Something Familiar

In anticipation of the move to our new apartment next week, Eryka decided to take a walk through Ikea to plan her purchases for furnishing the place. The closest Ikea is about 10 miles from where we're staying, so it was a 20 euro taxi ride, but that didn't bother us because right now, the firm is covering food and travel expenses (that's one of the perks of international relocation - meals and travel on the firm for the first 21 days in the country).

So getting out there wasn't a problem, but once we arrived, I noticing the lack of taxis and thought we might have a problem getting home. Not to worry, there is a Metro line down near the shopping district we were at, so we rode that home later.

The Ikea trip was fun enough, and it was nice to see something familiar. Even if it is European. And then there was McDonalds. And Burger King. And thank goodness for ToysRUs. Isaac lost one of his red power rangers about a week ago, and we hadn't seen any decent toy stores around our neighborhoods. Well, guess who has a new red power ranger?

But imagine our surprise when we ducked into a grocery store for an emergency purchase, and what did we discover? Aldi! Now for those of you unfamiliar with Aldi, it is the most simple, bare-bones grocery store in the world, and as a result, has the cheapest prices you'll ever see. I can't really explain it, but you see, Eryka absolutely loves Aldi. The thing is, it actually took us awhile to realize we were in an Aldi, because the name is different in Spain, but the spartan layout, and the shockingly low prices, along with having to purchase the plastic sacks to bag your groceries and the blue and yellow color scheme all clued us in.

So all in one spot we had Ikea, ToysRUs, Burger King, Aldi, and a few fancy furniture stores. In sum, today Eryka found her shopping mecca in Spain.