Three Weeks

Today marks exactly three weeks since we've moved to the Netherlands and we have made tremendous progress towards getting settled. Here are some things we have:

An apartment!!! This process deserves its own blog post. It was harrowing but baring any horrendous last minute crisis, we move in on Friday (one million praise hand emojis)

Residency Permits!!! We're card carrying residents now. I have to give all my gratitudes to the nice people at the expat center who did quite the airbrush on my photo and made me look almost like a human and significantly less like the hideous sea creature I was that morning.

Bank cards!!! This took foreeeeever but now we can buy things! So many places only accept cash or only accept debit cards with pin numbers and we felt very left out (you know I love buying things). Now I can do my part to stimulate the Dutch economy.

Doctors!!! I have an appointment tomorrow to see my doctor (who got me in for a new patient appointment with 48 hours notice, which has probably never happened in the history of America. +1 Netherlands).

Bikes!!!

Here are some things we're still working on:

Furniture. We have all our fingers and toes crossed that they're going to be able to get all our Chicago furniture into our apartment. All the Dutch people said they'll figure it out, but the whole country also just use two twin mattresses shoved together instead of a queen sized mattress, so I am incredibly skeptical. Also, we are going to need to do quite the IKEA run since this country doesn't come with closets and in our haste to purge in America we got rid of some critical things (like our TV stand). So we're renting a minivan and loading up on Swedish meatballs. IKEA is my happiest place, so I'm sitting by the door like a dog with her leash in her mouth, waiting for Danny to tell me it is time to go.

Cell phones. We're halfway on this one. Danny is all set with his Dutch phone number. I have been dragging my feet. After having the same cellphone number forever, its been a much harder goodbye than I was expecting. I finally ordered my sim card (read: Danny got frustrated and ordered it for me) and once it is ready for pick up, I'll port my trusty - 301 number to google voice and get with the program. It helps that everyone has assured that iphone users can still imessage me with my new number (don't kick me off that group text just yet).

Health Insurance. Yeaaaah, we're doing this a little backwards. Our insurance paperwork won't be processed for another week or so, but I was anxious to get an appointment before starting work in July, so I explained the situation and they said that either they'd wait to bill the insurance or I could just get reimbursed depending on the timing. Dutch insurance takes effect as soon as you become a resident, and then you pay retroactively to that start date, so basically you can have your appendix out 2 days after getting here and as long as you have your Berger Service Number (SSN, essentially) you're totally covered. Pretty crazy, right? +2 Netherlands.

Friends. I'm a pretty social butterfly, so the past few weeks of alone time have been both refreshing and also a little draining. But I keep reminding myself that once I start work, I'll have a built-in network of potential friends. Also, there is a group of wives from Danny's office that gets coffee once a week. I've joined them a couple times and am slowly weaseling my way into the network. I also know there are a million other ways to make friends and we've explored exactly none of them. I think once we are fully settled this will become more of a priority.


Despite the frustrations of waiting for other people to do things for us, the past three weeks have been pretty great. I know we're still getting adjusted but it already kind of feels like home, in the sense that home is where you sit on the couch next to the people you love and watch TV, and home is where you have a favorite grocery store, and home is where you plan for a future longer than a few weeks away. Its still very new, but it is ours and we're very grateful.

Two wheels, unlimited freedom

I learned to drive to read Los Angeles in the original. - Peter Reyner Banham

In our first couple of weeks here we were feeling incredibly anxious. If you know us you know we are do-ers. Research. Go. Do. Check it off the list. So many things that were on our list were out of our control. There's a pretty relaxed vibe in this country around all things, including bank paperwork, real estate, and job onboarding. Our aggressive Type-A mentalities meant we were constantly stomping our feet wondering why everything was taking sooooo.loooooong.

Finally, after two weeks of this unpleasant moodiness, we took control of something and bought ourselves bikes.

Game. Changer.

Disclaimer: We both rode bikes pretty regularly in Chicago, on city streets with bike lanes and without, on lake front paths full of tourists, and surrounded by some of the most aggressive drivers and distracted pedestrians in the world. This experience meant we were incredibly prepared for biking in Amsterdam. I can imagine that if you only equate bike riding with summer vacation and lazy country roads, biking in a city that has built an entire persona around biking would present a serious learning curve.

Everything became more accessible to us once we had bikes. Destinations that took an hour to walk, or 35 minutes on a tram were suddenly 15 minutes and a nice calf workout away. Looking at apartments, running errands, and just experiencing the city all felt like adventures rather than obstacles.

Amsterdam is a city that was meant to be seen by bike. It doesn't lend itself to public transit like Chicago or New York does. And while you can do it on foot or by car, neither is going to leave you quite as satisfied as a bike ride. Almost every road has a corresponding bike lane, often with street lights specifically for bikes (and lights for bikes turning left!! miracle of miracles!), and the bikes truly do rule the road. Cars and pedestrians are both expected to wait for a bike before turning or crossing. Its quite amazing to see when it works correctly.

After an unrequited love affair with a beautiful mint green set of wheels, I invested in a practical, used black bike to prevent the inevitable heart break when it gets stolen/breaks/gets dirty from being out in the elements forever. The bike doesn't have gears or hand breaks or a basket (yet) but it has been my trusty companion as I have earned my bicycling in Amsterdam merit badges including:

• Biking with a shoulder bag full of groceries (I only brought the one bag in our suitcases, so have had to make due and have yet to have an issue)
• Biking in a skirt (and biking in a too-short skirt, which whoops, but also modesty doesn't seem to be high on the list of priorities in this city)
• Biking while checking my phone (this actually makes me incredibly anxious and I only did it when I was completely lost and had already taken several wrong turns, I literally needed to watch the little blue dot move forward to make sure I was heading the correct way)

I'm still working on efficiently parking and unparking my bike (between getting the bike in a spot and getting my lock on/off I'm averaging about five very ungraceful minutes) and using my bell effectively. While the vast majority of the city is full of people who takes bikes seriously, it is also has its share of idiots (both on bikes and just walking around). I often find that when someone has stopped directly in front of me, I am far quicker to just yell, "Hey Asshole!" than ring the bell. The yelling is generally less effective but more mentally satisfying?

I am patiently waiting before committing to bike accessories. Always the most impractical person you know-- I fell in love with this beauty and can't seem to talk myself out of it even though size-wise and logistics-wise its pretty useless. I also have a very beautiful (but completely impractical) bike basket in our storage container which I'm also going to try out before I take the plunge on something new.

Fun Netherlands Fact -- they're so pro-biking in this country that most companies (including mine and Danny's) offer some sort of rebate/tax bonus for buying a bike and accessories. Mine is going to equate to free vacation hours equaling both the cost of the bike and up to 80 euro of accessories. 

The bikes have helped us feel far more connected to the city than anything else thus far and were one of the best parts of our first two weeks here. 

The journey to takeoff

Last Tuesday was travel day. A day I would prefer to forget, but will live on in legend and cautionary tale until the end of time.

Pro tip -- don't fly KLM.

To be fair, KLM is a rule following airline. And we are nothing if not avid rule followers in this house. But I feel as though the rules become less important when a flight is taking off in one hour and there is a line of people waiting to check-in.

The line seemed to take ages and ages, and when finally it was our turn, it was 2:45, the flight was scheduled to take off at 4:00, and we were determined to be efficient. Paperwork out, ready to go.

Except that no one at the KLM counter spoke Dutch, which meant they weren't able to read the letter than gave us permission to move there. So we stood for what felt like 100 years (but perhaps was only 15 minutes) and waited for someone to call the Netherlands to make sure we had permission to move there. None of the goodbyes or the house selling drama was quite as destabilizing as the minutes we waited, unsure if we were even going to be allowed to get on the plane.

Then! After all that! They were incredible concerned about the weight of all of our bags. When we told them we were happy to just pay the over-weight fee and be done with it, the woman insisted that we rearrange everything right there in front of her and so while the seconds towards take off ticked by, we found ourselves moving things from bag to bag. This apparently was what had made the line crawl before we had made it to the front.

Pro tip for KLM - if 2 people have 4 bags, instead of weighing each one individually and making them move flip flips and granola bars from bag to bag, why not just weight them all at the same time and if they average the correct weight then we're done and no one wants to set fire to your counter.

By the by -- if we hadn't mentioned to this woman that we were flying with cats, she wouldn't have even noticed, so focused she was on the weight of all of our things. She gave the forms for the cats a cursory glance and then (finally) sent us on our way.  She was the only person to look at the cats forms. No one else ever even asked for them, so I'm glad we jumped through all those hoops when clearly, taking a cat to the Netherlands is no big deal.

After literally wrassling Miso through security (another pro-tip, don't bother wearing nice clothes when flying with a cat as there is a very real chance they will be destroyed before you make it to your destination) we made it to our gate with about 2 minutes to spare.

The flight itself was largely uneventful (except for Danny being seated in the same row as a woman who could not stand unassisted, which is incredibly dangerous and stupid -- again KLM is the worst --in addition to meaning that their "animals must be 10 rows apart" rule is totally bogus as we ended up being 3 rows apart) and then we landed.

When we went through customs the guy had zero questions -- he didn't care where we were going or how long we were staying, and the "stuff to declare" counter was closed (?!) so once again, no one gave our cats, their paperwork, or anything else we brought a second glance.

So now, we live in the Netherlands in very nice temporary housing, with all the things we thought we needed (that we actually don't) and none of the things we didn't bother to think about bringing.

When you move abroad and only have 4 suitcases for your first 30 days -- do not forget to pack a blanket, plastic bags for cat poop, a few pieces of tupperware, a blank notebook, and at least one of your own pillows.

Several lessons learned...more to come...