Things you Wish You Could Buy when outside USA

N

Napoleon

2,500+ Posts
I've been in Argentina for about 4 1/2 months now and I will be here about 3 1/2 more in this tour. In about a month there is a good possibility that I will pop back to the States (but not Texas or LA- where my apartment is) and I'm thinking of things that I want to buy.I originally planned on coming here for 2 months, so anything that was going to last only 2 months is long gone. I want to make a list of things so that I get what I can when I go back.

What are things other Ex-Pats wish they could buy in their countries, but can't?

1) All digital camera/ computer related items.

¿What else?

Thanks
 
Sometimes really random things like aspirin... my aunt in Italy loves the 250 count bottles of aspirin. They cost a lot more in the states. Also, random products like bean dip or sales - yeah, run-of-the-mill bean dip in a can. You can't find it in Italy, that's for sure.
 
Decent Salsa (when they say 'hot' it's mild here) and well...I would just like some decent Tex Mex, but that is more to do with it not being readily avaiable in restaurants.
 
When I travel around Europe, after a few days I really start craving Amercian breakfasts specifically bacon and good scrambled eggs. What I hate though is when they offer an "American Breakfast" and it's runny *** eggs, and some weird sausage.

One time I was in Zermatt and they had a Hooters of all things that offered an American Breakfast. I really wanted to go thinking that since they were a US chain they might get it right. It just felt too weird going to Hooters for Breakfast though, so I passed.
 
Things that I can't buy in the USA.

Uh, that's one of the reasons that I like to I travel -- to get away from home and experience something different.

So, I've travelled a fair amount and have bought odd things that I could never find in the US.

Come over and steal them. I won't call the cops and my doors are unlocked.
 
/well, if you spend a lot of time outside the country you start missing little things from back home. I'm in South Korea, so digital camera equipment and computer supplies are cheaper here than back home, but I really miss having the ability to find a variety of food. every restaurant here is korean. OK, maybe some of you aren't shocked, but in Europe, you find that you can eat all different types of food on the same street, just like in the States. Here, you can have korean, korean style japanese, or korean style chinese, which are all the same basic thing.

so, nothing specific (ok, maybe breakfast tacos would be nice) but some variety to the diet is sorely missed after 2.5 weeks (and 1.5 weeks more) in SK.
 
I spent a summer in China a couple of years ago, eating only Chinese food (which I love btw). However that Quarter Pounder at the airport back home never tasted so damn good.
 
There are a few restaurants that offer different kinds of food here in Buenos Aires. There are a couple of French restaurants, a Vietnamese restaurant in Palermo Hollywood, some horrible "sushi" restaurants that should ask "would you like a small bit of fish with all of that rice?, and a few Middle Eastern/Jewish places, but...

90% of the restaurants in Buenos Aires offer Empanadas, Pizza, and/or "Parrilla" (grilled parts of dead cow). I don't even know why places have menus anymore.
 
I coached and played lacrosse in rural England for a while, and what I missed most was peanut butter. Most of the guys I played with were from New Zealand and Australia, so there was plenty of marmite and vegemite. That stuff is nasty- very salty vegetable paste used the same way we use pb (besides Macanudo).

Most people didn't understand why anyone would want to mix peanuts and sugar, or put it on bread. Every time I went home I'd pick up several Sams size jars.
 
When you spend long enough away from home, there are some things you want. My folks lived in Buenos Aires for several years. When we would go down there, we would bring goodies with us, like:

-peanut butter
-good salsa
-louisiana hot sauce (which my dad sprinkled on his little tostado ham sandwiches at the confiterias -- they were awesome that way)
-Some medications (ibuprofen, etc. - cheaper in bulk in the US)
-Really, anything spicy (the argies don't do spicy)
-and a couple of other random non-perishable food products from time to time (although I did once cart down some andouille sausage and frozen crawfish for a pot of gumbo mom wanted to make).

As for the menu in Argentine restaurants, we were always amused at how every confiteria had a sandwich menu that had 250 items on it, but every one of them was a freaking ham sandwich. Ham with cheese. Ham with cheese and palmitos. Ham with palmitos. Ham with cheese, palmitos, and salsa golf. Ham with salsa golf -- etc. etc. ad infinitum. I GUESS you could spend 10 minutes reading the menu to find what you wanted -- "yes, I'll have the #197" -- but we always just ordered what we wanted.

Gotta love the cheap and awesome beef, though.

Oh, and every once in a while, the folks would hit the Hard Rock Cafe because they served the closest thing to a gringo burger around, and sometimes, that's what they were craving.

Otherwise, they ate and lived pretty native. Those candied peanuts and almonds that you can get from the carts in San Telmo rock, by the way. I wish they had more of those in the US.
 
I went to an expat dinner tonight. (Chinese in Las Canitas @ A$40/pop.) The food was ok. I sat between an older gentleman from Minnesota that runs some kind of camp... or it turns out it is a CrossCountry Skiing place in Minnesota. (Just looked at the flier he gave me and all of his kids' names start with "J". I hate that kind of ****. Jack, Jay, Jake, Jon, Jens, Jonell.
pukey.gif
)

Had the ol' "Jamon y Queso" (aka "JYQ") conversation with him. I love how a thin JYQ is 4 pesos, but if you have it toasted it's 5.
rolleyes.gif


Anyway, on the other side of that guy was a guy who went to the same middle school I went to 4 years before I did. (He then went to Jesuit.) He also is a Texas Ex + UT JD.

Met a couple of girls and that was nice. We had the "CUP OF COFFEE" conversation and then they brought up the whole "PEANUT BUTTER" dilemma. (I didn't tell them about the peanuts.)

They're teachers. One was pretty cute. I hoping I can help her find something other things to eat in the near future.
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You must have been in the middle of flipping nowhere if you could not find peanut butter! It's bloody everywhere here in England. UGH, nasty stuff, like chewing epoxy putty.
 
I was talking about Iantexas's post. He said he was in rural England. Never had a problem finding PB here. Argentina might be a different story though!
 
I lived outside a town called Godalming, in Surrey County. Not far outside of the M25, but most Londoners had never heard of it. None of the grocery stores in that town or Guilford had peanut butter. I was dating a chick who lived in London, and when I remembered I'd pick some up there. This was also 2001-2002.
 
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