Friday, Paul was able to get out of work at the extra early time of 4:30pm! We had some grocery shopping to do, and a few other things to look for, and ended up trying out a new-to-us store. Auchan, who’s symbol is a red bird, is the WalMart of Italy! It took I don’t know how many years of looking, but Paul found one! They exist! This place was huge, and had a little bit of everything. Pharmacy, car tires, clothes, food, home repair! FYI…these are all Google pictures I found. It’s easier to explain the shopping carts with close ups!

So. Not only are reusable grocery bags the absolute must here (you can buy plastic bags at the register for like, a quarter each), but most people also use the little baskets to shop. They have wheels and handles that telescope up, but they are still tiny baskets. You *can* get a shopping cart, but you have to rent it. Below, you can see all the carts chained up together. That is the norm everywhere here. And most European countries, I found during my research.

So, you put a coin (usually a 1 or 2 euro coin) into the slot at the front. The coin pushes the chain key out the back, releasing the cart. The coin is trapped inside the cart until you push it back into the next cart and push the chain key back in. That pushes the coin back out for you to grab.

It’s pretty basic, some spring mechanism inside the little box on the handle. A coin and a key pushing back and forth. But this way, nobody steals the carts, runs off with them, leaves them out to roll into your car, etc. They actually have key fobs here, that are shaped like a round coin on the end, to sort of trick the lock box. They resemble those lottery scratcher key fobs you see at grandma’s house. Plus, your keys are then locked to the cart, so you can’t run off without replacing the cart #BecauseKeys. So, that was our Friday adventure. We actually got a cart, for the first time ever, and it was a good thing, because remember…this store had everything!