Must-Haves

An annotated list of things I can't live without if and when I live overseas.  Call me your typical American Princess, if you will, on some of these items.  But others are really REALLY hard to do without!

#1 -- Skype.  I can't imagine being away from my family, especially my lovely daughter, for stretches of 3 to 6 months, but this surely will occur.  Although it's very nice to hear your loved ones' voices, it's even better to be able to SEE them when you talk to them.  Granted, I'm going to miss being able to give and get hugs.  But Skype is not only more rewarding than a traditional phone call -- it's one heck of a lot cheaper, too!

#2 -- A little trolley on wheels.  I have found that living abroad, you tend to grocery shop more.  Refrigerators and kitchens in general are smaller, so you just can't pack as much in them as we are used to here.  And seeing as I can easily live without a car in most European countries, this means lugging groceries from the store to your home, usually 2 to 3 times per week.  I will look like a granny with my little shopper's trolley, BUT my back will thank me for it!

#3 -- A washer and dryer.  Believe it or not, not every apartment in Europe has these.  Add to this the fact that coin laundries are extremely rare, and what you wind up doing is washing clothes in the bathtub, then hanging them on your balcony to dry.  Which isn't so bad in the summer months -- if you don't mind an occasional bird dropping on your freshly clean clothes -- but is really a hard way to go in winter months in Scandinavia.  If you don't get all your washing done by the beginning of November, your clothes may not thaw until March!

#4 -- A tub.  I don't mean a place to get clean, like a shower.  I mean a bathroom that has an actual tub in it!  This might be a little spoiled of me to say I NEED this, but it's tricky washing wiggly kids, much less wiggly dogs, in a shower.  And when your shower isn't built into a TUB, you wind up with a bathroom that is soggy about 15 hours out of the day.  I shudder to think of the mold I could grow!

#5 -- Peanut, peanut butter (and jelly)!  If you grew up in my generation in the US, a good PB&J was a staple of your diet.  And recently, it has gotten easier to find peanut butter in most European countries.  The thing is, when you crave that particular taste of home, nothing quite satisfies like some good old Jif or Peter Pan.  And concord grape jelly?  Good luck with that one.  Clearly it is many years away from winning over the palates of Europe!

Things I can do without are probably too long to list in a blog, but they include:  traffic jams, pumping gas, wonder bread, bologna, velveeta, people who yell at others to "SPEAK ENGLISH", television, cold calls from political candidates, and junk mail.