Grocery Shopping.

Germans are huge fans of efficiency.

This can either be good or bad. And in the case of grocery shopping, it's definitely bad.

Before I left, I imagined grocery shopping in Germany comparable to grocery shopping in the U.S., only better. I imagined myself strolling along the aisles and dancing around in the variety of products and new things to try. Then I got here, and my vision has changed drastically.

Complication A: You have to deposit a coin for the cart. I'm never willing to do this for some reason, so I must tote around my groceries in my bags.

Complication B: You MUST bring your own bags. This isn't like the good ol' U.S. where if you forget your reusable bags then there's always the plastic bags they give you for back up. Nope. If you forget your bags, you must either buy new ones or go without. (Not that I entirely disagree with this idea, I'm all about reusable bags. It just showed me how bad I was at bringing my reusables back home.)

Complication C: After you get all your groceries, you move up to the line. This line is very deceiving because it looks a lot like the grocery stores back home, but boy, do you have another thing coming. Once you get to this point, you'd better have all your items on the belt, preferably in an orderly fashion. Heavier things to be scanned first, proceded by lighter, more fragile items.

See below.

(Do you like my sneaky iPhone images? ha!)

Exhibit A. The cashiers in Germany sit while they scan items. Rather efficient, don't you think? Efficient for them. This only puts them in optimal position to scan your items as fast as they can. Remember how I said it is better to have your items arranged on the belt? By the time all of your stuff is scanned, this won't matter.

Exhibit B. After your items are scanned, they are thrown down these rollers which sends every cucumber, box of cereal, package of mushrooms, and bottle of Coke flying down faster than the speed of light and sends them scattering asunder. Oh, did I mention that cashiers don't bag your items? So while you are gaping at the high rate of speed at which your groceries come flying towards you and are attempting to bag them, the cashier is already done and is waiting for your money.

There are several ways you can go about this. Pay the woman and while she is gathering your change, attempt to keep bagging the items. Or, you can continue bagging and pay her when you are done. If you go with the latter, you will get the "German Eye"--the look that says, "You are not being efficient!"

Another option is to throw everything back in your bags or your cart and head to another area to nicely pack your items, like this lady is doing below:

Rather complicated, don't you think?