Resolution

For those interested, the laundry debacle has been resolved. Erin put the whole mess back into the dryer and checked on it 45 minutes later. Sure enough, the heat and tumbling worked to undo the twisted knot of laundry and life is back to normal. We use the term "normal" loosly.

Also, Erin found springform pans that can serve as cake pans. Surely there are regular cake pans in some store in this country somewhere, but Erin only found springform pans so that's what we have. Friday night we made a cake for a Saturday night dinner with some friends - mostly accountants from Ernst & Young. The cake turned out perfectly! It was fun to eat dinner with people from all over the world. The party included a woman from Ghana, a man from Brazil, us, and another couple from the U.S.

Erin walked to the store Saturday afternoon and on her return journey she noticed the Olympic Stadium tower, on which the Olympic flame burned during the games of 1928. There is a clear view of this tower, complete with lit up Olympic rings at night, from just outside our apartment. The 1928 Olympics made history in a couple ways. It was the first Olympics in which women were allowed to participate in gymnastics and athletics. It was also the first Olympics in which an Olympic flame was lit. Apparently Queen Wilhemine was against the Olympics because it was a "demonstration of paganism," so government funds were not given to support the event. The money for the games was raised by civilians who started the tradition of lighting the Olypmic flame to spite the queen's distaste for such paganistic ritual. We live right across from such a historical place. We live in a 75 year-old apartment building in a European city filled with canals, cathedrals, row houses, and bicycles.

Yet somehow the romantic, charming, exotic ideas we had in the U.S. of living in Europe are not quite true. No matter where you live, you work hard to get by...to maintain the necessities and pleasures of life. You spend your time figuring out how to get things done and how best to communicate with people. And somehow very quickly the charming, exotic surroundings become familiar. This European city seems so much like any city, only with more difficulties. Noticing a historic landmark or a field of sheep every once in a while brings back that feeling of romanticism, if only for a few minutes. In those few minutes we cannnot believe we actually live here - in a place Americans study in history class in school, in a place filled with buildings and monuments much, much older than the country we came from.

Then the moment passes and it's time to start thinking of what you need to make dinner or where to get starch to iron shirts or how to pump up your bicycle tires. Hmmm...what should we have for dinner?

Broken Laundry

Here we have today's mess. In case you can't guess what this is, we'll tell you. This is a damp, quite large cover that goes on the down blanket we have on our bed. Inside the cover is at least one pillowcase. When the dryer buzzer went off, Erin went to take the laundry out only to discover this mess: the cover has engulfed other pieces of laundry and twisted in on itself so that not even 30 minutes of serious attempts will undo the damage. Of course, none of these linens belong to us - they belong to the landlord and out of all our sheet sets this is probably our favorite. We are currently considering putting the whole mess back in the dryer from whence it came hoping that heat will shrink the material, dry it out, and thus undo the tangle. There is no end to the frustrations here!

Erin also decided today that she spends about a quarter of her life looking for misplaced, lost, or simply nonexistent items. Today she spent 45 minutes in several stores looking for cake pans. She spent another 20 minutes in the grocery store trying to find vanilla extract to no avail. She then came home and spent 30 minutes searching for the wallet she carried in the US, which had a debit card in it that she needed to use to pay for airline tickets. After finding the wallet and afore-mentioned debit card she discovered that the airline site would not accept this card as a VISA debit card even though the card clearly states on the front that it is both a "VISA" and a "debit" card. Erin also spent 25 minutes today looking for a letter from the bank that included a 10-digit number that she must have in order to activate her credit card here. The letter is nowhere to be found. Several minutes ago Erin spent 10 minutes emptying the newly stocked spice cabinet (thanks to the arrival of our shipment) in search of ground red pepper, which she could have sworn she bought just a couple months before moving to Amsterdam. She used chili powder instead.

And that's why it is a full-time job for Erin to do everything here (except go to work and do accounting for 9 hours a day).

Summer Time!

Well, it's not really summer time since it's nearing the end of October (can you belive it's already October 27?!?) but the weather in Amsterdam the last two days could fool you! It has been cloudless, sunny, and around 70 degrees. That calculation is in Farenheit since it still takes too long for Erin to convert to/from Celsius.

Of course, last week it was in the 50's during the day and it rained for four days straight so we finally went on the dreaded shopping trip Saturday to buy coats. (By last Saturday the shipping company still could not tell us when our shipment, including our coats, might be delivered.) We once firmly believed Texas was the only place where weather could change so drastically without a moment's notice. After this past week in Amsterdam, we feel Texas is not alone in unusual weather phenomena.

Just in time for the summer weather, our shipment arrived! The coats and sweaters we so desperately longed for a week ago are sitting unworn and unappreciated in our closets. We will be sure to appreciate all those winter clothes if the weather becomes more seasonable! As the Dutch quickly point out, "It's nice weather today, but tomorrow it will be cold/rainy/windy/dark."

Bright and early Wednesday morning, the movers arrived with our container of goods. This is, we think, the first time anyone has arrived on time, even early, for an appointment. The company told us our shipment would come between 8 and 9, and when John was leaving for work at 7:55 he looked out the window to see the container already sitting in the street! By 9:30 the movers had carried all the boxes up and unloaded everything onto every available table, countertop, and piece of floor existing in our apartment. The only damaged item was our particle board computer desk, so we'll be off to IKEA once again next weekend. Oh, and our filing cabinet is MIA. We were never sure if it fit in the container to make the trip over here but we never heard otherwise. We are currently trying to locate this item. If anyone reading theblog has seen our four-drawer wooden filing cabinet hand-stained by John himself, please let us know.

Erin spent all of Wednesday trying to find places for all our "new" items. After living so long in a relatively empty apartment, things seem a bit crowded now, but we know we will get used to our homey apartment soon. Just looking at all our books on the bookshelf, seeing our own pictures decorating the walls and table, using familiar cooking items in the kitchen, and listening to our own music rather than Dutch radio is putting a smile on our faces. Speaking of music, John is already playing piano again on the electric keyboard we bought before moving. It's not quite like the grand piano at home, but the piano sound is surprisingly realistic.

As a side note, Erin interviewed with the church today to be part of the counseling ministry and got the job...or the volunteer position to be more precise. She should be seeing clients in a few weeks.

Also, no news on the ring, but there are a lot of people praying for us to find it and many people have told us stories of lost rings that took several months to turn up so we've not given up hope completely yet.

Let's Be Fair

After experiencing the culture in the Netherlands for the past two months, we realize we have had some pretty frustrating things to say about life and people here. Although we still miss the States right now and wish desperately that we were there rather than here, we must be fair. From across the ocean we can see some pretty frustrating things about the U.S. as well.

We had a chance to talk with a Dutch woman tonight at church who spent a couple years in New York at a Bible school. Talking with her confirmed some our suspicions about the way Americans are versus Europeans.

The way Americans work is slightly crazy. Did you know it is actually illegal here for employees to not take their vacation? Three weeks of vacation per year seems to be the minimum in the Netherlands though most people have about five weeks and will take an entire three weeks of vacation at one time. We know many Americans who forgo their vacation time completely, and taking a full three weeks off work is absolutely unheard of! Europeans find this a bit ridiculous, and frankly so do we. It kind of makes America seem a bit like a machine: all work, all the time. While the Dutch might be a bit slow for us Americans, we Americans are insanely attached to our identity being about how much we accomplish in a day, how little sleep we get, and how overly busy we are.

Feeding into this machine mentality is a lack in the American education system to teach people how to really think. Exams are multiple choice and classes generally consist of a group of students sitting, usually sleeping with their eyes open, while an educator lectures. Few questions are asked and rarely will a student disagree with what a teacher is saying. Europeans are generally taught to think for themselves, back up what they think, and learn how to describe and define why things are the way they are or why they are doing what they are doing. Erin can definitely agree that she feels ill-prepared to give reasons or debate issues, mostly because her whole educational life has been spent memorizing information rather than thinking through things. Disagree with a professor? Never! Well, at least rarely.

This then leads to the point that Europeans seem to be generally much more knowledgeable about world events and politics. Americans seem rather foolishly insulated from the rest of the world and annoyingly apathetic when it comes to politics. Of course, what with working 60 hours a week and not taking vacation, there's precious little time to be well-read or investigate political and world events. Europeans get the impression that Americans are happy to barge into world situations without knowing anything about how the rest of the world really operates. The woman we spoke with said she was in the States when we invaded Iraq and said many of the people she talked to said they were "for" the war because the president said it was the right thing to do. She wondered if most of these people could even point to Iraq on a map. I wonder the same thing. After all, I remember history lessons being about 15% world history and 75% Texas history. (This could of course simply be a phenomenon of living in Texas - "It's a whole other country.")

Of course, there are exceptions. There are exceptions in the Netherlands like there are in the States, and everywhere in the world. We just wanted to be a bit fair. America is not the perfect culture; there's not a perfect culture. The only reason we are fine with so much work and so little vacation, with simply memorizing facts, with living insulated with little knowledge of other countries and politics is because we grew up like this. So, in this stage where we hate it here, it is at least a little soothing to remember that our own culture is not ideal either.

Stage Three

This little graph was presented to us last summer in New York during Ernst & Young's Global Exchange Program orientation session. The typical expat family goes through several stages in the initial months of an assignment, they told us. The stages go something like this:

Stage One Excitement and eager anticipation of moving to a new and different place.

Stage Two Feels like vacation. Every little detail of the new culture is exceptionally fascinating and is perceived as being better than home

Stage Three Frustration with the new culture, and a strong desire to just go back home where everything is more comfortable and familiar.

Stage Four Frustration and feelings of homesickness gradually fade and life begins to feel normal.

After reflecting on the past week, we realize that we are slipping into Stage Three. This is actually a good sign, if you look at the graph, because we're about two months ahead of schedule. We hope to move to Stage Four quickly, but first we'll tell you why we think we're not there yet.

We are different than they are
Every time we interact with the locals, we quickly realize that while we were not raised in this culture as almost everybody else was. This means they are likely quite comfortable with the way things are here. They are used to paying 25 cents to go to the bathroom, paying 40 cents for one packet of ketchup at McDonald's, and making a deposit of up to €1 for the privilege of using the shopping cart at the grocery store. And it is expected that there are 4 omni-directional wheels on every cart. For us, pushing one of these carts is a very awkward way of learning about the laws of motion and inertia.

These and other small little details of life were novelties for the first several weeks, but now it's just starting to get annoying. Can we please just a big wad of free ketchup (not mayonnaise) packets to go with our french fries?

Everything is in Dutch
We expected people to speak Dutch here, but expecting something and actually experiencing it firsthand are two completely different things. Many people here can speak both Dutch and English, which is good for us. But we can't get around the fact that everybody here still prefers Dutch, and will speak their first language whenever possible. This means that when people are communicating directly with us, they will speak in English, then revert back to Dutch when talking to others. This can become uncomfortable when we are still present and have no idea what they are saying. Should we laugh when somebody has told a funny joke, even though we have no idea what it was about? Or maybe they're just laughing at us?

We receive all kinds of mail in Dutch. Phone bills, letters from the office, letters from the government. Even the correspondence explaining how to obtain our residence permit is in Dutch. We think the chances are high that if somebody is applying for a Dutch residence permit, they probably were not born here and therefore probably speak some language other than Dutch. Maybe we're wrong.

We still don't have our stuff
We've been living out of suitcases for over two months. When we call the moving company each week, they tell us they think they know where our stuff is, but they're not quite sure. We can FedEx a letter across the world and receive 4 updates per day until it is finally delivered. We think this should also be possible for our 35 boxes. We would probably feel more "at home" here if we had our shipment already.

Missing ring
Included in one of our 35 boxes is Erin's ring holder. This is where she is used to putting her engagement ring when she takes it off. Since we don't have this yet, Erin has been finding other places to put her ring for the past two months, most recently on a table beside our bed. Well, somehow we are unable to locate the engagement ring. Erin wishes she could remember more about Monday, but she has been racking her brain all week to no avail. Many prayers have been devoted to this subject this week. We have tried hysterical crying, retracing steps, frantically searching the entire apartment, and then moving and removing every single item and piece of furniture in the apartment in an orderly manner but the ring is still missing. It is possible that losing the ring is helping us along to stage three.

They're always watching
In Europe they have found a very effective way to prevent speeding on the roads. The Netherlands is apparently known throughout Europe as the place that you do not want to be speeding. The situation is more complicated for us because much of the time we don't actually know what the speed limit is. On the highways, if the speed limit is not posted, it's probably 120 km/h. We think there are set speed limits for city streets, but we don't know what those are.

Actually, we now know the speed limit in Otterloseweg--50 km/h. This is the location of the national park we went to on October 1. Yesterday, we got a notice in the mail from the auto leasing company that says "Omschrijving overtreding: OVERSCHRIJDING VAN DE MAXIMUMSNELHEID BINNEN DE BEBOUWDE KOM (GEDRAGSREGEL) TOT EN MET 10 KM PER UUR."

There are lots of other Dutch words on this letter, but the most recognizable part was "Toegestane snelheid - 50 km/h; Gemeten snelheid - 62 km/h." We think this means we were going 62 in a 50. So we now have a choice of either paying the €30 fine or protesting with the Divisie Executieve Ondersteuning, however you do that.

Yeah, so we didn't actually get "pulled over" as is customary in the US. The Dutch authorities don't want to waste their time with this; they simply strategically place cameras throughout the country, catch every single offender on a given stretch of road, and send notice of the fine through the mail (unless you happen to be within the stingy 1% margin of error, which in our case would be 52 km/h). And they are constantly moving the cameras around so it's impossible to predict where the cameras are (there is actually an unofficial hotline that people call to report the camera locations, but the hotline is in Dutch). This wouldn't be such a problem if we actually knew the speed limits. It is a common belief that this system is just another form of taxation on the residents here in the Netherlands.

They're always watching, part 2
Aaron Krabill, a U.S. Senior Manager in the Amsterdam office, was kind enough to host a party yesterday evening in honor of the new expats in the office, us included. This was a great time to see people outside of the work environment, and we got some very useful advice about trash. Rule #1: Never put your trash outside on the wrong day. Rule #2: Never break rule #1 more than once, or you will be fined. If you leave your trash out on an inappropriate day and it is not readily apparent who the offender is, the sanitation department will confiscate the bag of trash and meticulously search through each item in the bag until they discover the offender's identity. They will then send an €80 fine in the mail. We know someone who has received multiple fines for this offense.

Rule #3: Always dismantle your boxes before placing them in the recycling bin. Neighbors are watching you from their windows and they will come outside and gripe you out in Dutch if you break this rule. Why do they care so much? Luckily we haven't been caught breaking this rule yet.

So this hasn't been our favorite week, but we expect to proceed to stage four eventually, and hopefully life will be somewhat normal soon.

Two Months Later

So, we finally have word about our shipment of goods from the U.S. We have been wearing the same clothes over and over and over and over since we arrived in the Netherlands two months ago. We are grateful to have a furnished apartment even though as more time goes by Erin realizes how many kitchen items, like a vegetable peeler or casserole dishes or pie plates, are noticeably absent from our place. (Our landlord is a single man in his 40's whose idea of showing us how to use the kitchen appliances was to point to an electric hot water boiler and say, "That's pretty self explanatory" and then explain how to use the microwave by describing what he does to heat up TV dinners or pizza.)

Ah yes, our shipment. Ernst & Young told us to expect the shipment to take 4-6 weeks. It has now been 8 weeks, but we heard this week that our items have been tracked down and are now in the Netherlands. (For some inexplicable reason our stuff has spent the last two weeks in Belgium.) We should expect to have our clothes and household goods delivered next Wednesday! Since Erin is home more than John she is much more excited about this. Imagine having a computer at home during the day, familiar pictures on the walls, and our own pillows!!! Since the shipping company has told us every week for the last month that our shipment "should come in 2 weeks," it's hard to actually allow ourselves to believe the promised delivery date will be a reality. Just to be on the safe side, we're going to go buy some coats tomorrow since the weather is getting a bit colder.

Paris - Thanks to Ernst & Young

Last Friday we left about 1 p.m. with the Coopers and all our luggage (in our tiny car) to drive to Paris. And we drove. And we drove. And we drove. Until 8 p.m. we drove, though it was still better than catching a bus at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning to ride for 8 hours to Paris. Ernst & Young paid for the whole office to go to Disneyland Paris on Saturday, eat, and stay in a Disney resort as kind of an office party. We decided driving would give us extra time to see a little of Paris as well. (With all the wrong turns we took, we ended up seeing a lot of Paris!)

On the way out of the Netherlands John was hungry and wanted to stop at McDonald's. Woe to us - it was on the wrong side of the road. In the U.S. this would not be a problem, but here it is much more difficult. Though it was fairly easy to find the McDonald's, getting back on the highway going in the correct direction was a challenge to say the least. Exits and entrances are never in the same area for getting on and off in either direction, so exiting and crossing over to the left side of the road means that after John successfully ordered and ate a Quarter Pounder we drove around aimlessly for 20 minutes trying to find an entrance back on the highway in the appropriate direction! (This tidbit of information about exits and entrances to the highway proves to be important to remember for the rest of our journey. Missing an exit or taking the wrong exit is torturously punishable by having to drive in the completely wrong direction for at least 10 km before being able to turn around.)

Our plan, not the plan when Erin was printing directions but the plan decided upon once in France, was to bypass our hotel and go straight on into Paris to see some stuff Friday night. What with the wrong turns, horrible Paris traffic, and circling the Arc de Triomphe, we finally parked and were on our way to the Eiffel Tower by 8 p.m. (It should be about 6 hours to Paris - so not too bad!) John took a business meeting call from the U.S. while we waited in line to get tickets to the Eiffel Tower. What an amazing view at night! We took the elevator to the very top and saw all of Paris by moonlight. Although Erin has been on the Eiffel Tower at night, she didn't go to the top nor was she with John so this was a great second trip to the Eiffel Tower for her! On the way up the Tower John wondered how many people were proposing marriage that night on the Eiffel Tower. Just 20 minutes later we witnessed at least one of the night's proposals! The bride-to-be seemed too busy showing off her ring and hugging family and friends to notice, as we did, that her fiance was looking more relieved and shocked than deliriously happy. :-) Erin decided she was glad John had looked so happy after his proposal 4 years ago.

By the time we left the Eiffel Tower it was between 9:30 and 10. All four of us were hungry, though Erin was willing to just give up on dinner and go to the hotel since she realized it would probably prove quite difficult to find coming from the opposite direction now. However, everyone else seemed intent on eating and we did find an open cafe near the Tower about 10 p.m. After a leisurely dinner, we left about 11 to find the hotel. Once again, Erin began worrying about finding this place because the directions she'd printed out were from Amsterdam going south, not Paris going north. Sure enough, we started out driving in the wrong direction for an hour, backtracked, then could not find the right exit if our life depended on it. The directions had been a bit vague in the first place: take exit 13, take the first exit at the first roundabout, at the second roundabout take the third exit, at the fourth roundabout take the fourth exit toward the Marriott, look for the sign. Hmmm. All we can say is, the French countryside is beautiful, but driving around in circles at midnight for 2 hours is NOT fun. We were so stressed out and tired. We stopped once at a gas station to ask directions, but the cashier did not speak English. Jacob also had a little trouble understanding the guy anyway as he was behind a foot of bullet-proof glass! The man at least told us we needed to turn around. Ummm, thanks. Eventually we figured it out. Don't ask us how. We were all deliriously tired by the time we found the Marriott's Village d'Ile-de-France at 2 a.m. Fortunately this story has a happy ending.

We woke right up when we saw our €119/night accommodations: a 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, 2-story townhouse complete with a full kitchen, washer and dryer, living room, and dining room overlooking a lake! All of us decided this was much nicer (not to mention much larger) than our own apartments! We cannot describe the elegance, especially after driving for about 10 hours that day. Tasteful decor, dishes, four pillows a piece, fluffy towels, bathrobes, down comforters. Oh the bliss! Too bad we were only there 9 hours. :-( What a fantastic deal, too! All we can say is, Wow!

After seeing those plush accommodations we moved our departure time the next morning back by 30 or 40 minutes. Disneyland could wait. We needed sleep.

If you've ever been to Disney World in Florida, there's no need to go to Disneyland Paris (unless of course it's free thanks to your firm!). We enjoyed the rides we went on, but it takes away a lot of the ambiance when instructions, narrations, and pre-shows are all in a language you don't understand! Thankfully, the big shows provided narrative in both French and English, which is tedious, or headphones were provided so you could listen in your language of choice. Don't expect Disneyland Paris employees (or "cast" as Disney calls them) to be happy or even pleasant, or to speak English. Attention to details is lacking, and since Erin is a bit obsessive-compulsive she noticed. There was dirt on the carpet in our hotel room, mildew in the shower, cobwebs everywhere, trash all over the parks, and croissants and fruit for breakfast - that's all. We know, we know. We're in France, what do you expect? But this is Disneyland! There are people from all over the world here. At least offer some waffles or scrambled eggs or something. All this and we were staying at the second to the nicest Disney hotel!

Ernst & Young spent a fortune on this party. We think there were 3000 people attending, and we were all appreciative of the free holiday! The party Saturday night at Disneyland was fantastic! It began with a speech by one of the partners, in Dutch of course. OK, so that part wasn't that fantastic, but then there was a dance show and those people could dance! After hors d'oeuvers and drinks, we went to eat at a restaurant in Adventurland for an excellent dinner buffet. We also got to ride a couple more rides. We rode the roller coasters with one of John's coworkers and her husband, both from Ghana, who had never ridden a roller coaster before! It was so fun to be on the rides with them and see their reactions! After "Space Mountain" Pamela decided she had had enough of this roller coaster thing. Both of them said they'd never been so scared in their lives. At the last minute, William decided he would give it another try on "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril." He definitely had more fun on his second roller coaster. We have to say Indiana Jones is the perfect ride to go on at night!

At about 11 they had a concert for us. It was a big compilation of songs from the 1970s through today. We guess the Dutch are more into drinking and less into dancing. There were only a small group of us near the stage that were dancing, but it was so fun! About midnight John and I could no longer stay awake, so we headed to the hotel.

Sunday we met the Coopers to leave for Paris at 9:30...well, 10. Who knew it could take so long to eat croissants and drink hot chocolate? We all toured Notre-Dame and got to hear their awesome choir sing for the Sunday mass. Then we and the Coopers went our separate ways for the afternoon. We walked over to the Centre Georges Pompidou and visited the modern art museum there. That was quite entertaining and sometimes a bit bizarre. The current exhibition is called "Big Bang" with the artwork divided up into different themes like destruction, subversion, melancholy, sex (yeah, that was interesting), war, and re-enchantment. Then we ate at a cafe overlooking Notre-Dame and had a typically French meal: John had a Croque Monsieur, Erin had a Quiche Lorraine, and we shared a créme brûlée for dessert. Mmmmm. :-) We saw the Pantheon from the ticket area inside. (We were too cheap and short on time to buy tickets.) Then it was back in the car for the ride home.

Once again we left the center of the city in a huge traffic jam only to discover 30 minutes later that we were driving in the wrong direction. We got to see all areas of Paris this way, though it took a bit longer to get to the road we needed. We think all sense of directions just disappears in Europe. Possibly this is due to the fact that it takes so much attention just to try to read the signs written in foreign languages with about 8 lines of text on each one! Jacob drove on the way back home and we only took one wrong exit. The sign clearly read A22 when we exited only to promptly read A27 after we exited! This, however, proved to be the most convenient wrong turn of the trip as it only took 5 minutes to get back on track. Overall the weekend was a success. We got home at 10 last night, weary but happy.

And then we discovered we had no hot water...again! Good news though. We now know we just have to push the "reset" button on the water heater. We still do not know why we must do this or why the heater decides to just turn off by itself sometimes. It's just one of those things we're learning to put up with in our new country.

Put Down That Guide to Life in Holland!

That's right. Put it down. Throw it out the window. Completely ignore everything the books say about the Dutch and how life is in Holland. So far almost everything we've read has been a complete and total lie. (Except that the cost of living here is about twice as much as it was in Dallas; that is absolutely true!) Let's have a look at some myths and truths about the Dutch and life in Holland:

Myth: The Dutch are extremely efficient and hard-working.
Truth: The Dutch work about four hours a day, as best we can tell. Whether one gets to work at 8, 9, or even 10, really does not matter - when 5 p.m. hits, or even 4 p.m. in many cases, it is time to go home regardless of how much actual work has gotten done. Keep in mind that 31% or people in the Netherlands smoke, thus requiring several smoke breaks during the day. Besides a 30-minute lunch, the Dutch must also observe the 10:30 and 3:30 coffee and tea breaks. Combined with the many breaks throughout the day we must consider the generally slower work pace of the Dutch, so we believe four hours of work a day is a fair estimate. (Unless, of course, you work for an accounting firm, say, Ernst & Young; business hours are relatively the same as in the U.S. there.)

Myth: In order to meet with a Dutch person, you must set up an appointment at least two weeks in advance and always be on time.
Truth: Although the Dutch may make appointments, they are rarely on time. In addition, we have not once encountered someone who made an appointment with us earlier than a few days in advance. Just as with most service companies in the U.S., you will still have to wait all day for someone to come fix/look at/deliver something "sometime between 10 and 4." In our experience neighbors are more than happy for you to just drop by since they have no idea what their schedule might be in two weeks time. The one strict rule we've come across regarding appointments is with our doctor's office where we must either walk-in between 8 and 9 a.m. or call for an appointment between 8 and 10 a.m. If we were to get sick, say, after lunch, our doctor told us we could call to see if we could come in but he would be severely unhappy and we might still have to wait and just call the next day during appointment-taking hours. (Our doctor, by the way, leaves the office at 4 p.m. See Myth #1.)

Myth: The public transportation schedules are not suggestions, they are promises.
Truth: Don't bother looking at the posted schedule because if you arrive one minute before the scheduled transport is suppossed to come it probably either came 7 minutes ago or will not come for 15-20 minutes. In any case, the average wait should be expected to be around 20 minutes. Bring a book. If the tram or train or bus comes to pick you up on the dot, praise God that He is blessing your day!

Myth: The Dutch are extremely straight-forward, even more so than Americans.
Truth: Perhaps the Dutch are brutally honest with each other (we have no way to tell since they speak to each other in Dutch, of course, and we understand nothing), but the Dutch seem to be quite gentle when communicating with Americans. In fact, the couple times we have practiced being straight-forward with Dutch people seemed to cause surprise and hurt feelings. Maybe the Dutch are told that it is the Americans who are completely truthful at all costs and so the Dutch are a bit afraid of what we might confront them with if they are too honest.

Myth: Many of the things you are used to in the U.S., like peanut butter, cake mixes, and Mexican food, will be impossible to find in the Netherlands.
Truth: Some of the first things we noticed in the grocery store were peanut butter, cake mixes, and an aisle of Mexican food. In fact, most everything the books say are hard to find can be found at any grocery store. (Note: Baking soda, black beans and pancake syrup as Americans are accustomed to it are both difficult to find and expensive.)

Myth: The Dutch are extremely environmentally-conscious and recycle everything.
Truth: There are the same number of environmentally-conscious people here as there are in the U.S. However, the Dutch do not recycle everything. Glass. Paper. Period. Even in Texas we recycled plastics, tin, and aluminum. Erin still has not found a place that recycles any of those in Amsterdam or the surrounding area.

Myth: Everyone speaks English in Amsterdam.
Truth: While many people do speak English in the city, be prepared to run across someone almost everyday who will only speak Dutch. Most older people and many employees in grocery stores and other small shops will not be able to speak English. Erin has experienced several uncomfortable episodes in the store where an older woman will strike up a conversation or ask a question to which Erin can only smile and try to communicate that she speaks English. If you plan to move to the Netherlands without learning Dutch, brushing up on sign language or charades is advisable.

The books are right about some things. It is cloudy quite a lot. Everyone rides a bicycle. Yes, you can buy pot and smoke it legally. Prostitution is legal as well. Dutch is an extremely hard language to learn.

One thing we never read in the books is that the Dutch are really very hospitable, sweet, and friendly. Amidst all the frustrations we continue to find silver linings. Come visit anytime to experience true life in Holland! (Warning: We do not gaurantee any visits to our apartment to be ordinary, calm, or unexciting.)

Proud to be Bears

We don't want UT's win over OU today to overshadow another important game that just ended minutes ago--Baylor actually won a Big 12 football game today against Iowa State. This marks their first road win ever against a Big 12 team. We're proud to be Baylor Bears, and we're glad we were able to listen to the final moments of the game from across the ocean.

Cops and Cranes

On Friday John came home around lunchtime to have a meal with Erin before our appointment with the doctor down the street. Apparently it's important to have an initial appointment with the doctor before we actually get sick. If we're not already in the "system," then we can't be seen. So, while John was heating up some leftovers, he casually wandered into the living room and peered out the window. He glanced down to the street below to find a guy on a bike and his friend being detained by three cops. They were questioned for fifteen or twenty minutes, before the guy on the bike was allowed to leave. He had apparently told them what they wanted to hear; his friend wasn't so lucky--she was escorted to the back seat of the car and they hauled her away. Meanwhile, one of the cops stayed behind to question a random guy standing by a tree across the street. We have no idea what this was all about. Could this be related to our psychotic neighbor next door? Or perhaps these characters knew something about the broken window in our neighbor's car, which was being replaced just a few meters away. Or maybe they got caught somking some joints--oh wait--that's legal here.
We'll probably never know for sure, but John is beginning to wonder if these kind of goings-on occur every day while he is at work.

After our trip to the doctor, which was a new and different experience, John had to go back to the office to finish up some work. He walked out of the apartment and found a crane blocking the street. It appears that the new neighbors next door got a better relo package than we did, because they get to use a crane to move their furniture into the apartment. Are you wondering how the movers got our stuff into the apartment? Well, we don't know how they're going to do it either. Yeah, we're still waiting on it...

Anyway, to get to work John had to drive in reverse for quite a long way down the street, which was probably enough excitement for him to last the rest of the month. By the time he returned from work, all was calm in the neighborhood, just like it is every night when he comes home, with no evidence of all the commotion that went on just hours earlier. Since John can't work from home every day, he might attempt to install a webcam in one of the trees outside so he doesn't miss out on the commotion that is likely to continue in our neighborhood on a regular basis.

Disaster Averted

"What?!?" you say. "John and Erin didn't actually meet with disaster today? It's been a whole week since something catastrophic happened!"

That's right, we just missed another exciting event. When Erin got home from the outdoor street market this evening John was already home. We baked some potatoes and ate earlier than usual since we had a meeting at a nearby fitness club to find out what ridiculously high price we would be quoted this time. (We've yet to find a fitness club, including the one visited tonight, that is less than €700 per person per year. We might just have to get fat while we're here.) :-) Just before leaving for the meeting, while rinsing dishes, John found that the hot water was not getting hot. Erin noticed the water pressure in the bathroom sink was a bit low and there was no hot water in the bathroom either. Since we had to leave for the fitness club we decided the problem would have to wait an hour or so.

When we got home, the hot water was still not working. John took a look at the gas water heater in the closet, which was blinking a zero at us. Is this how it always looks? Hmmm. We should pay more attention to these things when they are working! I mean, we look at it all the time since we keep the vacuum cleaner, the ladder, the broom, the ironing board, and the mop in that same closet. The only instructions to be found for the heater were, of course, in Dutch, so John called our landlord - the number actually turned out to be the landlord's mom who also knew nothing about gas water heaters. She did, however, promise to call her son but did not know if she could reach him tonight. Erin vowed that she would not shower until the hot water was fixed and John decided to take extreme measures at this point. He found a reset button on the gas water heater, closed his eyes, and pushed it.

The blinking zero starting counting up to 5 and another number, a 90, above the "temperature" button appeared. Aha. We both decided this looked more familiar than a blinking zero. The heater came on and the hot water from the faucets proved to be working once again. John called the landlord's mom again who said she had talked to her son and he was so upset at the people who installed the heater because apparently it does this regularly. The landlord says we should not have to push anything to get the heater to work. His mother also informed us that the landlord is calling the heater company to complain and set up a maintenance contract that will include service in the evenings. We do not know what this means or if someone from the company will be knocking on our door in a couple hours or not. Erin's just happy the hot water works again. She doesn't care if a button needs to be pushed every once in a while and John is relieved that she will be showering again!

P.S. It's 9:30 at night and the people next door are hammering away on the wall. This construction project has been going on all day. We're wondering how long this will last tonight and just waiting for them to hammer their way right through the wall into our living room!

Park Hogue de Veluwe

Yesterday (Saturday), we decided to travel for the day to one of the national parks in the Netherlands. It was pouring rain all through the night, and the rain was still falling, though a bit slower, when we awoke early Saturday morning. We felt pretty adventurous taking a trip to a national park to be outside most of the day in the rain, but then, we're in Holland and you can't put your life on hold because of rain since there's a good chance of rain every day of the year!

Park Hogue de Veluwe is a park situated in Eastern Netherlands between Apeldoorn, Ede, and Arnhem (for those of you who want to look this up on your map since I'm pretty sure most of you don't have a clue where these places are!) Actually, we don't have much of a clue either since we can't find a map of the whole country anywhere. We look up driving directions on the internet and have a book that shows different cities and towns in the Netherlands, but nothing that has the entire country on it. The drive was relatively smooth until we got off the highway. The only directions the park web site gave was to follow the signs off the highway. Well, that worked for a few miles. Then construction blocked the entire road. Hmm. We made a U-turn drove back down the road almost to the highway and made another U-turn. (John is very accomplished at U-turns since coming to the Netherlands!) We noticed a sign in Dutch that apparently meant to take a detour. The only reason we figured this out this time was that we knew the road was completely blocked a few miles down the road. So, we took the detour. We both swore we were going in a circle, but it was hard to tell as we were on tiny roads surrounded by 8-foot tall corn stalks, sheep and cows the entire time. It felt like we were driving through someone's farm. We finally emerged back onto a more well-traveled road and spotted signs once more pointing to the entrance to the park. Yea! We made it to an entrance! Though, oddly enough, it was an entrance on the complete opposite side of the park than where we had intended to enter. Oh well. We paid our money (to get in the gate, to park the car, to see the art museum, to get a tour of a hunting lodge...) and found the main visitor center.

By this time, it had stopped raining for the most part, though it was still quite cool outside. We ended up looking around the visitor center museum, an interesting conglomeration of scientific facts, dry humor, disgusting partially decomposed animal carcasses, and interactive dioramas with recordings of a nice woman telling us facts in Dutch. The museum was basically focused on the composition of the earth under the park, animals found in the park now and long ago, and the amount of water that falls and is put to use in Park Hogue de Veluwe. By the time we finished wandering around, the sun had started to come out and we decided to try out the "white bicycles."

The park has hundreds of white bicycles parked in lots at various places around the property that can be used by any visitor. You just take a bike and then leave it at any bicycle parking facility when you are done using it. We decided biking was a great way to see a lot of ground in a little time. Saturday morning and early afternoon on a semi-cloudy, cool day is a great time to have the park to yourself! We loved riding through the forested areas and the grass plains. The weather was perfect. We didn't see any wild animals, but we thoroughly enjoyed the nature we did see. Beautiful!

Part of the park was previously owned by a very rich family, the Kröller-Müllers, at the turn of the century. The family had a hunting lodge built by a lake on the property by a famous architect, H.P. Berlage. Erin heard that a group from the American Women's Club was going to take a tour of this lodge in the future so she knew tours were offered of this lodge where the royal family still stays sometimes. Tickets for the tour were only €2 per person so we figured, "Why not?" After a few minutes into the tour we discovered why not. The tour was completely in Dutch. Erin figured they would at least have English printed guides or something. Nope. Erin decided to make the best of it; after all, she really just wanted to get to see the architecture, decorations, and furniture inside the lodge. John was bored out of his mind. As the group moved from one room to the next, John insisted on making funny remarks about what he imagined the tour guide had been saying about this room for the last 15 minutes! The tour was 45 minutes, and after about 30 minutes John began secretly wondering how he could just sneak out of the lodge and forego the rest of the tour.

Whew! We survived the tour of the St.Huberts Hunting Lodge. Now we can say we've been.

There is also an art museum in the park because Mrs. Kroller-Muller was an avid art collector. The museum has tons of art and a large collection of original Van Goghs besides a 25 hectare (don't ask me how many acres that is - I'm not so good with my metric conversions yet, should've listened better in 5th grade) sculpture garden. There are over 100 sculptures and we didn't get to see them all, but the grounds are great and the ones we did see ranged from a modern display of brightly painted barrels stacked up to floating white plastic shapes in a pond to bronze nudes sculpted in the 1800s.

It was a satisfying day and we were so tired when we got home.

We bought refrigerated lasagna from the store to have for dinner last night. Unfortunately it came in a plastic container. John decided to follow the oven bake directions, which said nothing about the fact that the lasagna was in a plastic container. After 10 minutes John pulled the lasagna back out to check the progress and found that, sure enough, the plastic container was starting to melt. Since we're low on kitchen paraphenalia we had only a pot to transfer the lasagna to, but it seemed to work.

Note: Do not put plastic containers in the oven even if the directions say you can. The cheese in lasagnas in the Netherlands is...different. We never figured out what it was. Not mozzarellaa or Parmesann. Nevertheless, we ate the whole thing. You can also get excellent chocolate bars with hazelnuts in the Netherlands. Yum!