trauma

Grocery shopping in spain proved to be much harder than i anticipated.
0.5) no decent super markets close to me the nearest one is 1 metro stop away. not too bad.
1) finding a decent grocery store that would have all the ingredients i need is difficult because there arent MANY super markets
2) some super markets were closed at 3 on a saturday when i went searching for one.
3) i cant pick my own f***ing produce!
4) they have small lemons
5) and onions that can only be bought in pre-bagged large quantities, unless you want to buy a sweet onion, then you can buy them individually. what i want to know is: wtf is a sweet onion?
6) they didnt have the small skinny eggplants, just the big fat black ones, (so i hope that will still work with my khoreshte bademjoon mom...if not then i need a recipe for something that calls for the big black eggplants)
7) im pretty sure they dont have basmati rice here. so i just bought long white rice...
8) the grocery store isles dont have the giant sign that says what is in each isle, so you either have to just go up and down everyone or peer down and isle and decide if it looks like it has what youre looking for.

i'm questioning the wisdom behind my decision to begin developing my cooking skills in a country that i am still not THAT familiar with, and that has a difficult grocery shopping culture.

so, tonight i'm going to to go a potluck and then do cooking tomorrow...with non basmati rice, small lemons, sweet onions, and black eggplants... on the bright side, i did manage to find tomato paste and turmeric.