Supermarkets
Mercadona
Eroski
Eroski is less popular, but there are a
wider range of items here. I also live about 10 mins away from it, whereas
I live about 15 mins away from the nearest Mercadona, Eroski's more expensive than Mercadona and
other supermarkets, though. You can find good baking ingredients here, kitchen stuff,
living room stuff, clothes, baking stuff - almost everything. The Eroski
supermarket is also in an Eroski shopping centre that has clothes shops,
restaurants, sweet shops and more.Día
Recently I found out that there's a Día supermarket less than 10 minutes away from where I live, so this is the closest supermarket to me. I previously thought that the nearest Dia to me was about 10 minutes away, and thought that both Eroski and this Día supermarket were both the closest supermarkets to me. This is less popular than Mercadona but more popular than Eroski, as I've only seen one Eroski supermarkeet whereas there are several Días. It's cheaper than both Mercadona and Eroski.
Other supermarkets
Carrefour
I found out a Carrefour existed in Ciudad Real about a couple of months ago. It's just over 15 minutes away from me and is as expensive as Eroski, so I don't really shop here.
Aldi
Apparently there's an Aldi here. The only evidence I have for this is seeing my
flatmate's receipt from Aldi and then googling it to find out where it is. It's not too far away from where I live, but there are closer supermarkets so I've never paid it a visit. I must visit it before I leave though!
Lidl
There's also a lidl here, but it's more than half an hour away so I doubt I'd be visiting it.
Los Chinos
No, these aren't shoes. They're not even
Chinese people in this context. If you here a Spanish person say "Voy al chino", what
they're saying is that they're going to a shop owned by a Chinese person, that are famous for selling a
wide range of products that are cheap. Need a needle and thread? Go to el
chino. Need cheap earphones? Go to el chino. Need a cheap frying pan? Go to el chino. They've come in handy and there are several
of them in every neighbourhood, so there's always one that's near. There are
even two on the same street here in Ciudad Real.Places to eat
Acuario
This is the first tapas bar I went to. At the time I didn't know what tapas were and thought that youhad to pay for them so declined free food when I was starving, haha. You can get a lot of traditional tapas here, such as patatas bravas al aliolli, which are potato wedges with this kinda of mayonnaise sauce, tortilla española, and other dishes. I remember one tapa I had were these chicken balls on a kebab stick, which was delicious.
El Portalon
This tapas bar is
quite big - there are two floors and an outside seating area. The size of this tapas bar isn't the only large thing about it, because the tapas are also huge. Tapas are meant to be small appetisers you get with your drink. For example, you could get some tortilla española between two slices of bread as a tapa, but at el Portalon you get hamburgers, pizzas, chicken wings,
and typical Spanish dishes (which I have yet to try). They're not proper big dishes, but they're big compared to other portions you get at other bars. You could easily have a cheap dinner here.
Come y Calla
This tapas restaurant serves some really good tortilla española! I used to go here a lot with the other language assistants as well. I think it's a little more expensive than other tapas restaurants, like Acuario and El Portalon though, and there's not a lot of room inside, which sucks on cold days (which actually exist in Spain).
Magestic Zahora
I've been to this tapas bar/restaurant (this is a tapas bar and a restaurant) a lot of times with the other language assistants. It's quite posh, the tapas are well presented on the dish in extravagant way and they're quite tasty, but the drinks are the same price as in other bars, so I really like this place.
Telepizza
In England, we have places like Pizzhut and Domino's, but in Spain Telepizza's where it's at. You will probably find several in every city and on Thursday's there are lines so long that they go past other shops, because of the special offers. These queues even exist in bad weather. For example, one of my friends said that one night it was freezing and raining, but the line was still extremely long. One of the pizza flavours that Spanish people love most from here is the barbacoa flavour, which is basically a barbecue flavoured pizza.
Other places to eat
Llaollao
It's pronounced yowyow and it looks like a very cool yogurt shop. I haven't been, but would like to go because it looks like they sell good yoghurt, and I see a lot of the students at the school I teach at hang out there quite often, so it must be great.
Heladarías
These are ice cream shops. I know cities in England have Ben & Jerry's shops, but I really don't believe we really have a lot of ice cream shops, given the weather. There are many of them scattered around Spanish cities and you can get all kinds of interesting flavours. I've had a bubblegum flavour, a black forest flavour, a leche merengada flavour (which is to die for!) and more. You can also have half of one flavour and half of another, get sweets, chocolate and many more things put in some of them.
Clothes
H&M
Spain has a lot of clothes shops that
we have in England (even though there's no H&M in Wolverhampton or Durham) and H&M is one of them. I mainly do my clothes shopping here because the clothes are so nice and it's one of the first clothes shops I encounter when I walk into the city centre. It's not as cheap as Primark though, which probably can only be found in big or touristy Spanish cities.
Bershka
I don't think we have many Bershka shops in England. I've seen one in the Mertrocentre, but that's about it. I like this shop because you can get some nice decently priced
clothes. It's right next to the H&M, so is another one of the first clothes shops I come across when I go to the city centre, buy it's a little cheaper than H&M, I think.
Mary Paz
Shoes! If you want a lovely pair of shoes at a decent price, Mary Paz is the place to go! When I need shoes I head to Mary Paz. Some of the other language assistants I know are obsessed with this shop and told me that they always felt
compelled to buy shoes whenever they walked past a Mary Paz shop.
Shana
I wanted to add this shop to list, even though I don't really shop here because it's almost my name. I visit it just be reminded of this fact haha. I haven't really been in the one in Ciudad Real though, but have visited Shanas in Guadalajara and Torrevieja. I prefer Bershka and H&M to Shana, though!
There are other shops that I could have mentioned here, but I don't really shop at them and they're not the most important ones. As you see, life in Spain is quite different, especially when going to buy food. In Spain, there are no Tescos, Asdas, Sainsbury's or even Pizza Huts or Domino's - well not in most Spanish cities anyway. It's been very interesting to adapt to this new way of shopping, and when I get back to England it's going to be equally interesting to get used to English shops again!
