Stairway to heaven at Real, or, Escalator to the parking garage

There is a large shopping complex at the very eastern edge of Kaiserslautern. It's called the Pfalz Center and includes Real (which is like a Walmart with a large grocery section), Aldi, Rossman (like Rite Aid), some clothing stores, a travel agency, a dry cleaner, a place to have copies of keys made, a baker, a Turkish deli (caution! the food there is delicious but also expensive, at least for the deli stuff), and some other stores.

It's a very large shopping center; half of the parking is above ground and the other half is underneath. There is a special escalator right as one enters the shopping center. The carts for the whole complex are kept in the subterranean parking garage and to bring them upstairs, one uses the escalator. I don't think I've ever seen this before when I was living in the US. I have seen this at other stores, too, like Kaufland, which is on the other side of town.

To the Shopping Cart Cave!

The underground parking garage is also the site of a weekend Flohmarkt, or flea market, on Saturdays. I stopped by on one Saturday during the winter. There were maybe about ten vendors with antiques, junk, and clothes.