The best free tourist attraction everywhere.

Ask either my husband or I what our favorite thing to do when we travel and you will likely be very surprised by our answer. Along with the tourist sites and off the beaten track places, we like to go to local grocery stores. No kidding. They say you are what you eat. If you have ever doubted that just follow our advice and visit a grocery store when you have a moment. Take for example Norway. They have aisles devoted to various fish products. Loads of them. They come just a bit short of having fish ice cream. It is fascinating. No German grocery would be complete without a bakery and wurst dept. The bread is not the sweet, mushy stuff we call bread in Sweden or the plain awful mushy stuff we call bread in America. This bread is so heavy that if thrown through a car window the car would certainly be the loser. In Turkey, they had all sorts of stuff that I didn't recognize. We bought what we thought was cheese there, brought it home and couldn't even identify what food group it belonged to. I seriously have NO idea what it was. In Japan they had barrels and barrels of fish flakes. Fish that was pulverized, then dried and shaved (?) into different size flakes. They put these thin flakes on everything making even pizza taste very Japanese. London was interesting not for the food itself but in how progressive they were. So much of it was organic, packaged in a fairly environmentally friendly way and labeled as to where it was grown. I hope that is a trend that is coming to other countries. In Sweden it is the dairy/cheese department that fascinates me the most. You just can't go wrong. In the States there was a TV ad some years ago where the tag line was "Behold. The power of cheese." It is true. I stand there like in a stupor choosing a cheese. It is the first place that a Swede that I didn't know talked to me. He recommended a cheese. (Strangers don't talk to each other in the grocery like they do in the States). I bought a giant chunk of it. Not sure if it was the cheese or the fact that he talked to me (and I answered in Swedish!) that I did so. I even love all those thick sour milk concoctions like Fjäll Mjolk and the yogurts. The potato chip dept is a good barometer of the national flavor. Check out the most popular chips...they are usually the eye level ones and ignore the run of the mill flavors. For example I think every country likes sour cream and onion. Here in Sweden the popular chip flavor is dill. In Thailand it was a fish flavor. In the States, BBQ. In Hungary Paprika. In Great Britain it is Salt and vinegar. Kimchee in South Korea. I will let you know what it is in France as we are headed there soon. I kid you not. Chips are like a litmus test. Groceries stores, might not provide for the best souvenirs, but are usually very easy to find and unlike so many attractions, admission is free.