Our adventures in shopping continue.  In traveling to the UK we could bring with us only what could be checked on the plane.  Of course, we focused on clothing, personal items, and electronics.  That left us needing to purchase many kitchen items (although our new kitchen has all the basics provided).  Also, all the minor common items are needed.  For instance, I needed a tad of black tape to cover a too-bright LED light on one of our electrical plug adaptors.  That required a stop at a small hardware store and paying what to me seemed a high price for a small roll of electrical tape.  As we kept adding to our list of “stuff” I told Jackie that what we really needed was a car and a trip to Walmart.  However, we have no car and the nearest Walmart is over 3000 miles away!  We haven’t found a good substitute for Walmart, but if we did we would have to get there by public transportation and then carry everything home on the bus.

So…Amazon!  It’s just a click away, the prices are good, and they will deliver in a few days.  I changed my Amazon address to their UK version and I’m good to go.  We’re ordering stuff we’d never consider ordering online before!  From what I can see here on campus we have lots of company.  The Amazon driver leaves a pile of boxes about every day.

Speaking of online ordering…our nearest bigger grocery (think medium sized Kroger or HEB) is a short bus ride away.  However, once again, it’s kind of unhandy to carry the bags on the bus.  Instead, for less than $10 a month we get unlimited next day delivery of our groceries so long as we buy around $50 of stuff at a time.

Ordering groceries online is pretty nifty.  One challenge for us, though, is that we don’t think in metric very well.  When buying a jar of Old El Paso taco sauce (and, yes! They have tons of Old El Paso products in the store) how big is a 226 gram jar?  The answer is “not very!”  Easy enough when standing in the store, more of a challenge when looking at a picture online.  Or, want some black olives?  That looks like a nice jar – 450 grams can’t be that much can it?  So, we’ve ended up with a small jar of taco sauce, a giant sized jar of black olives, and an abundance of (pureed none the less) canned spinach.  Oh well, we’ll put more taco sauce on the next order – they will bring it right to us.

Finally, as someone once said, “Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language.”  Want to make hamburgers?  You want “minced beef” from the store.  Jackie wanted to buy some rubbing alcohol for our medicine cabinet.  The lady at the pharmacy (or “chemist”) counter looked a bit confused and said they don’t have any alcohol there.  After a bit of confusion we discovered that what we wanted was “surgical spirits.”  No doubt, this is but the tip of the iceberg.

Till next time, “cheers!”