The Butcher

The last three nights Beth and I (and to some extent RJ) have been eating meat that we bought from a butcher shop. Butcher shops are much more common over here and have (what I perceive) better prices than you'd find at a butcher shop back home.

I'm curious if this has to do with the perpetuation of mass distribution in the US, or if it is more of a cultural thing. Here, there are two butcher shops in the local mall. The smaller towns are likely to have one or two butcher shops along their main streets.

Needless to say, the meat is much better than the frozen stuff that we're accustomed to buying at the grocery stores back home. Then again, we rarely buy food from the butcher counter at the local Jewel.

So, we're enjoying good, fresh meat on a daily basis. Maybe this weekend, I'll stop by the fresh fish market where you can actually see the fishermen carry the fresh fish from the boats to the store.

That's My Bag, Baby!

One of the oddest things I've run into over here is that most stores don't give you bags for your merchandise. I'm not talking about the tourist trap stores down at City Centre - they put your bags in bags; I'm talking about the grocery stores and supermarkets.

I first ran into this oddity last October when I decided to do a little Irish grocery shopping at Tesco. I bought some stain remover (I had a propensity at the time for spilling Guinness on my nice white dress shirts), a bag of chips, and a 2 liter of Coke. I was the clerk's last customer just before she went on break.

So I payed her, she gave me my change, then walked away. This left me staring at the bag boy who was doing absolutely nothing.

"You gonna bag that?" I say.

"You have to buy bags."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"How much?"

"Twenty-two cents."

Luckily he managed to get clerk back to the register before she disappeared back into the break room and I payed twenty two cents for one bag. Lesson learned.

Tuesday night, to outfit my apartment with some essentials, I went down to IKEA. I needed things like pillows and silverware. Going through IKEA, I got some great bargains, but I restricted myself just to the essentials. You see, I had a pretty long walk back to my apartment and I didn't want to burden myself down. So I gathered only what I could carry in one of the big IKEA bags.

IKEA sells you the same size bag (huge) for fifty cents at the checkouts. Compared to twenty-two cents for a standard plastic bag, it's a steal! I payed and walked home with two new pillows, a 32-piece (8 settings) utensil set, a bath mat, four hand towels and a big blue IKEA bag for just under 25 Euro (about $32).

When I got home, I knew that this bag needed to be saved. If I ended up at Tesco again, I'd need something to carry my groceries in. I neatly folded the bag up and stowed it in a kitchen drawer.

Last night, it was time to go shopping. I needed internet access, food, and a quilt/comforter (it got pretty cold in the bedroom with only a set of sheets on the bed). I went to the kitchen drawer and pulled out my magnificent blue IKEA bag, stuck it under my arm and headed downtown.

As you can see, I didn't quite fill it, but it was great for toting my groceries back home in.