Week 37

 

Week 37 was good! Every day goes by usually, and routines keep me busy. So time passes faster than I thought. I can't believe I've already been in the US for a month. Since nothing special happened during the week, I thought I could cover the differences between Finnish and American Supermarkets. 

American supermarkets are roughly the same size as in Finland. However, supermarkets here also sell more than just food, which did not come as a surprise. The first significant difference when entering the store is the fruit and vegetable shelves size difference to Finland. The vegetable and fruit shelfs in Finnish supermarkets are significantly biger and more versatile. In Finland, the products are not already packed in plastic; most of the products are picked by the customer himself, weighed, and packed in a paper or plastic bag. Also in Finland, you have to weigh almost all fruits and vegetables yourself, which you don't have to do here in the United States. 

Another big difference is the package sizes. It's definitely not a lie that everything is bigger in the United States. It feels like everything from a soft drink bottle to a chicken breast fillet is bigger. There are no standard packages. It's funny to see, for example, how milk or potato chips are sold here in huge packaging. I will raise the differences between the bread shelves as a third difference. 

In Finland, we have significantly more types of bread. There is root bread, rye bread, oat bread, wheat bread, etc. There are a lot of different varieties. In the US, I can only find traditional toast made from wheat. I'm sure there are other options, but this is the only one I found. 

After all, Finnish and American grocery stores are surprisingly similar. The most significant difference is that Finnish grocery stores are much more versatile in their product selection. However, in the US I've only been to two different grocery stores, Walmart and the community market, so it's still a bit challenging to make a comparison.