I buy original US and UK paperback from Amazon.de. I don't know where they ship from, but it's in Gremany somewhere, because I get them the next day. And I can buy many of those originals in German bookshops. So, no, I don't need to buy them from a US seller and have them shipped from overseas.

>you can't go online to Amazon & buy US-only Kindlebooks while you're here
I can't? I don't plan to go to the US this year, I will have to test that another time. I will go to China, but they block so much that I am not sure I will be able to use WiFi at all, I will find out next month.