The American Shopping List

A list of terrible souvenirs

Moving, even to a new city in the same country, forces you to make so many mundane decisions: finding new doctors, a dentist, a hair salon. The first time I got my hair cut, I ran out of steam and French vocabulary after about 15 minutes. I sat silently so long that the stylist asked, “Ça va, madame?” (Everything ok?)

It was, I just couldn’t remember French for “Do you drive” and just asking “voiture?” (car?) was too basic. Easier to just be quiet. I suddenly missed my D.C. hair stylist more than I’d missed anyone besides Gabe. It took me years to find someone I liked as much as my last stylist, and we talked about books, TV, and movies we’d watched between haircuts. Now, I was failing at the most basic small talk.

In the months between moving here and our first trip back to the U.S. we made a shopping list of items to buy in America. When my parents used to visit us in the U.S., I had a standing request for Swiss items: spicy mustard and Ragusa, my favorite chocolate and hazelnut candy. When we visited them, they asked us to bring peanut butter, vitamins, and decaf Earl Grey.

Now that we’re doing this U.S.-Switzerland trip in the opposite direction, we’re learning what items we want to carry across the ocean. On this first trip back, we imposed our old list on our family and friends. To mustard and chocolate, we added some of our new favorites, including a hazelnut biscotti-like cookie, a local Basel cookie called Läckerli (or Läggerli in Basel Deutsch), Schokoköpfe (chocolate heads), a chocolate covered Italian meringue, and Kinder Egg for our niece and nephew. They report that the German version has better toys.

Our U.S. shopping list included fewer treats, and we completed most of it during one Target trip: vitamins, allergy medicine, Aspirin, contact solution, and Aleve. All these items are available in Switzerland — at twice the price for half the amount.

After assessing the peanut butters, we left without buying any. Instead, we filled our suitcase with two pounds of tea, one turmeric, one ginger. Despite trying different ginger teas here, always sold to us by Swiss salespeople promising that their ginger tea is “scharf” (spicy), nothing comes close to the kick of this double ginger tea. 

I felt like a walking pharmacy, rolling my bag full of medicine and tea through the airport terminal. Our final two purchases are also ordinary items available in Switzerland: deodorant and a favorite SPF moisturizer. In our time here, we’ve settled some of the mundane necessities. We have a doctor, we’ve gotten new glasses, and we found soap we like that doesn’t cost $10/bar. Before our next trip, I hope to find a deodorant I like, a replacement face lotion, a spicy ginger tea. I look forward to seeing how our U.S. list evolves and perhaps bringing home more exciting souvenirs than deodorant in the future.

I took inspiration for our U.S. shopping from friends, some of whom regularly bring back things like hot sauce, brown sugar, a specific salad dressing. Do you have items you stock up on when you go home, where ever that may be?