When we first moved here it was really hard to adjust to ALL the stores being closed on Sunday’s.
Here’s the thing. I don’t really mind the stores being closed on Sunday’s, but the difficulty is when:
- Stores close at 6 pm on weekdays (Edeka is open until 8 pm)
- We live in a small town (it is possible that stores stay open later in bigger cities)
- We have a very small fridge and we don’t have a freezer, which makes stocking up on meals and food difficult
- Chris works until 5 or 5:30 pm everyday
- Because of the language barrier (especially the first 6 months) I didn’t want to go shopping without Chris
- We had lots of “settling” in to do – looking for housing (which involved tons of appointments), license plates, visa’s, drivers license, bank accounts, cell phones, trying to get the internet to work on our computers (total failure) – all of this took up tons of time during the week.
So that left Saturday as the ONLY day we could run any errands – diapers, groceries, etc…
- AND some stores close even earlier on Saturdays! (Noon or 2 pm)
The main problem was IMMEDIATELY when we moved here.
It was really stressful to create any kind of routine or “normal” life because there was just so much chaos and we had soooo many errands to run and only one day on the weekend to do it all in. There were many things we didn’t anticipate or predict in our temporary housing situation. We had to run out to the store often and pick random things up that we forgot or needed. Sometimes we had to go back to the same store – in the same day - because we forgot something. Things that should take people a short amount of time was taking us HOURS to accomplish.
In addition, because of our small fridge / no freezer combo and our inability to remember that the stores are closed on Sundays we found our selves without enough food for Sunday evening and Monday morning on several occasions. Combine all of this with not knowing exactly what store you need to go to find what you want (i.e. lots of inefficient shopping trips) and it is a recipe for wanting stores to be open on Sundays.
We have been here for 6 months and we are finally moving into our rental house this coming weekend. Our “settling” in errands are now mainly focused on the house and not as scattered as before. I am a little more comfortable with going to certain stores without Chris and we also know where to find some of the things we need. Sooooo I guess it isn’t as big of a deal that ALL the stores are closed on Sundays. (but my blood still runs American and I frequently wish stores were open on Sunday’s)
Now if Target would just open up a store in Germany… a girl can dream!
