Grocery prices, June 8

A note on grocery prices.  We had only one shopping trip in Germany so far, and paid $120 for what I would estimate as $180 worth of groceries back home.  In Denmark, this would have cost $250.  You can really notice these things when you go straight from an expensive country to a reasonable one.

The last time we came to Germany (1995) everything seemed rather expensive, but the currency changes have definitely worked in our favour here.  I'm hoping that will also carry through to France because now they have the same currency (Euro).

The most remarkable item was generic brand corn flakes.  A 500g box cost E1.05, or about $1.40.  This would be $4 at home easily, and it's not even on sale here.  Lise also bought a big 650g jar of red cabbage for E0.45, or about $0.60. 

That reminds me, our cell phone Sim card in Denmark (Lyca) was on pay as you go, and cost between 1/10 and 1/30 as much as our similar pay as you go companies in Canada, depending on which portion of the service you look at.  Clearly there's room for a little cheaper Canadian service.  We used data every day, and called people overseas on the cell phone for several calls, probably four calls of half an hour each.  The total cost for over 2 weeks of that:  $8.  This would have cost $100 to $150 if we had done it from Canada. 

It's strange because most things in Denmark cost much more than at home.  An analysis I saw from an American who had lived in both Germany and Denmark said that taxis cost twice as much in Denmark as in either of the other two countries.  Of course, Danish taxis are almost exclusively late-model Mercedes station wagons.  He pointed out that at least you get a really nice ride.

JBH

Trip Summary where we went

This is to summarize where we went in plain text.(need to add final US crossing)

Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York
Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
(back through New Brunswick)
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont
(back through Quebec)
New York (this brings us up to May 4-11 on the ship)
UK
Netherlands
Germany
Denmark
(back through Germany)
Belgium
France
(back through UK, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois)
...rest of train journey across north