Billa

There is one chain grocery store here. It is called Billa. I have a few problems with Billa.

I can only buy food at Billa. There is a separate chain called Bipa for all bathroom stuff (shampoo, diapers, tampons, nail polish etc.). The Austrians are very proud of the fact that I can’t buy bread and hair spray at the same place. They are snobby about that; they are not Americans with our Walmart and Costco crap. HOWEVER, Billa and Bipa are owned by the same company. And Billa and Bipa are usually next to one another, like Cafe Rio and Panda Express. So they really do have a super grocery store, even though they claim not too.

Billa closes at 6. That is the biggest pain ever. If I want to go grocery shopping, I have to order my whole day around it. It is so inefficient. I have gone to a gas station to get food multiple times because the Billa was closed.

Billa has a stupid system for buying fruit. I pay for the weight of the fruit (like in America, no big deal). But they poorly label how much each fruit weighs. And it is in German. Which wouldn’t be that big a deal except for their payment system. I have to weigh the food, select what kind it is, and then a computer prints off a little barcode, which the cashier scans when I checkout. So I’ve gotten the barcode things mixed up many times and the cashiers aren’t happy about it.

I have to pay for the plastic bags; 35 cents per bag. I feel like if I spend over 10 Euros I am entitled to a free plastic bag, but Billa disagrees. So I end up just filling my backpack with my groceries and something always gets smashed or explodes.

Because there are no free bags, there are no baggers. So the cashier just throws my groceries down the belt where there is a circular dish that my groceries sit in. But the dish isn’t big enough for my groceries and the person behind me in line’s. So I am always scrambling to put my change away and get my groceries in my backpack before the person behind me’s groceries get thrown into the dish. I never succeed and yesterday, while I was hurrying and throwing things into my backpack, I accidently picked up and put in a tiny bottle of some sort of alcohol. (don’t worry, the guy whose it was realized I’d picked it up and got it back).