Navigating the Belgian Supermarket

Before we moved here, I thought we were going to have to go to outdoor markets all the time to get our food. I had heard that Europeans shop at the market every day. My only experience of a Belgian grocery store was a fairly small one that was next to our hotel when we went house hunting. Well, much to my surprise, there are "hyper" markets here. I'm sure that some will tell you that it is a bad thing to have these types of stores infiltrate their culture here, but I was so relieved. There is one store that is very much like a Meijer or Super Walmart...in that it has groceries, clothes, electronics, books, and houseware items. It is massive. There are still some key differences when you shop here, though. My favorite difference is the bread. They have freshly baked loaves of all sorts of bread. You pick the one you want and put it in the bread slicer so you don't have to do that at home. Then you put it in a bag. It's so good. They have bread like we do in the States--presliced and in a plastic bag. But, this is their specialty, so why would I pass it up?

I'll fill you in on other grocery store differences later.