A Tale of Two Can Openers

Finding stuff to buy #1

The beans in a can here seem most reluctant to leave their home. We decided to buy a can opener - maybe making an air hole on the opposite end will encourage them to explore new territory.

The winner is on the left. The first try with the badly designed handles is on the right.

Since we don’t plan on using this can opener regularly (how often does one make hummus/bean salad/chili?), we grabbed one at a Loja Chinese. Why are they called that? Generally, they are owned and/or staffed by people of Asian ancestry. Before coming we’d read everyone raving about Lojas Chinese. We had one not far from our first apartment and visited frequently when stocking up. They are like dollar stores, except not. Most items costs from 1€ to 5€ ish. Items are crammed together, stacked from floor to ceiling, from clothing to garden supplies to kitchen to bathroom cleanser to yarn. You need it, it’s there. Megastore, the closest Loja Chinese, had office supplies, yarn, clothing, kitchen, bathroom, hardware, cleaning products, Carnival costumes…. all for insanely cheap prices.

We grabbed a random can opener and crossed one thing off the to-do list. Yes! A surprisingly long period of time later, we went to use it. See the molded ends of the plastic handles? Yeah. Those keep the cutter from making contact. We find a can opener that doesn’t open cans to be not quite as effective as we’d wished.

Can opener #2 was from the Big Continente. The little Continentes are called Continente Bom Dia - isn’t that cute? Those are scattered are in the busier areas of the city - the mall gets the Big Continente. It’s standard here for a large grocery store to anchor a mall. The Big Continente is kinda like a super Walmart that has a grocery. Except instead of it being a small amount grocery and the rest of the store other stuff, it’s the other way around: Massive Grocery Store, plus some clothes and housewares. Back to the can opener. It works great.

But with the amount we spent on can openers #1 and #2, we could have bought one of the fancy can openers on Amazon. Oh, not Amazon.com in the US. Sure, we can still buy from there, but it’s gonna cost extra because there’s VAT and shipping to pay for. VAT? Oh, that’s like customs and taxes and whatnot. Customs is not something you want to mess with lightly. We try to keep our purchasing within any of the EU countries, because then we don’t have to pay the customs fees. Or have it get hung up in transit for months. Amazon Germany (amazon.de) has possibly the most options, but our Prime account is with Amazon Spain (amazon.es).

All this leads to the discussion we’ve been meaning to have:

Finding stuff is hard here.

When we first arrived, we had nothing. No sheets, towels, kitchen stuff, nothing. What we needed was a Super Walmart. That Behemoth having, thankfully, not yet taken over here, we were at a loss. We weren’t yet up on how to get around: If we could get there by walking, then we were good to go.

The first place we tried was a nearby mall.

1. There are malls in a city? Who knew?

2. The walk to the only mall we can reach with our feet, Amoreiras, is graced by Jardim das Amoreiras / Jardim Marcelino Mesquita, one of the most beautiful parks in Lisbon.

3. Unfortunately this mall is a tad more on the fancy side.

Where to rest to and from Amoreiras Mall

When we had a hard time finding what we needed at Snooty Mall, the next suggestion was El Cortes Inglês. It’s a department store on scary steroids. Its 200 departments are housed in its nine floors. Fortunately they do this nifty thing. The first person you see hooks you up with a brochure of bar codes. Every time you walk into a department, someone must be scanning to see if you have the brochure, because they present themselves and help you out. You pick out what you want, hand over the bar codes, and they take the goods and bar codes from there. At the end, you pay and wait for your stuff to be delivered to you, either there and then or at home. It’s pretty sweet. Oh, they’ll keep you fed (a full floor of food and scattered restaurants besides) and entertained (on-site movie theater). But we’re not talking Walmart prices here. If I’m buying a stapler, a bland, ordinary stapler will do fine. 36.95€ was the one I found in the store. We bought a lot of stuff, most of which we still have. Some of it worked out well. Others didn’t. The dishes crackled and turned color. Not what you expect when you are shopping at what to me feels to be an upscale place.

Which is how we discovered Megastore, which boasts a particularly robust kitchen department - and that was our main need from them. The best quality, no, but if you don’t want to spend a bundle, they’re your store.

Learning how to use the Metro system was a complete game changer. Sure, now specialty shops (ok, board game stores) were within reach. Really, though, it was Colombo Mall that did it for us. A straight shot up the blue metro line, with not much travel walking, it also boasts the Big Continente. A fabulous place to build your pantry from scratch (we brought over some spices: Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt we figured we wouldn’t find here).

The mall also boasts a Gato Preto, the store designed to suck in those who would rather shop for their house than their clothes. I could shop all day in there. My Christmas lights have come from there (on a steep, steep sale) and recently these answered our call for pasta/chili bowls.

We now feel much more comfortable with purchasing things¹. Panic over where to find this or that are not at all infrequent, and I can foresee them in my future for a good, long while. It’s ironic that the woman who hates shopping has and will continue to spend a much larger percentage of time shopping. But at least while doing so my view looks like this:

That’s it for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Amy

1. Clothes and food items will be dealt with separately.