just like home

In my Portland life, there was a circuit that I would walk a few times a week to provision myself, physically, intellectually, entertainmentally. It was:

1. The best vidoe rental store ever
2. The library
3. The everything store: food, pharmacy, household goods, pretty much anything I could want or need
4. The natural food store

and sometimes I'd throw in a stop in a coffeeshop, a thrift shop, or some other lovely place.

And I have come close to recreating that here, albeit in a particularly Serbian way, as you shall see:
1. A coworker used to work in a video rental place & has friends that still does. She has offered to bring me DVDs free of charge. I requested Johnny Depp (and if anyone knows if it's possible to de-regionalize a computer's DVD player I would be most grateful).
2. The Autonomous Women's Center, a NGO that helps women who have survived sexual and domestic violence, has a lending library. Many of the books are in English. So I have things to read, but they are all about Feminism, the Balkans, etc. It should keep me going for a while, but I will eventually want something more escapist. I have also heard the rumor that the city library has some English books. . .
3. An everything store is not possible in this place, but I have found that by walking into many many stores, I can find things. My latest triumphs were finding envelopes (One would think that would be easy, but it wasn't.) and my brand of contact solution. So I can find all that I need.
4. There is a macrobiotic grocery. It's tiny, but has miso and ginger and tofu and yellow lentils and oatmeal and all of the odd gluten/lactose/everything-free food - they have millet yogurt - one expects of such a place. It even smells like a natural food store.

And there are coffeeshops everywhere I look and a surprisingly high number of thrift stores, mostly stocking German discards.