Disclaimer: the following are the writings, ramblings, grammatical errorings, and observations of one educational intern (me) living overseas (Middle East) for a semester. Some are intended to incite laughter, others are meant to be informative and still some are intended to be completely random. All are written by me, mostly thought out, often contain specific details about weird things and are completely sincere. Feel free to leave comments and questions. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing.
And lo and behold, the promised City Centre/Carrefour episode. Short and sweet here folks, no introduction necessary. Enjoy the latest ramblings.
City Centre mall is EXACTLY like you would picture a western mall, although newer looking and sparkly clean. If you’re familiar with Calgary area think Southcentre or possibly a bit lesser Chinook mall (back in the day Chinook, before they took a wrecking ball to the old entrance way and gave the entire thing a facelift). Lethbridgians think Park Place, but grander. Edmonton people… well I don’t like your city, but LOVE you and thanks for reading! Grandma and anyone reading in southern Ontario think your regular mall with a cinema, American eagle, LA Senza (not a mistake… legit) and Samsung stores, SEARS on one end, The Bay on the other. Tip Top tailors, Sportcheks… everything is here and accounted for, and even more so in Muscat Grand Mall about twenty five minutes away. Of course most are under a different name like “Sun Sports wear” or something like that. But for every name change there is a handful of The Gap or H & M that are the same. Neat huh? Anyways… Carrefour.
Carrefour is basically a Wal-Mart, and my personal favourite spot to hit up for the bi-weekly grocery run. Prices are fair, the layout natural for a westerner and the people watching EXQUISTE. I like getting my fresh things there and so I stock up on apples, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers… you get the idea. The first time we went to the store I was finally done shopping and went up to the till with all my fresh items in their little bags, just like I would at home, thoroughly satisfied with my attempt to operate on a budget and stay healthy.
This seems like a nice time to tell the reader back home, or anywhere in the world that is not here, some of the interesting things about shopping here. Almost everything is the same, save for some differences.
1. Granola bars are a fairly extinct natural species. Seriously… it is really difficult for a guy to find a half decent granola bar to put in his lunch. Carrefour is the only place that I have found them consistently and they are the good ones. Nature Valley bars… big fan.
2. Water is crazy cheap here. I can buy a six litre jug of water for 500 beiza, or about $2 dollars Canadian. In most stores a 1 litre bottle of water costs no more than 200 or 300 beiza, $1 Canadian. Of course we aren’t really supposed to drink the tap water in this country as opposed to at home…. So I’m sure it kind of balances out.
3. Lunch meat is sort of weird here. Chicken breast is easy enough to find, but there is obviously a lack of real person ham (a staple of mine as a kid growing up) and much of it is not as fresh as a guy would have back at home.
4. Ground beef is suspiciously difficult to find as well. This one I am not as sure as to why it is so tough to find. I think one person said it was back in a corner in TSC, but I never found it. Mind you I didn’t look that hard. I did what I have come to dub the “man look”.
(Sidenote: The “man look” is another term that I have coined. Ladies your husbands, sons, and boyfriends all do this, sadly I am also a routine victim. We open the cupboard/fridge, looking for the pickles/chips/cereal and when they do not jump out of the middle of the pantry and slap us in the face, we announce, quite loudly, that we don’t have any more of that item.
The Cantelon males are particularly bad for this. After responding in her own frustration my mother would often come to all of our aids, move one thing and there was EXACTLY what we were looking for, behind some other item.
“Ohhhh… I never looked there.” My 12 year old self would say.
Often times it was hidden behind something smaller than our item, only adding to the shame. And every time, without fail, my mother would say the exact same thing….
“Did you even look?”
Since I know you are reading this mom I confess that about 80% of the time I DID indeed look, although I never moved anything in order to see if it was actually there. Now that I have lived on my own for a few years I know where many things are in my own home… but every time I go home to mom or dads, I’ll open up the pantry or fridge and proclaim, rather loudly, that we are out of a particular item.
“MAAAAAA! WE’RE OUT OF MILK!!!”
“Check the door”
“…. Dammit”
“Did you even look?”
So that is the “man look”, yet another gift of slang words that I bestow upon you faithful reader. Back to our regular scheduled programming.)
5. Every major grocery store has a “fresh fish” station. Now in my town in Alberta this station in Sobey’s (IGA) consists of some little fellas in fish tanks.
In Oman this station is the entire back corner of the store and HUGE fish, dead as the Calgary Flames playoff hopes for the next 5 years, laying atop small ice covered display tables. A guy could just walk up and ask for one, and then gut and skin the fish right there in behind the displays… quite the sight behind the organic food section if you ask me.
Anyways after all of this excitement let’s head to the check-out counter, after you.
The girl behind the till was wearing typical Muslim woman garb, black Abaya and head scarf, the bag boy was a younger Indian fellow. I greeted the woman in English and she responded in English, although so softly that I could barely make it out. My fresh items were located in the middle of the automatic rolling register (seriously EVERYTHING is the same in these stores people… it is a regular stop at Wal-Mart.).
She picks up the first item, we’ll say there are half a dozen apples in the bag. She picks up the bag and begins turning it over, looking for something. I didn’t think anything of it until she looked at me quizzically and said something in broken English… or maybe it was in Arabic, I have no idea. I didn’t have a response for her though and immediately started sweating (I tend to do that when presented with conflict. I would be a terrible politician, sweating like Nixon on live T.V. in the face of a fruits and vegetable debacle in an Omani Wal-Mart…).
The woman turned to the bag boy and handed him ALL of my lovely fresh produce… and like that he was gone. She went back to ringing in my items without so much as an attempt at an explanation, leaving me feeling like the kid who just had all of his toys taken away at the dinner table. I mean clearly I did SOMETHING incorrectly, but what that thing was I could not begin to describe to you.
By the time she had finished with my other items the bag boy was back, with exactly the same items he left with. He handed them to her and she rang them through. I stood there with what I am sure was a ridiculous look on my face and then paid the woman when she gave me the total. I left the store that day none the wiser.
This EXACT same situation would happen to me twice more. Only the second and third time it happened I essentially got kicked out of line and forced to wait before I learned another thing about grocery stores here…
6. Weigh all fresh items at nearest weigh station.
….. huh, whoops!
Or, as my mother would say…
“Did you even look?”
And lo and behold, the promised City Centre/Carrefour episode. Short and sweet here folks, no introduction necessary. Enjoy the latest ramblings.
City Centre mall is EXACTLY like you would picture a western mall, although newer looking and sparkly clean. If you’re familiar with Calgary area think Southcentre or possibly a bit lesser Chinook mall (back in the day Chinook, before they took a wrecking ball to the old entrance way and gave the entire thing a facelift). Lethbridgians think Park Place, but grander. Edmonton people… well I don’t like your city, but LOVE you and thanks for reading! Grandma and anyone reading in southern Ontario think your regular mall with a cinema, American eagle, LA Senza (not a mistake… legit) and Samsung stores, SEARS on one end, The Bay on the other. Tip Top tailors, Sportcheks… everything is here and accounted for, and even more so in Muscat Grand Mall about twenty five minutes away. Of course most are under a different name like “Sun Sports wear” or something like that. But for every name change there is a handful of The Gap or H & M that are the same. Neat huh? Anyways… Carrefour.
Carrefour is basically a Wal-Mart, and my personal favourite spot to hit up for the bi-weekly grocery run. Prices are fair, the layout natural for a westerner and the people watching EXQUISTE. I like getting my fresh things there and so I stock up on apples, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers… you get the idea. The first time we went to the store I was finally done shopping and went up to the till with all my fresh items in their little bags, just like I would at home, thoroughly satisfied with my attempt to operate on a budget and stay healthy.
This seems like a nice time to tell the reader back home, or anywhere in the world that is not here, some of the interesting things about shopping here. Almost everything is the same, save for some differences.
1. Granola bars are a fairly extinct natural species. Seriously… it is really difficult for a guy to find a half decent granola bar to put in his lunch. Carrefour is the only place that I have found them consistently and they are the good ones. Nature Valley bars… big fan.
2. Water is crazy cheap here. I can buy a six litre jug of water for 500 beiza, or about $2 dollars Canadian. In most stores a 1 litre bottle of water costs no more than 200 or 300 beiza, $1 Canadian. Of course we aren’t really supposed to drink the tap water in this country as opposed to at home…. So I’m sure it kind of balances out.
3. Lunch meat is sort of weird here. Chicken breast is easy enough to find, but there is obviously a lack of real person ham (a staple of mine as a kid growing up) and much of it is not as fresh as a guy would have back at home.
4. Ground beef is suspiciously difficult to find as well. This one I am not as sure as to why it is so tough to find. I think one person said it was back in a corner in TSC, but I never found it. Mind you I didn’t look that hard. I did what I have come to dub the “man look”.
(Sidenote: The “man look” is another term that I have coined. Ladies your husbands, sons, and boyfriends all do this, sadly I am also a routine victim. We open the cupboard/fridge, looking for the pickles/chips/cereal and when they do not jump out of the middle of the pantry and slap us in the face, we announce, quite loudly, that we don’t have any more of that item.
The Cantelon males are particularly bad for this. After responding in her own frustration my mother would often come to all of our aids, move one thing and there was EXACTLY what we were looking for, behind some other item.
“Ohhhh… I never looked there.” My 12 year old self would say.
Often times it was hidden behind something smaller than our item, only adding to the shame. And every time, without fail, my mother would say the exact same thing….
“Did you even look?”
Since I know you are reading this mom I confess that about 80% of the time I DID indeed look, although I never moved anything in order to see if it was actually there. Now that I have lived on my own for a few years I know where many things are in my own home… but every time I go home to mom or dads, I’ll open up the pantry or fridge and proclaim, rather loudly, that we are out of a particular item.
“MAAAAAA! WE’RE OUT OF MILK!!!”
“Check the door”
“…. Dammit”
“Did you even look?”
So that is the “man look”, yet another gift of slang words that I bestow upon you faithful reader. Back to our regular scheduled programming.)
5. Every major grocery store has a “fresh fish” station. Now in my town in Alberta this station in Sobey’s (IGA) consists of some little fellas in fish tanks.
In Oman this station is the entire back corner of the store and HUGE fish, dead as the Calgary Flames playoff hopes for the next 5 years, laying atop small ice covered display tables. A guy could just walk up and ask for one, and then gut and skin the fish right there in behind the displays… quite the sight behind the organic food section if you ask me.
Anyways after all of this excitement let’s head to the check-out counter, after you.
The girl behind the till was wearing typical Muslim woman garb, black Abaya and head scarf, the bag boy was a younger Indian fellow. I greeted the woman in English and she responded in English, although so softly that I could barely make it out. My fresh items were located in the middle of the automatic rolling register (seriously EVERYTHING is the same in these stores people… it is a regular stop at Wal-Mart.).
She picks up the first item, we’ll say there are half a dozen apples in the bag. She picks up the bag and begins turning it over, looking for something. I didn’t think anything of it until she looked at me quizzically and said something in broken English… or maybe it was in Arabic, I have no idea. I didn’t have a response for her though and immediately started sweating (I tend to do that when presented with conflict. I would be a terrible politician, sweating like Nixon on live T.V. in the face of a fruits and vegetable debacle in an Omani Wal-Mart…).
The woman turned to the bag boy and handed him ALL of my lovely fresh produce… and like that he was gone. She went back to ringing in my items without so much as an attempt at an explanation, leaving me feeling like the kid who just had all of his toys taken away at the dinner table. I mean clearly I did SOMETHING incorrectly, but what that thing was I could not begin to describe to you.
By the time she had finished with my other items the bag boy was back, with exactly the same items he left with. He handed them to her and she rang them through. I stood there with what I am sure was a ridiculous look on my face and then paid the woman when she gave me the total. I left the store that day none the wiser.
This EXACT same situation would happen to me twice more. Only the second and third time it happened I essentially got kicked out of line and forced to wait before I learned another thing about grocery stores here…
6. Weigh all fresh items at nearest weigh station.
….. huh, whoops!
Or, as my mother would say…
“Did you even look?”