Yesterday finished uneventfully. It rained through the afternoon into the evening so I spent the time inside and did some more unpacking. The kitchen was more thoroughly furnished that I had expected so I'll be sending home the bulk of my kitchen items with my parents and Danny when they head back next weekend. There are a couple of things that will be staying with me, though, including my rice cooker and digital pressure cooker. I've loved my pressure cooker since I got it at Christmas and I can't imagine being without it up here.
Speaking of kitchens, allow me to talk briefly about the grocery stores up here. While they have a nice variety of foodstuffs, they are ridiculously expensive compared to back home. $7 for a gallon of milk, $25+ for a couple of medium sized chicken breasts and almost $6 for one pineapple! I also learned (by sneaking glances at the pricing labels) that things are sold in grams. So when I got lunch meat at the deli counter I ordered in grams, hehe. We did our shopping yesterday and I ended up paying $73 for what I hope will be enough for the week. I budgeted for $100 per week so with yesterdays purchases and some extra purchases today at another (better?) store, I ended up at $110. That includes some stuff for Danny, too, so I'm cautiously optimistic for staying within my food budget.
In addition to the grocery store, Danny and I went to the UPEI bookstore, the farmer's market across from the school, Mark's Work Wearhouse and the "Bulk Barn". At the bookstore I got my school supplies: dissection kit with scapel blades, a penlight, a digital thermometer (in Celcius, ack!) and a box of nitrile gloves. I'm going to hold off on the textbooks until I've researched a list of the ones I want but I'd like to have them before starting on Monday.
The farmer's market is across the street from the school but is only open Wednesdays and Saturdays, so Danny and I will go back tomorrow. I'm hoping produce and meat is somewhat cheaper there because it's expensive in the stores. It's nice to support local farmers too, which was significantly harder to do in urban College Park. Anyway, we left there and headed to Mark's Work Wearhouse, where I purchased my coveralls for the year. The lady there was really nice and guessed my size accurately (because they're in men's sizes I had no idea what I needed). She advised that I wash them once and bring them back for alterations which I think are free - yay!
Between Mark's and the grocery store was a place called the Bulk Barn that sells a huge variety of stuff in bulk. I'm planning to get pasta and soup mix there at the very least, which should help with my ridiculous grocery bills. No meat or produce there though, unfortunately, and the dried fruit is no less expensive. I may need to find new recipes so I can eat a little more cheaply.
Anyway, we've been busy, which is good. The island is lovely and the people very nice. I do feel conspicuously foreign here - I have to ask if they accept certain credit cards, have to fiddle over their coin money, and so on - but so far I've managed my way around without too much clumsiness. My parents should be here tomorrow or the next day and I'm looking forward to showing them my place. I'm hoping Danny and I can make it up to the beach sometime soon and hike in the national park. So much to do keeps my mind off the fact that I'll be on my own in less than a week.
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