Everyday Surprises

Pic of our amazing "tablecloth" we got at our local store.

Here’s the thing about moving to a new country that no one really says, everything is a challenge and scary. Things you don’t think twice about in your home country become mountains in your new one. You don’t know the language, the customs, the culture and so on.  But after a while it gets easier especially when it’s something you do often, but sometimes it’s still a surprise.

Take for instances going to the grocery store. I’ve been going to the store for years here, I’ve pretty much got it down. After the fun of not knowing I needed to weigh and tag my produce before getting to the checkout, to getting down my nif number in Portuguese so I didn’t have to hold up the bar code on it with my number, its become normal. So after a 28 hour travel day including a fun train strike setback, sleeping for 12 I decided to crawl out of bed and go to the store, thanks to the great power outage and my somewhat questionably working freezer I needed to stock back up.

I was feeling better and more alive about the day as I walked to the store, had a short list which of course grew as I walked around, and decided to make naan for dinner (premade naan bread). I was in line at the register and all set; had my grocery store card out, debit card, and saco (bag). There were a few people in front of me and a lot behind me, it’s still my paranoia that I don’t want to be the person who holds up the whole line for something everyone else knows about.  I thought it was a bit odd she didn’t scan the grocery stores card to start with because they always do but whatever right? Wrong. She gets done looks at me and rattles off a whole bunch of Portuguese I was unprepared for. I got the words “pao” which is bread and “marcar” which in this case meant scan I guess?

At this point I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what’s going on, I bought naan but didn’t really consider that “bread” but maybe it was? I couldn’t figure out what the “marcar” was for maybe the bread was on sale, but didn't scan as on sale? Who knows, certainly wasn't me, it's all a mystery sometimes. Once she saw the deer in headlights look and my “falo um pouco de Portuguese” she grabbed my card and walked about 3 registers over near the entrance to the new scanning machine they put in. Apparently you now scan the card when walking in and it tells you what’s onsale? Coupons? Who knows? I genuinely don’t have any idea what it does yet since she did it for me and brought over paper pieces the machine spit out that she scanned. I quickly thanked her and paid and was on my way. That's the thing about moving to another country even things you think you have gotten down can still surprise you.