SHOPPING

Shopping takes much time in everybody’s life. It means going to some place to buy things. For some people it is a hobby. They go shopping in their free time. Some people go shopping on weekdays to buy food.

My family and I do the shopping at weekends. My family is not very big, but my parents work hard and they have no time to go to buy things during a week. On Sunday we usually go to a large supermarket and buy food for the whole week. I don’t like going there, because there are usually many people.

The supermarket has a lot of departments: a food department, a grocer’s, a butcher’s, a fishmonger’s, and even a chemist’s department. Sometimes my mother goes to the cosmetics department while my father and my brother go to the pet shop, which is situated there. My father likes to do the shopping in the butcher’s and in the fishmonger’s. The meat counters look very attractive. Chicken, ham, pork, bacon, beef, veal and mutton are at your disposal there. You will find a variety of sausages in this section, too.

In the fishmonger’s a special counter handles frozen and fresh fish; smoked and dry fish is also offered to the customers. Besides, the counter is full of sea products, quite exotic and unseen before.

There is a wide network of department stores and specialized shops in every town or city. Some of them are expensive, others are cheap and you have a choice. I don’t understand those people who go to some specialized shops to buy things of a certain brand. Such things are rather expensive.

I prefer going to a department store to buy things. A department store has many departments: ready-made clothes, shoes, sports goods, toys, linen, etc. You can buy everything you like there. The things for sale are on the counters so they can be easily seen.

In the women’s clothing department you can find dresses, costumes, blouses, skirts, coats and many other things.

In the men’s clothing department you can choose suits, trousers, overcoats, ties, shirts, socks, etc.

I prefer doing the shopping alone when I need clothes or books. My favorite bookshop is in the centre of our town. I can spend hours there looking at different books and choosing the most interesting ones to read. I like to go shopping when I need to buy present for my family or friends. Sometimes my friend helps me to choose a present. She is a very nice girl with a good taste and she knows what things are good.

I also like to buy fruit and vegetables. They smell good and you feel as if you are in an exotic country. The section where fruit and vegetables are for sale is called a greengrocery. It always attracts a lot of customers because irrespective of the season the counters are full of fresh fruit and vegetables grown in Russia or brought from other countries. When you enter a greengrocery you feel you would eat everything they sell: grapes, berries, tangerines, oranges, pineapples, bananas, plums, pears, peaches, grapefruits, watermelons, carrot, cucumbers, etc.

Sometimes I have to go to the baker’s to buy bread, buns, rolls, rings, rusks, pies and to a dairy shop to buy cheese, curds, milk or sour cream.

The method of shopping may vary. It may be a self-service shop where the customer goes from counter to counter, selects and puts into a basket everything what he wishes to buy. At the cash-desk he pays money for purchases. It is not a self-service shop where the shop assistant helps the customer in finding what he wants.