Grocery Shopping

My neighborhood, while a little further away from the center of Madrid nightlife, is where the actual people live, which means that things like grocery stores, book stores, zapateros*, and mechanics are just a hop, skip and a jump away (though probably won't be needing a mechanic any time soon).  When I first moved in, after having eaten croissants for breakfast and bocadillos (sandwiches) for lunch every day, all I wanted was to start eating normal food again.  There are three grocery stores within half a block of my piso, but I chose the closest one.

Notable differences in Spanish grocery shopping:
A.  You cannot take bags other than purses into the store, so they have little lockers at the entrance that you deposit 1 euro into, put your bags in it, take the key, and then get your euro back when you leave.
B.  Everyone has these little carts to carry their groceries in, because not having cars means that they have to lug their groceries back to their apartment.  These aren't allowed in either, so they have these chain things with a similar locker system where they lock them up.
C.  You have to pay for all plastic bags in Spain (yay for the environment!!!). I think they're 5 cents.
D.  The cashier doesn't weigh your produce... you do.  They have the scales just like in our stores, but you type in the code of the fruit and it prints out a sticker. You could definitely cheat this system, but there seem to be a lot of opportunities to cheat the system here, and it still works out alright.
E.  Milk comes unrefrigerated in a box here, which is sort of weird.  You have to refrigerate it once you open it, but there's something about a whole aisle of milk boxes that says, "welcome to somewhere that is not America."
F.  The regular cheese, our equivalent of Kraft cheddar, is Manchego - I'm in heaven.
G. They're all about the canned fish here.  My curiosity got the best of me and I splurged on a 1 EUR three-can pack of calamari 'in its ink.'  I haven't thrown away the two remaining cans... yet.
H. Bread comes with the crust pre-removed - reminds me of elementary school.

Notes:
*Zapatero = shoemaker.  Quick story about shoemakers: The zipper on one of my new boots broke (possibly to my own blame), and there is a giant sign about zipper repairs on the first floor of my building, so I thought, 'how perfect - the 1 Hora Arreglas lady can hook me up!' But she didn't have the right sewing machine for shoes, so she sent me to a shoemaker.  It was a tiny little shop just up the street and smelled SO strongly of leather - it was pretty cool.  I gave them my boot, came back two days later and ta-dah!

Take-aways from this experience:
1) Zapatero, in addition to being the former Spanish president, is also a fun word to say.  "Stopped by the zapatero this morning..."
2) Shoemakers are amazing! I don't really consider shoes a fixable thing (probably because I buy the cheap ones), but watching him just recreate a heel while I stood there was pretty cool.