It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go shopping. To truly go shopping the way I like to. Being unemployed unfortunately has not allowed me to use my credit card freely, although from the looks of my music collection you might think otherwise.
I have a list of things I want to buy as soon as I have money and it gets longer every day. Things I remember I want for my apartment, the dream book I want to create for my next big adventure (Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, in case you didn’t know!), new clothes, paint for the walls, canvases for artwork I want to create, a new pair of shoes, new lingerie, new workout clothes, a large piece of artwork depicting the world, a handful of CDs and maybe a DVD or two. It’s months and months of stuff that has built up in my mind of things I want, links to Etsy sites and wish lists on Amazon.
I’m a materialistic person. I cannot help that fact since I was born to a mother who loves to shop and bargain shop at that. I grew up in Marshalls and TJ Maxx, Macy’s and Sears, malls of all sizes. I stopped shopping August 17th, 2009 when I left for Europe for what I usually shopped for, like clothing and shoes, instead trading my money for things like bus fares, hostel bookings and baguettes.
When I usually shop, I like to take my time. I’m a horrible decision maker so I will often ponder over an item for ten minutes, walking around the store with it and looking at my other options. Sometimes I end up with ten things in my hand, narrowing things down as I go along (or sometimes buying everything). When I was in Morocco I had a hard time with this. It was the one country I could actually afford to purchase things because you could barter and the exchange rate was much better there than it was in Europe. It also happened to be near the end of my trip so I could carry things around with me easier, knowing I’d be going home soon. But it was the one country where window shopping doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as “Just Browsing.”
I remember first arriving in Fes and wandering the old medina, it’s narrow streets lined with merchants. I wanted to stop and look at teapots, or some brightly colored textiles and quickly learned I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t linger at any store and look at items. I had to be positive on what exactly I wanted and exactly how much I was willing to spend on it before I even entered the little shop because the store keeper was on me from the time I entered his sight. A particularly bad incident I had involved a blanket. I had stopped to look at one as we wandered the confusing streets, being lead by someone our friend had left in charge of us but unfortunately that “friend” failed to tell us that he had given us a tour guide, one we did not want. The shopkeeper started in on trying to sell me it, opening it up and we all had to agree: it was gorgeous. I offered 250 durham for it but he wouldn’t accept. According to my friend Richard, if a tour guide was with us, they would charge a commission to that store so the shopkeeper automatically would attempt to sell it for more. So I walked away. The shopkeeper followed me, grabbing my arm and pleading with me to buy this blanket for a good twenty minutes. He followed us OUT OF THE MEDINA, offering it for as low at 150 durham, approximately 14 USD (this was after our guide had disappeared) but I was so rattled, so stressed and so upset (combined with our “guide” asking us for money which had us a little riled) that I wanted nothing to do with it. He finally left us alone when we climbed into a taxi. I felt bad, his family probably needed that sale but my nerves were so frayed at the end of that day that I just couldn’t be asked to spend money on something that I’d have such a bad memory of getting.
After a few days, I started learning new techniques for shopping. When my friends were in shops looking at something I would discreetly look across the pathway at another shop, scoping out their merchandise. It worked pretty well, sometimes I was able to tell if there was anything worth having a conversation with the shopkeeper over or whether I should just keep going. Most of the time I just kept going. I never looked directly at a shop, I never made eye contact with the shop keeper and I kept moving pretty fast as I walked down the aisles. Another thing I learned, in an ever elusive search for a blanket that Anneke and I found ourselves on, was that I was a HORRIBLE barter-er.
Like ridiculously awful. I would feel horrible when I would give them my price, knowing it was low, knowing it was lower than my maximum, hoping that after a few rounds we would settle somewhere closer to what I was willing to spend. And the shopkeepers could instinctively catch on to this and so would hard ball me even further. Anneke ended up having to do most of the bartering for me, her game face much better than mine.
It was hard shopping this way. I couldn’t just take my time anymore, I had to be quick and decisive and I had to work for the price I wanted, things I am not very skilled at. Morocco was amazing, beautiful, a sensory overload; it was stressful and the hardest part of my trip but you can’t say I didn’t learn a lot from those eleven days, even with shopping–a pastime I’m very well trained at!
Is there a method to your shopping?
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A Shopaholic Takes on Morocco and Survives…Barely. « Ashalah | Morocco | MAROC MOROCCO
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I haven’t bought myself anything in ages! The only thing I can think of recently is a pair of underwear on clearance last month. My birthday is coming up in August, though, so I might treat myself a little bit then. It’s not that we don’t have spending money, I just feel bad buying myself shit when it could otherwise be saved for a vacation or a house or something down the line. Do I really need 50 pairs of earrings from Etsy? No. But I will hoard them in my favorites and lust after them until someone else buys them.
I am also horrible at bartering. The first time I was in Italy they were still on the lire, so I did manage to “bargain” for my leather jacket, but only because I had my friends with me, who helped. When I went back in 2003, they were on the Euro, and wouldn’t really bargain at all.
At home, I have the same shopping style as you – indecisive and carrying lots of things around the store.
That sounds really stressful to me, and I would be awful at it! First of all, I hate to be pressured. Second of all, I also hate to disappoint others, and if I was in that situation, my mind would say “but he needs this money more than you do!” And so I’d probably get ripped off every single time.
The more I read your travel adventures, the more physched I get about mine.. I too have stopped shopping for a little while now and will probably continue to not shop even after coming back from my trip – for the same reason as yours – to save up for future travel.
You should post some sort of guide to traveling alone in Europe. I mean, I’m sure there were times when you didn’t know what you were doing, but it would be cool to kind of write up some of the things you learned and advice you have. Traveling Europe the way you did is something I really want to do, but I would barely know where to begin.