Shopping Hell

One of the things that I did not consider when I moved myself from California to Estonia was shopping. Since I flew I had two and a half suitcases worth of possessions I could bring. I focused on cold weather clothes, a few books, including some some of my own.

Landing in Estonia, there are things I need to buy that I own in California. Stores are organized differently here and in a language I attempting to learn to speak. I had been looking for a two-hole punch to put class handouts in my binder.  It took me a week to find a stationary store. When I did find the stationary store, I realized I had walked by it at least four or five times in the past week. The window display was full of kids things so I thought it was a kids store instead of a stationary store.

The search for umbrellas was equally frustrating. I didn’t bring my falling-apart umbrella from California. It took a week of searching before I found a store selling “vihmavarjud.”

For those of you who know me well, you know I hate shopping. In California, I go without things because wasting time shopping is just not how I want to spend my life. Landing here, other than a few clothes and books, I had nothing. I need food, but can’t read the labels. I haven’t found the stores yet that will work best for me.

Everything that I had been doing without even thinking about it, has become a major production. But that’s the point isn’t it?  Here in Estonia I can see the world through beginners eyes and understand it via my beginners mind. No sense of how it used to be. I am living in the present moment for good or ill. There is no other choice.