found it!

Wow. Oh, my. Oh, my …. goddess? My friend LA would say I asked the universe, and it delivered.

After someone told us that she’d seen popcorn in a Turkish store in Amsterdam, and someone else mentioned that it’s often sold in health-food stores, we decided to ask one of our Dutch teachers who lives in our city if he knew of a large instantiantion of either one nearby. He told us that a big one had just opened in the Heuvelgallerie, which is a mall just a few hundred meters from our house! I checked it out this evening, hence the hyperventilating with which I began this entry.

It’s five minutes walk, possibly less, and it’s not a health-food store but an entire organic grocery, closer to our flat than any regular grocery stores. For Americans, think Whole Foods. Of course it’s a bit smaller, but it’s as big as any Dutch grocery store. It’s a Belgian chain that’s just opened it’s very first store in the Netherlands. And they have popcorn!

The one thing they don’t have that I’d appreciate would be a bulk section (with popcorn, of course). But other than that, again wow. They had organic body and hair care stuff, meat and produce that looks better than in any of the regular groceries, plus the meat is actually at a butcher’s counter, with a butcer thee, so there’s someone to ask about cuts of meat. There are organic cleaning supplies, recycled paper goods, all kinds of grains – I was even able to buy kasha. But the one thing that convinces me that the universe has put this here for my especial benefit is this: they have multiple kinds of pretzels. And one of them, actually imported from Germany, is called Prinzess Brezels. Really, what could be more appropriate for this pretzel princess?