Henna in the Wonderland

In honour of Erin and Juansi who have not (yet) mastered the beautiful Finnish language, I'll try posting in English.

How does it feel to live in the US?

Well, honestly? I have no idea.

Between unpacking, setting up utility bills here and closing down others in Switzerland, I have not really stopped to think about it. Ok, fine, I have, but do not have a proper theory or precise words to describe it.

In the absence of a better decription, lets go with this one: in a way, its like Alice arriving to the Wonderland. It's your world but most of the normal daily things are the wrong size, shape or color. And even the things that look and smell the same, might funtion differently.

Beds are tall, toilet seats are low, cars turn right on a red light and make full 100% stops on a stop sign in the middle of the forest although there are no one on sight.

Just couple of days ago we went to a supermarket to get some basic stuff to our home. We found everything on our list, except toilet paper and dishwasher powder. Well, they did have a selection of one type of each but I was not convinced (Finns and toilet paper is a whole other story I'll get into another time).

So we set of to find those two.

We drive to Beds, Bath and Beyond (yes, that IS the name of the store. Got you thinking about Toy Story, right?). We are greeted there with long tall shelves full of shampoos, toothpastes and bodylotions. Great! This is our place, we think and start to walk around with a happy anticipation of being face to face with a long row of toilet papers soon. We walk around the store. Nothing. We walk around it again. No toilet paper or diswaher powder at sight. But this is a store about Bedrooms, BATHROOMS and other as well (Beyond), right? What is more important in a bathroom than toilet paper? Body lotion? I dont think so.

Resigned, we head back home.

Later in the afternoon, while Juansi is having a siesta, I decide to drive around our neighborhood (yes, no one walks in our neighborhood, we even have drive through banks. How Wonderland is that?) and end up in a pharmacy. And guess what I find there? No, the answer is not body lotion (although they did have that also). Various types of toilet paper and diswasher powder! In-a-pharmacy.

They really are a life saver!