Bill and I decided to visit our local Globus today. For those who don’t know, Globus is an enormous store– a hypermarket to end all hypermarkets. We didn’t have them near Stuttgart, but they’re elsewhere in Germany and we have one a few miles from our house. I used to think the Real, which was once German Walmart, was huge. Globus puts the Real to shame… or, at least it puts the one we had in Jettingen to shame.
I don’t like going to huge stores, so this was only my second or third time at our Globus. We went there to restock our liquor supply and pick up a few other things. Also, I wanted to see how crazy things were after people were advised to “social distance” because of the Coronavirus. Here are some photos from our trip…
Collecting for a cat rescue… 
I deposited two euros. 
Easter is coming. 
The first thing we knew… 
We were tasting gin made locally… 
Mannheim and Heidelberg. Salesman spoke English. We bought two bottles. 
Bill got whisky… 
But no toilet paper… 
And not much tissue was available. 
The toilet paper was picked clean. 
So were some baking staples. 
Luckily, “This is Food”. 
And there was cake. 
And salami cut into teddy bear shapes. 
And bags of cheese. 
And condoms and Wunderbaums made on the Swiss border… 
And cigarettes with morbid warnings and gross photos that cover the whole pack.
We ended up having an impromptu gin tasting in the liquor section. A guy was hawking Upstairs Gin, which comes from Heidelberg. They had a few varieties. We tried two, and bought bottles of each. The guy spoke excellent English and was taking care of us and a German couple, who said they could speak English… to which Bill told them in German that we speak a little German, too. It occurred to me that this would never happen in the United States. A lot of states don’t allow liquor to be sold in grocery stores and/or require it to be sold in a government controlled store. It depends on where you are. In South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, we had liquor stores. In Virginia and North Carolina, we had “ABC” stores run by the state government. Or, of course, we could shop on military installations or online. But there we were, tasting gin at a huge store that sells everything but toilet paper… at least when there’s a virus running amok. Gin is all the rage in Germany these days. They’ve got some good ones.
After we went to Globus, we decided to have lunch. It had been some time since our last visit to Spirit of New Orleans, our local Cajun restaurant run by an Army veteran named John and his wife. We’ve been there a few times, since it’s located very close to where we live. Last time we were there to eat in, John was having kind of a bad day. But he was in a good mood today. I had barbecued ribs and Bill had fried shrimp. It was all delicious, even if I did need a good flossing afterwards…
We got stuck behind this annoying vehicle on the way there. 
Bill decides on lunch. 
And here it is… lots of ribs, shrimp, and… 
slaw. I don’t usually eat a lot of slaw because cabbage makes me fart like a racehorse. But John’s slaw is very good. 
Bill had espresso while I had beer and we waited on an order of wings to go. John’s restaurant is the only one we go to where we take stuff to go.
Today’s visit to Spirit of New Orleans was fortuitous, because as we were finishing up, another American came in. His name is Ernie and he works in the area. It turned out he and Bill both took advantage of the National Defense University’s cybersecurity program and graduated during the same year. So we were chatting, having a great time. Ernie says he’ll be moving back to the States soon, but not as soon as he planned, because the government has frozen everyone for the next 60 days. Coronavirus has put a hitch in a lot of plans… and is making finding toilet paper quite a project.
It was great to see John again, and have some Cajun food. The ribs were spicy and wet, and really hit the spot. The fried shrimp were also good. And John even brought out what he called moonshine, which he gave to me in a glass he says his mother in law made for him. Whether it was shine or Schnapps, it lit me up! Between the liquor tasting at the grocery store and the house shot at lunchtime, I’ve definitely enjoyed a midday repast I never could in the United States. Total bill for us was about 55 euros… not bad, considering that we also took wings to go.
After lunch, we went to the Lidl, because Bill wants to make a Guinness Cake and needed some cream cheese. Globus is humongous, but they were out of plain cream cheese. All they had was flavored. Luckily, Lidl had what we needed. We got our cream cheese and some Gruyere… but I couldn’t help but notice that like the Globus, the pickings were slim. Check out these photos!
If you like vegan burgers, you’re in luck… otherwise, forget making burgers. 
They had lots of cheese. 
But curiously, frozen pizza was out at the Lidl and the Globus. Hell… why not just make it from scratch? 
And no toilet paper or paper towels!
After we got our cheese, we went to the drink market to turn in our empty beer crate and pick up some more… as well as some Guinness for the cake.
More fun German advertising… 
This ain’t Heinrich’s 3000 in Ludwigsburg, that’s for sure. 
But they do have a tiny craft beer section… TINY… as in four Brooklyn Lagers that someone probably got at Five Guys. 
More gruesome cigarette warnings.
This was the first time I’d been out of the neighborhood in awhile, so today was kind of fun. I’m hoping that when the weather turns permanently nice, we’ll start doing the fun stuff we did two years ago, before we had to move and things got weird in Wiesbaden. That is, of course, if neither Bill nor I get deathly sick from Coronavirus…
I don’t understand the toilet paper hoarding. I think Rewe still had some on Friday, but the two markets we went to today were completely out. I don’t understand why toilet paper is so important now. People have lost their damned minds.
Bill will probably do some teleworking next week. That suits me fine. I’ve missed him, so having him at home will be great.
I suspect that if this toilet paper shortage continues, people won’t have to be encouraged to “social distance”. The smell will keep people apart. Maybe it’s time to buy a Bum Gun.
