One thing that fascinates me a little bit about Britain is the recent quick rise of supermarkets. When we think of supermarkets back in the states, we tend to think of mostly a place to get food and other sundry items. However, supermarkets have quickly become the central stores for almost everything you need here in Britain. Tesco, the largest chain of supermarkets, apparently accounts for about 25% of all sales in Britain. That's quite impressive, if not a bit scary. Supermarkets don't just sell groceries in Britain. The larger ones sell clothing, appliances, and other large household items. Now, some larger stores like Walmart are also grocery stores in America, but that is more of a case of Walmart branching out, rather than the supermarkets branching out.

However, supermarkets in the UK don't stop there. They also have the cheapest gasoline (petrol) at their gas stations, their own mobile phone networks, internet services, and even their own banks (plus insurance plans). They literally provide almost every home service that you might need.

Often the supermarkets are good value, as one might expect. However, sometimes their pricing schemes don't make sense to me. Normally I think that buying more of an item would yield a greater value. Yet, this is often strangely not the case. For example, I bought some toilet paper recently. The six-pack of toilet paper was 1.55 (pounds), but the 12-pack was 3.41. If you buy a 7-pack of apples that they have packed, the cost is 30p an apple, but it's only 17p/apple if you pick them out of the loose apples. Very strange...