Pedestrian Life and Shopping

My bike, without a shopping basket, on a recent trip to the store.

I have become a pedestrian again. It's kind of neat to walk and bike everywhere; it feels healthy. At the beginning I thought I was losing weight because of it, but then I started to eat more.
It's also a pain in the butt. Grocery shopping is done one backpack full at a time. Those water and wine bottles are heavy. I Guess I have to switch to tap water ;-) I bought a carafe with a built in water filter that turns the chlorinated, not-so-good tap water into something that I can drink. No solution in sight for the liquid relaxation therapy.
In all seriousness, shopping becomes much more challenging. You have to plan ahead when to buy toilet paper (light, but bulky), tomato sauce jars (heavy, small enough to overload a bag), and bread and cookies (take up valuable volume, and get easily crushed). For big trips, like today where I needed to refill my fridge and wanted to buy a vacuum cleaner, even more planing is needed: Go to the appliance store and figure out which model I want. Over to the grocery store and fill the backpack. Return to the appliance store, and then head over to the bus station and hope I read the time table correctly.
Weather is also a factor. I took the sunny picture above five minutes after I came out of a store and unexpectedly found these conditions:

While waiting for the rain to stop, I was thinking of adding a basket and cannopy to my bike! Things worked out on that trip, but I had others where I "failed".
There is an Ikea in Dublin, near the airport. They sell cheap to medium-prized furniture and other household items. I needed a shower curtain and rod, a shelving unit, and a few other things. To get there, I could take the bus into town and then another out to Ikea. But there is one that leaves from here, winds its way through the suburbs, and ends up near Ikea. It takes almost as long as the two-bus trip, travels only every hour and a half, but is more convenient.
I studied the map and the time tables to figure out how to do this and how long I would have in the store to make it back for the return bus. Otherwise it would be a 1.5 hour wait.
Things started to go wrong early. I used the Dublin bus planer to figure out which bus to take and what times it operated. What I didn't think of, was that the bus would continue after my stop. The trip planer map showed the route ending at my stop, but of course that was for my benefit, to highlight my journey from beginning to end; not the complete route of the bus.
So, I got off too late and had no clue which of the previous stations was the one I should have gotten off. Walking to Ikea took for ever because my cell phone showed me roads and paths that were there, but in real life had fences going across them. This is an industrial area near the airport with large fenced lots and large buildings that hide other buildings and dead-ends behind them.
I finally got to Ikea and made up lost time by being an efficient shopper. Color and shape choices can be made much quicker when you know that if you miss the bus, you'll be sitting around for 1.5 hours.
The shelfing unit I bought was rather large, but I wisely chose one that was not too heavy. At Ikea everything (well, at least the furniture) comes disassembled. Their assembly instructions are completely pictorial. One version for the whole world. You can see examples on their web page. The box with the shleving unit inside was about six feet long, but otherwise small enough that I could sort of hold it under one arm.
Then I had a large bag with all the other stuff in my other hand. I didn't get far until it all became too heavy and I had to stop and switch hands. And then again. And again.
After a while I figured out that I could put the large box on my shoulder and balance it with one arm. That way I could walk longer before I needed another break. Did I mention that the weather had to be taken into account when shopping around here as a pedestrian? There was wind. And the box exposed quite a surface to the wind; especially higher up on my shoulder. Not only did that thing get heavier and heavier, now it was also pushing me all over the sidewalk.
Since I had gotten off at the wrong bus stop, I didn't know where the closest station was or how to get there. I had planed to just walk back where I did get off, to play it save. Because of the frequent stops to redistribute the weight and catch my breath, this took much longer than anticipated, and of course I missed my bus.
Taxis are everywhere in Dublin. Especially near bus stations because they know that the Dublin bus drivers hate passengers. The stranded ones wave down a taxi. It was a little bit more difficult for me with my six-foot box, but I finally saw a taxi-van and got his attention. Fifteen minutes and twenty Euros later I was back home with my hard-earned purchases. Next time I'll be less chintzy and plan for the taxi ride home from the start.

I am beginning to learn which store chains sell what and where they are. Especially the grocery stores are completely unfamiliar to me. There are several German chains that have themselves established here and it is kind of funny to see things labeled in German with Irish-English translations next to them. Around where I live, there are several stores to choose from. Some excel through their proximity, others through their bread, and another for their Simply Better Luxury Muesli! More careful planing necessary to figure out which store to visit on what trip.

This is really good!

Although there are many brands available that are the same, or at least similar to what I'm used to from the US, there are new things to learn in that area as well. Most of it is pretty straight forward. You buy one. If you like it you go for more, and if not you try to remember the brand and avoid it in the future. Ireland is not exotic, so for most things that is not difficult, but there are few surprises.
Once in a while I do stumble across something that I haven't seen before. For example, these mansize Kleenex tissues:

Of course I bought some, being a man and all. The regular (womansize? ;-) ones are the ones we have in the States, except they are thicker here.