5 Dutch Stores I Cannot Live Without | American in the Netherlands

hi everyone i'm ava and i'm an american living in the netherlands and recently i realized that my two year anniversary of having moved here is coming up and to mark this occasion i thought why don't i share a very specific list with you and that list is a dutch doors that i cannot live without i think the phrase dutch doors that i can't live without may be a little bit of an exaggeration so maybe more aptly it should be called dutch stores that i really like and will be really disappointed if i didn't get to go to but that's a less catchy title so i'm going to stick with stores i can't live without and as i was thinking about what i wanted to include and not include on this list it did strike me how many things were similar and then also how many things were different so i saw both aspects and i hope you will too so without further ado let's get into number one and that is intertown i feel like you won't just learn about dutch culture and dutch people in this video but you're also really going to see what stores i specifically like and i should have thought about this a bit more before deciding to share this with the internet so intertown what is intertown so it is a department store that focuses on stuff for your garden now do i have a garden no but does intertown also cater to other needs absolutely yes i never thought i would say something like i can't live without a garden store because i always thought that that was something for people who owned like a big house in the suburb with a huge backyard and maybe a front yard too because yeah that's what many people like and i live in cities so in the u.s i've never had the need to look for stuff to even go on my balcony because i've never really even had a proper balcony i've had fire escapes so i never really thought about getting stuff for the outdoor area when i lived in the u.s but when i moved here i started to have a bit more space so i have a little roof terrace thing situation going on in my current apartment and my girlfriend was like okay we need to go and make it nice and that is how i was introduced to intraten needless to say that once i got to the store it very quickly became about much more than plants also you don't need to have a garden or to have plants of course but i was never very good at keeping plants alive what am i saying i'm still very much terrible at keeping plants alive but i go to into town and i just like transform into this person who wants to become a gardener but okay i feel like i need to really make it clear that this extends beyond plants and gardening because while intertown is focused on these things i've gotten stuff from my cat there that's where i like to go to get stuff from my cat because it's just such a pleasant experience now i went there one time around christmas and that was a mistake because that one time quickly became three and to give you an idea of what insta town can do to you i walk through and around christmas and of course they had a lot of christmas decorations so i was like putting things in my basket and it got to a point where i ended up with nine different types of christmas tree ornaments and folks i don't own a christmas tree i've never owned a christmas tree at that point in time i did not have a christmas tree to put those christmas ornaments on and here i am thinking that i'm a rational person that said going back to to intertown in the us they're probably places that are similar but i kind of think of walmart or maybe even the home depot i i don't i've never lived in the suburbs so i don't really know what these big department stores offer in terms of gardening but at least from my experience having lived in cities i don't often come across places that cater to the garden but then are also pleasant in other ways this is such a weird list because the next item on this list is the albert hein now if you've seen my video on grocery shopping in the netherlands by the way if you haven't check it out i mentioned albert hein like every other sentence i even had to say there this video is not sponsored by albert ein because i'm really talking about overtime the whole time um are there other grocery stores in the netherlands yes they are are there great marked outdoor markets that you can go to to buy your produce absolutely do i go to other supermarkets and outdoor marts yes i do i do i go to all these things and i like it but something about the albertine if i did not have the albert height i think i would be a little upset and i mentioned that there's a similar store called heirloom giant in the u.s but it's still not the same it has to do with how things are organized and how they're really focused on you going in and coming out as quickly as possible they have these nice categories of items and everything is organized in a way that is meant for the consumer to go in quickly and come out quickly i love that i also love their stickers that say this is a price favorite or this is in the bonus just i mean it's such a nice experience it's expensive compared to some of the other options available but i like it so much i can't help myself okay watch out this list only gets weirder because the next things i want to talk about and these are definitely stores and i'm going to lump two stores together that i wouldn't you know die or be extremely disappointed if i didn't have them in my vicinity but i do like them so two stores that i like in terms of clothing are and household accessories should add that are the boy and uh scotch and soda so starting with boy i would compare boy to anthropology which is an american store i don't know the origins of anthropology but that is a store that is anthropology is really popular in america so that is a story that is available in the u.s there is a branch of anthropology in amsterdam if i'm not mistaken i haven't gone there so the boy is similar to the anthropology they have clothes they're honestly if i'm being honest expensive unless you shop in the sales section and scotch and soda is just a clothing brand that started in amsterdam and now some of their branches are also available in the us but i got to know scotch and soda before they were in the u.s and i really felt like i would like to be able to buy their clothes because they're slightly higher quality they're a bit edgy and different and i wanted to buy their clothes when i was in the u.s but of course that was not possible okay so in terms of what i would miss even though there is anthropology in the u.s it's a little different the styles of the stores of course but what i would miss about the boy is that's where i buy presents for people like if i need to find a small present i will go there and i know that i will see something because they have this eclectic collection of things for your house so i just hop in there and grab a couple of cups or some notebooks or i don't know just they have a wide assortment of things so i would miss that about the boy now moving on to scotch and soda what i wanted to say about scotch and soda actually really applies to a lot of the clothing brands in europe and in the netherlands and that is that it is way easier for me as someone who is five seven and a half feet that half is very important which is about i think 172 centimeters 173 something like that um it's hard for someone who's my height and not and you know like relatively skinny to find clothing that fits them in the u.s and it's not just that is that women also tend to be on the shorter side so i am pretty above average in the u.s in the netherlands i'm still relatively average so it's easier for me to find clothing that is made for me and like jeans that don't stop at my ankles when they're not supposed to for instance to give you a concrete example i recently visited my family two weeks ago in the us and we ended up going to walmart because i don't know they wanted to go to walmart okay so we went and there was almost nothing in my size in the clothing section i know this sounds like an exaggeration but it isn't there are very few pieces of clothing that they have and i'm i don't shop at walmart but if i wanted to i just wouldn't be able to because there are very few pieces of clothing that were smaller than an s and an s in walmart is at least a medium an m here in the netherlands so there just wasn't anything built for my size and i was really surprised number four i feel like i am already anticipating the comments on this one and number four the fourth store store is a generous description of the two places again that i'm gonna lump together um and that is the fabo and the smallers so basically places where you can get food from the wall i i think these i honestly cannot live without anymore i know they're fast food places in the us but it's not the same like i just i don't like going into mcdonald's or burger king and it's just not my my speed but so something about getting these like nice fried snacks from the wall yes that is for me and especially because smallers and female tend to be located perfectly like for instance if i'm at a station i grab a veggie burger from smullers i do that really often and if you were to ask me before i moved here whether i saw myself getting stuff from smullers or fabo i would just say no because you know i'm not into fast food even though i'm american i mean i like fast food but i'm not into burger king or mcdonald's and places like that um then i move here and the next thing you know i'm all about that vidalja from the fabo like i'm walking around i'm like oh my god i'm hungry um i just wish there was something something small and something comforting and there it is and i don't know what that difference is between why i don't like burger king or mcdonald's that much but why i'm i'm ready to just run to the smellers or the favor to grab myself something no idea where that difference comes from but i am admitting it to you i would be very very upset if i had to live without famo and smullers i guess you can just say that i have high-end culinary taste you know what it is i think it's quite funny that dutch people make fun of americans for liking fast food and it is a problem of course obesity is a problem in the u.s but at the same time i would classify babo smallers very much in the same category as a burger king wendy's or mcdonald's and finally number five the last item on this list probably if you are dutch the reason you clicked on this video and that is the hema oh my god how do i describe the hema to people who are not dutch maybe if you are french and you live in paris you've gone to the hema but listen if you have not gone to a hema in your life you are missing out the hema is a place where you can just get everything you could possibly want so the hema is very similar to target in the u.s that also has a large collection of items they're very useful items they're kind of cute they're nice and it's a pleasant experience to go to target in the us but the hema is at a different level i can't explain it but i think maybe it also has to do with the cultural significance of the hema and also the fact that the hema really focuses on the gazelle experience you go into the hey mine everything is very nice it's comforting um like i said cute i cannot say the word cute enough when i think of the hema when i initially moved to the netherlands two years ago now my girlfriend wasn't here with me she was still in the us so i kind of had to figure out where i would buy things on my own and after some time i caught on i caught on to her just saying why didn't you go to the hema you can find this at the hema and at some point i really realized that anything you could want you could get at the hema what i like about behema is that they also have a lot of focus on dutch culture so for instance they have a lot of yip and yanaka things yepenanika are two characters out of a children's book series there are lots of stories about yip and yanuka and every dutch person knows them so they have all these onesies and books with the opinionica on them and it's it's all very cute the hema is such a dutch store that at some point the hema was about to go bankrupt during koben and there was an outrage amongst dutch people i think people were really willing to collectively buy out the hema or i don't know people people were very upset so those were five dutch stores that i really like in the netherlands and if you have something to say about this video or anything about these stores hey go ahead and leave a comment down below and if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that subscribe button i've noticed that over 80 percent of you who watch my videos have not subscribed until next time

Channel: Dutch Americano

Views: 33,208

Keywords: Dutch stores, stores in the netherlands, American in the Netherlands, Dutch lifestyle, Dutch culture, American expat in the Netherlands, Dutch vs. American culture, Dutch store, American in Europe

Id: OzQRpkIkgos

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021