If you have been lucky enough to find a job before moving over, your first shopping trip alone might not happen for a while. But if you are unlucky, like me, your first trip will come sooner. My lovely boyfriend took a week off to get me settled in, but those days flew by and before I knew it I was alone!

Shopping at clothing stores are practically the same, just the stores and fashion may be slightly different, but they still follow the same rules. If you love shopping, you can have fun walking down the high street going in and out all the shops. It is all in the name of research, how else will you find your way around?

Food shopping is a completely different story… I am only from the UK, so I didn’t think that the food would seriously be that different. There is only a small ocean between us, what really could be different? Oh boy was I in for a shock! Before moving, I had travelled over to The Netherlands plenty of times, but I had never really spent any time in a supermarket. I mainly went out for dinner and regrettably always stopped at a fast food place for a quick lunch.

When I was getting ready to move over, a few family members put together a food basket full of some of my favourite things from Scotland.  Nothing beats having some of those home comforts, and with me in the apartment all day, I found myself going through the basket pretty quickly.

I have been lucky to have friends and family still send stuff over randomly which is always a nice surprise. Thanks guys!!!

I remember my first time walking into Jumbo, it smelt just like the supermarkets abroad on holiday. I was wanting to make lasagna from scratch… well, my version of from scratch.  I needed everything apart from the pasta sheets, but I walked in feeling confident.  I walked right up to the meat section, luckily I had my phone with me because looking at the mince I had no idea what the differences were… Rundvlees or varkenvlees? And what is mager?!

I made my way to the sauces thinking that would be the easy part. Back in the UK we have these really yummy specific lasagna sauces, so I was expecting it to be the same because well… life is just that easy. After not seeing the brand I thought: okay, next plan… I found myself staring at boxes of the ‘sauces’ and thinking well how does that work? The instructions were in Dutch, French or German but I could figure out it was only to make the red sauce.

But I couldn’t see the white sauce, my precious unhealthy creamy sauce! After walking up and down the isles, I started to feel lost and a bit overwhelmed. I messaged my boyfriend asking where it would be and being told it is exactly where I am standing!

I was instantly grounded, I remembered that I wasn’t home and I wasn’t in my local supermarket. I walked round looking for something that looked familiar, something that felt like home. I walked out of Jumbo empty handed and heavy hearted. I had to rely on my boyfriend to save the day and collect what I needed on the way home from work.

I don’t want to make anyone dread your first shopping trip alone. Your trip might be completely different, you may be more used to the names and foods then you will have nothing to worry about.  Just make sure if your going to the supermarket to have a fully charged phone, so you can translate the items you don’t know.  Google translate has become my saviour.

But one good thing… most of the supermarkets here have a full range of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!! Every cloud has a silver lining…

N x