pictures of ships on them, but besides that there was nothing recognizable to me. I'm afraid to think that it might be some kind of fish or meat paste. I don't know if I will ever be brave enough to find out.

So this is what I ended up purchasing:
Somewhat clockwise from left to right, beginning with the familiar spaghetti, we have (or at least I think we have):
1. Spaghetti (although it actually says "Spagetti")
2. Black pepper (after my previous attempt to buy pepper, which turned out to be allspice)
3. Salt
4. Beans that I could not identify, but now am pretty sure are un-split split peas
5. Rice
6. Sunflower seeds
7. Pour-able Finnish yogurt
8. Rolled oats (täysjyväkaura, if you remember from before)
9. Organic peanut butter that cost about $12
10. Sugar
11. Fresh parsley (doubles as a house plant and is from Järvikylä Estates which has ties with Shenandoah Growers where I had my first job)
12. Cinnamon
13. Olive oil
14. Hot sauce (at least they call it hot. I haven't tasted it yet, but I'm betting it's pretty mild)
15. Soy sauce
16. Raisins
17. Dates (a humongous bag)
18. Coffee
19. Vinegar
20. Vegetable bouillon
21. Green tea (behind the kiwi)
22. Kiwi (in front of the green tea)
23. Adzuki beans (K-Market's dried bean selection was limited and strange)


So there you have it. That was most of my day. And now for the pictures of the frost on the trees like I promised:



Looking up at a pine tree: