One of the interesting things to do once you arrived in any foreign country is to go shopping for food at a local supermarket. Isn’t it fun to learn about that other countries’ inhabitants by looking at the foodstuffs they prefer and how the product is presented? Supermarket chains all over the world are competing hard to give shoppers a better food-shopping experience - nowadays, even the British are able to buy their foodstuffs at super-modern supermarkets that look like clothing boutiques. Ahh, the benefits of the free market.

Halt. Not so fast, Auslander. In order to blend in with the Germans, you will have to completely reconsider whatever you enjoyed about shopping. The problem of shopping for food in Germany while keeping your self-respect arises from the mercantile challenge to sell food to a nation of people who, in fact, hate little else more than, well, food. Being clever businessmen, German supermarket owners figured out a way to attract Germans to their stores. Oops, make that “ramshackle food sheds”.

When shopping for food the German way, you are left with the choice between Aldi and Lidl. If you have never been to one of either, here’s what you need to know: Aldi and Lidl (for brevity’s sake, from now on called “Aldidl”) are basically a crossover between a feverishly built, post-catastrophy food shed sponsored by the Unesco, and a waste dump. Aldidl’s interior design mainly consists of old, dirty metal shelves, palettes of boxes waiting to be unpacked, and huge bargain bins that look like the “goods” were dumped into them from a helicopter. All this is illuminated by flickering fluorescent lamps that give the place the aura of a lab conducting animal experiments. The staff, if you can find them, isn’t there for customer service, but solely to sit around at a cash register that’s not open for service for some reason, refill the shelves, or wander around and mutter insults like a creepy guy on the subway would do. All in all, it’s a place so bleak and depressing that even the Zombies from 28 Days Later would be to classy to shop at. How bad is Aldidl? It’s so bad that even Wal-Mart was out-nastied by it and stopped competing on the German market, retreating with a disgusted look on its face.

Approaching an Aldidl via the parking lot, you will instantly notice the high number of German luxury cars. Because of the interesting phenomenon that German people will do anything for a bargain, it has become popular even for rich Germans to shop at Aldidl. A common sight in Germany is a 50-something dyed-blonde woman, clad in a long fur coat, loading boxes of Aldidl sparkling wine into the trunk of her Porsche. A famous German proverb is “Buying your food at Aldidl can buy you a pretty nice car!”, and many Germans opt to live that dream.

When you ask a German person why he likes to go to Aldidl, he or she will give you a surprised look and say “because they have the exact same product as other supermarkets, only in another packaging!”. As German people are always eager to 1-up others on bargains, they will happily buy whatever is on sale that week, needed or not. Then they will drive back to their house via the Autobahn at 120 mph, burning 3 times the amount they saved on gasoline. Back home, they will compose a bunch of text messages on their “Handy’s” at 25 cents a piece, bragging to their friends about the great bargains they found again at Aldidl.

Interestingly enough, Aldidl isn’t only loved by the “wrong type of German”, but also by the type of German who usually only buys organic. As organic groceries and crates of Bionade can put quite a strain on any freelance graphic designer’s/techno producer’s/upcoming couturier’s budget, there’s no way to buy all the stuff needed at an expensive health food store, so Aldidl comes in handy. Basically, nowadays Aldidl is the only place where Germans can feel some kind of unity with their fellow citizens.

So what is the take-away for you? To make your life in Germany easier and earn the respect of your German acquaintances, you should try to live the Aldidl lifestyle as well. If the prospect of a nice new Porsche isn’t good enough for you, and you sometimes feel the urge to shop at one of the few nicer supermarkets in Germany, it is probably a good idea to come prepared. First of all, bring some empty bags from Aldi or Lidl with you. On the way back you might run into a German acquaintance, and being seen with a bag from a “schicki-micki” supermarket could very well forever change that German person’s perception of you from “crazy but nice foreigner” to “snobby imperialist who’s really bad with money”. So, pack the goods of that nice supermarket into your Aldidl bags. For extra safety, you could bring some well-known Aldidl products and put those on top of the stuff you just bought. Your German acquaintance will likely want to check exactly what you bought and how much you paid for it, so to not be caught with your pants down, hand him some really cheap Aldi Mayonnaise, and say “this tastes just as well as the expensive one, but at half the price!”

If you fumbled the ball and are caught buying at a posh supermarket, the only way to save the day is to say “Dude, I was so smashed from that 5-day techno party I just came home from plus my bicycle was stolen so I couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way to Aldidl. But I only bought a few things and will be doing my normal Aldidl schedule once I am back on track!”. This way you will not only be able to make that German person feel empathic towards you (the stolen bike), but also reinforce their zany, quirky image of you being special while not straying off the norm too far.