Shopping in Italy

This entry will make everyone happy because everyone I spoke with before moving wants to go shopping in Italy and buy Italian shoes!  On Friday night, we went to dinner with three other couples and the wives were all planning a shopping trip to the local mall for Saturday.  This is not something that appealed to me at all and I gave the “Let me check” answer.  I thought about it that night and the next morning, I decided I would go.  I need to make friends and get to know people.  I need to eventually try to shop.  I need to have more than two hours away from my child.  All of these points suggested that I just do it.  Matt would be able to watch the baby and after many painstaking episodes of pumping often times accompanied by tears, he had several bottles to give the baby if we were gone for a long time.  Everyone was meeting at 10:00 so I figured we would be back by 14:00.  I fed the baby right before we left, kissed the baby and Matt and told him thank you.  I packed snacks in my purse *I actually got to carry the new purse I got for Christmas instead of the diaper bag!

I should have realized it would be longer than I anticipated and stayed home when I heard one of the ladies sharing her lists of things she wanted to find.  They were all things I probably want too-new winter coat, Italian boots, change purse for my euro coins.  We arrived to the mall and it was fairly crowded, at least we thought it was!  The parking lots are very entertaining because the spaces are small and the lots are usually very large but there will also be at least one or two SMART cars that are squeezed on the sidewalk.  Italians will often make their own parking spaces in the weirdest spots!  The mall is pretty much like most indoor American malls: two stories, food court, nice area between stores to walk, lots of stores!  There were LOTS of people.  The parking lot didn’t look that full but there were people everywhere.  I think we went on a day that was like a Black Friday because every single store was having SALDI.  And every store seemed to have a small collection of coats.  I think coats are a very big deal in Italy.  Most people had on a nice big puffy coat and were looking to buy several more coats.  My only question is where do they put all the coats?  None of the houses have closets and coats would take up a lot of space in wardrobes and most of the rooms in houses are not large.  I can’t wait to make friends with an Italian who will let me look through the house to see where everything is stored!

As the day went on, the mall became more and more crowded.  While shopping, I noticed that I am not going to have much luck with shopping here, at least for several months.  The largest size in most stores was a large (I only looked at tops; I was not prepared to try out the European pant sizes).  And for the knee high boots which are everywhere, they are not geared for people with big calves like I have.  I think I found about three pairs that had any stretch in the calf region but they were all 90 euro.  I am sure I will eventually spend that money on a nice pair but I was not mental ready! So I need to continue on my baby fat shedding process before I buy my Italian clothing!  Although all the stores had smaller sizes, there are big women in Italy so there will be clothes somewhere…but the secret is finding out where the larger women shop!  I can’t imagine trying to find maternity clothes here!  It was hard enough to find the maternity clothes in California where I spoke the language and knew what stores should typically have them!

We stopped to refuel and I am not sure I have ever since a more crowded food court.  Every restaurant had a line with at least 15 people in it!  And the seating in the food court was very crowded and smaller than the typical American food court.  So we found a little restaurant with tables and waited for about 15 minutes to be seated.  While we waited, I saw for the first time EVER a Mars Bar!!  I was so excited and the other girls sort of looked at me like I was nuts.  It’s hard to explain the running joke Matt and I have about the Mars bar without sounding strange. So I made my first and only purchase of the day…a surcie for Matt.  (A surcie is a word I got from one of my old roommates, it’s a present and a surprise all wrapped into one.  There is no reason for the surcie other than you saw it and thought of the other person and wanted to make them smile.)  After lunch, we focused our search more on coats and boots.  There is a shoe store called Scarpe & Scarpe which reminded me of DSW.  I know that my sister in law will want to go here when she comes to visit!  There were rows and rows of shoes.  Kim was able to find two pairs, both of which were on SALDI!!  After the shoe store, I had to be the party pooper and request we return home to my baby.  It had been 5.5 hours.  The girls were all very nice about it even though they were disappointed about not going to the outlets. 

Things I learned while shopping:  wearing rollerblades in the stores is perfectly acceptable (not Heelies, rollerblades!), bringing your dog to the mall is okay (I thought this was only okay in California!!), the Italians are brilliant by combining escalators and people movers into one, this makes shopping with a stroller much easier, Italians like to use shopping carts everywhere, not just the grocery store. American stores are everywhere.  I thought I was getting away from Abercrombie & Fitch but oh no-there is a Hollister here.  And footlocker, Champion, Adidas, Nike. 

To make the weekend all about shopping, Matt and I decided to try the Auschan on Sunday.  We were told this was a Sam’s or maybe a Walmart style store.  I personally think Sam’s and Walmart are too very different types of stores so I was not sure what to expect at all.  It turns out that the Auschan is a BIG grocery store more along the lines of SuperWalmart than Sam’s.  But it is attached to a mall.  So you can shop for everything you need all at once.  We spent a few hours wandering the mall and the Auschan.  I think this is probably the first time I have spent over an hour in a grocery store without purchasing anything!  My brother in law will want to come back here for sure! It was really neat to look at the different products and compare to the commissary and to America!  For example, we looked at the diapers.  The sizes are slightly different.  The baby is currently in size 2 but according to the packages, she would have to be size 3 here.  A box of 192 size 2 Pampers were on SALDI for 42,90 from 70,90 ($54 from $90).  That is 46 cents a diaper.  SERIOUSLY!!!  I thought 16 cents a diaper I got from the commissary with a coupon was a lot.  Another difference is the giant box of Pampers comes with a robe.  I haven’t seen that in America.  What is the youngest you can potty train a baby??  Do they have to be able to roll over first?