Shop till you Drop!

Even though this native of Texas has now been living in Regensburg for three years, some things still manage to surprise her.

Regensburg is so plentiful in history, culture, leisure activities, nature, nightlife, and my goodness I can’t say the same for shopping! That is a whole other story in itself. I’m not a shopping fan to begin with, but in Regensburg, I really do shop till I drop, from pure frustration!

I love the fact that there isn’t Wal-Mart in Regensburg. The last thing this city needs is to have some big coporate mogul buy out all the mom’s and pop’s shops in the city. But if the plan is to do some shopping on the weekend... GO EARLY! You’d never believe how fast everyone is, flying down the streets with their woven baskets,trying to beat you there or buy something before you do.

If your store runs out of the product your looking for? Then that’s it! It’s over! And there’s not another store in a hundred miles that will have what your looking for! There’s no such thing as “more in stock”. In America, I am used to hearing “Oh, we ran out? Let me check to see if we have more in the back” If one even thinks about asking here, the employees look at you as if you’ve gone mad and say, “If you don’t see it there, then we don’t have any!” I eventually stopped asking.

In the U.S., there is an abundance of stores that offer high quality clothing at a low price. In Regensburg, I can’t find a middle. I either shop at the inexpensive stores where all the university girls shop, only to discover 4 other girls in the city are wearing the same shirt as I am. Or I shop at an overpriced shoe store to get “The Best Quality”, but the shoes that I buy end up falling apart so I use UHU to glue the sole back on.

I thought I got out like a bandit when I found cool stuff at IKEA at a reasonable price. But then I went to my friends house and it was like this, “Oh! You have the same bed spread? Yeah, I have the same pictures. Check out my lamps, you like them? There mustn’t be any variety if everyone in Regensburg has those round Chinese paper-looking lamps … whatever their called.

As for now, all my shopping is done in the U.S. I welcome anyone who could advise me on how and where to shop in Regensburg, but until then I’ll just stick to spending my money on beer and curry wurst.

29.05.09 - online redaktion