The Double-Edged Sword of Hot Dogs and Nutter Butters

Upstate New York is the kind of place where a healthy meal is generally considered to be something along the lines of a Reuben.

At first, we were delighted to binge on all of the guilty pleasures that we can't get in the Netherlands.

Among many other things, we horked down hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, and in John's case, a disturbing number of Nutter Butters.

Then it became clear that we were going to die immediately from a combination of indigestion and artery blockage.

The same general principle held true for our time in the car.

At first, it was really fun to zip around and do all of our errands without having to use a bungee cord to attach anything to the back of a bicycle.

About two days in, however, we were totally horrified by how many hours we were spending on the road every day.

Much of our driving was related to shopping for necessary and not-even-remotely-necessary items that are either hard to find or outrageously expensive in the Netherlands. (Import taxes, schmimport taxes!)

I loved being in an American grocery store for the first time in 6 months, but even so, it was hard not to get overwhelmed by the 100 types of cereal or 17 different kinds of cranberry juice or 46 flavors of yogurt.

It's nearly impossible to find energy bars in the Netherlands, but the grocery store we visited in Liverpool, New York has an entire aisle of them. An entire aisle!