Life in Germany - Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping has been one of the more challenging aspects of life in Germany.  At first, I would make a list and hope for the best, but learned quickly this wasn't the best strategy after mistakenly buying tomato paste instead of tomato sauce for chili - yuck!  Even something as seemly simple as buying cheddar cheese went wrong since the name for "cheddar" in German is "Gouda".  So now, I make a list, look up all the words in a dictionary and then go grocery shopping.  This strategy works better but is time consuming.

Complicating matters is that I have a gluten allergy so I have to read all the labels (in German) on the lookout for gluten (in German of course).  It's a good thing I have a month before German school starts since my new life in Germany entails an average of an hour a day grocery shopping - everyday since our fridge is tiny (think small bar fridge).  Now I'm off to study German food vocabulary to make life in Germany easier. 

Life in Germany -Grocery shopping  photo courtesy of:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/washingtonydc/3550416296/