Shopping in America

I grew up in a border town. Which isn't too different from growing up in a regular town except that I only had to drive half an hour and I was in the land of cheap goods and delicious (but horribly unhealthy) food a.k.a America. It was nice because when I wanted new clothes or whatever I could go down south to where the sales were WAY better and books are half the price!

I come from a family of shoppers. Seriously, we're addicts. And we cross the border at least once or twice a month. After awhile you begin to notice some of the bizarre products that make their way onto American shelves. I'm sure we have many of them here in Canada as well - I just seem to notice them more down there.

About a week ago my mom and I made one of our trips and I decided this time I was going to document the evidence, so to speak. So here are some of the great products I found on my last voyage South

Our first stop was Pier One which was filled with so many beautiful things. Like wine glasses. I wanted ALL the wine glasses. But it was also filled with bizarre things like the tackiest valentine ornaments I've ever seen, a cow that does flips and birthday cake scented bubbles (biggest mystery - if they're birthday cake scented why are they in an ice cream cone?!)

Next stop was T.J. Max. The land that organization forgot. I secretly love T.J Max, because while most of it is junk you can find some really great stuff there for really cheap. Everything for luggage to furniture to caramel popcorn. Admist that really great stuff, however, are your more..."extravagent" items - like your Bling Tape Despenser and your Glamour Tool (there wasn't just hammers! You could get a whole tool set!) 

 Then we went to Price Chopper, which has to be my favourite store of all...

Not to generalize, but Americans seem to take the cake (pun intended) for creative food products. I particularly liked this football shaped pumpernickel bread (Although once you cut the middle out to put dip in you wouldn't know it was a football anymore...)

I also love these balloons. I don't think you can read the sign but it actually says "Build your own balloon animal farm" Priceless.

This confunded me. When I think pizza I do not think freshly baked cookies....Am I alone on this?

I think this was my favourite find of all was the rainbow hot chocolate! Yup rainbow mini marshmallows. I personally think this is genius as I love both rainbows and hot chocolate.

I actually ended up buying this stuff, because it was too good to pass up. The marshmallows actually come in a seperate package from the hot chocolate so that they won't melt right away when you pour the water in (very smart!). However after a few minutes of floating around the top of your hot chocolate they begin to melt anyway and from this weird tye-dyed coating over top of the drink. Not so delicious after all.

That's what I found during my last trip to the states. I'm hoping to make this a regular post everytime I go down there so be sure to share your thoughts!