Shopping

It is not easy to do shopping in Prague, because there are many people everywhere. Everything is very expensive and it is difficult to choose a good thing in a good quality. Moreover the shop assistants are not polite but lazy to advise you. It is usually better to do shopping in small shops, because there they have better choice and lower prices. Special things like electronics is better to buy in a special shop.

 You can buy in expensive shops especially brand goods, these shops are good, because they usually have your size and the shop assistant must be polite. But there is a problem with the price. These things are usually very expensive. If you are not rich, you cannot buy in these shops very often. If you don’t like these shops with brand goods, you can go to a department store like Kotva in Prague, or to the second hand shops, there you can buy everything very cheap. But in department stores the goods usually do not fit. Second hand shops are very advantageous for young people, especially for students. If you have a lucky day, you can buy there good things in good quality which will fit you really cheaply.

Some people don’t have problems with buying clothes, because they have a lot of money or time to choose them, but shopping is not only buying clothes. There are other shops like grocer’s, baker’s, greengrocer’s, stationery, butcher’s, drugstore, bookstore, chemistry,  and another shops like small street shops full of trash and rubbish.

I like small shops with ceramics, Indian shops with scented sticks, they are usually family shop, and the shop assistant tries to sell you something. When they have time, they talk to you about weather, politics, family, or an old recipe how to cook a fish.

Nowadays there is problem with books. After the leaving exam many people want go to the universities and there they need a lot of books. Books are very expensive, so they must look for those titles in second hand bookshops or ask some other students  to copy their books. If you are lucky, you find someone who doesn’t need the book you are looking for and he is content to sell it to you. Another problem with books is with entertaining literature. We don’t really need it but we want it. There is alternative to buy books in antiques or lend books in a library. But some people who collect books must save their money if they want to buy some book.

When you buy some food, you must be careful. Big markets want to sell everything. So it is better to do shopping in small private shops, because its owners want to have a good reputation. If you buy food everywhere, be careful and wash all fruit and vegetable before you eat it.

Shopping in foreign cities is very interesting for us. After the breakdown of Soviet block, people from Eastern Europe loved to travel abroad and do shopping there. It was like a fever. These days it is better but people still like buying things which are atypical for their country and typical for the country they visited.