Oh that is sad but I have found that 300gsm handmade paper is can be good for practice. It needn't be sized paper, but if you can find that please try on it.

What I have found is every paper is so different in absorption, spread and drying speed. So if you stick onto one kind of paper, you will gradually get used to it.

You can also try buying online using some services who can deliver to US addresses and then reship them to you.. they are called shipment forwarding or so