If Sherlock Holmes came by your place, would he know you travel?

     One look in my medicine cabinet or kitchen cupboard and you would sense that I travel. I do not try to bring everything with me as there is almost always a place to buy things in a pinch. Anyway, I like to go into grocery stores and drug stores and see the different products.
     For example, on the food front, we have rented flats in Paris a couple of times. These apartments are almost always in lack of kitchen space. Thus, you likely need to go to the corner market every day like every one else. In France, my experience is that eggs are mainly from free range chickens. The shells are very hard. You have to crack them with a knife (wack!). As well, if you like pepper on your eggs, it is likely you will not find black pepper like in the U.S. I actually have brought home two small shakers of white pepper and have to remember what the labels say in French.
     On a hot summer day in Florence Italy I bought a small can of medicated foot powder at a drug store near the Plazza Republica. I needed help as I speak only minimal Italian and I was looking for powder without aluminium which is usually added as a antiperspirant. I carry it now in my suitcase.
     I have antacids from Munich that look nothing like Tums.  I have a cough expectorant product from Bratislava, Slovakia. Italian dental floss is like fishing line.
     From Ireland I have what would pass for acetaminophen in the U.S. I also have a small blister pack of it from Verona Italy that takes a knife to open.
     I have a whole collection of tiny airplane tubes of toothpaste that comes in the swag-bags. Too there are the throw away toothbrushes that I do not seem to be able to throw away.
     I have lip-balm from England. There is a tube of anti-itch cream from Botswana southern Africa. By the way, other than bigger cities like Johannesburg and Livingstone in Zambia I did not see many places to shop for over-the-corner meds. My grandson and I   might have needed something after sharing a bag of dried caterpillars.
     There is lots more around the house to bring Holmes to the conclusions that we like to travel, or at least forget things.