Shopping therapy

Yesterday I realised I've been dealing with this move and everything involved (homesickness, homesickness, and more homesickness) in one major way : online shopping.

Amazon:

There's one shop that goes with you wherever you are (hey, that could be an amazing slogan). It's Amazon. Sure, all the "real shops" around you might change, but you've been shopping at Amazon in Brussels, and you can still go there, even when you're in Munich! It feels like coming home a bit.

Online pharmacies:

Yes, that's right. Because I insist on having Mustela baby products. Every French and Belgian parent will understand; trust me. Then there's also the baby food. As of 4 months, almost every Belgian parent puts rice or grain powder in the milk bottles to make the little ones sleep through the night. It doesn't exist here. I asked my paediatrician, and she was strict: "no". "It's milk in the bottle and everything else with a spoon". Right. Again, every French or Belgian parent will understand..... And I need my vitamin pills. Yes, the same ones as in Brussels. Sure, they have vitamins here too. But I want the same brand as always. I want things I know.

Online dutch bookshops:

Thank heavens for the Dutch site bol.com. They will send books, DVDs and CDs abroad. So I ordered a load of childrens' books and cd's on Tuesday, and they already arrived today.

Only one thing left to find...

Food. You know that the Germans are ignorant to the existence of self raising flour? That's right - they don't know it and it's nowhere to be found. 20 different kinds of flour, a hundred "ready made" flour mixes to bake whatever you can imagine....but no self raising flour.

No "béchamel sauce" either. No Rice Krispies. No cookies for kids! In Belgium we have entire aisles in the supermarket dedicated to cookies for kids: Winnie the Pooh waffles, Maya the Bee cookies, etc, etc. Here you have Leibniz ZOO cookies, and that's it. I can tell you one Little Man is getting kind of frustrated....

And one more...

one "shop" that is impossible to find online...a hairdresser. I urgently need one, but I just don't dare to go to one here in Germany. Two options: I take the risk to seriously mess up my hair, or I wait another 2 months. I think I'll wait...