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.