One of the joys of being back home was frequenting the American grocery store. My parents went to Publix which I suppose is the Waitrose or Sainsbury’s of Florida. However, I could not help but loving the Winn Dixie just down the road – literally only 5 blocks away (within a comfortable walking distance but my mother gasped when I said I wanted to walk there) – huge and full of the American goodies I’ve missed and craved over the years. It was so much fun. The kids loved it and were amazed at the size of the aisles and range of flavours/options for each product. It was so hard to not buy stuff! I mean I did buy stuff to bring home, but only 1% of what I actually wanted to buy.
Because we decided not to do the meal plan at Disney, I wanted to get some snacks and breakfast type foods and fruit to hold us for the 3 days in between our main meals. My kids can go through a bag of apples in one evening and a pack of cookies in a day so I wanted to make sure we had enough food. So I got 3 or 4 packs of everything just to be on the safe side. It was mostly ‘junk’ food and I thought, what the hell – we are on holiday! However, I forgot how large American packs are compared to English packs. They contain double, sometimes triple the amount of food in them. I was shopping like we were in an English shop! As I tried to ignore the look of horror on my Dad’s face and the rolling of my husband’s eyes, I carried on thinking we might actually not have enough so grabbed another few bags of apples here and another pack of cookies there. In the end I spent $180 on snack food for 3 days! The kids were so sick of snack crackers and cookies by the end of the second day that we came back with a suitcase full of uneaten food and at least 3 unopened bags of apples. I learned my lesson and will forever be made fun of by my children for feeding them a zillion packs of snack crackers and trillions of mini bagels and oatmeal pies within a 72 hour period. Lord only knows what my parents thought. But seriously, I really do miss the American grocery store and was in 7th heaven at the Winn Dixie.
If you like this blog, then buy Bringing Up Brits BUY HERE or buy from AMAZON.
