Look back

I've gone back through and added a few pictures so look back to some of the older posts to see some of them.

Word of the Day.

Vandaag = Today

Living the Dream

Saturday was such a nice day. The weather was beautiful so Jared and I were able to walk all around town. We finalized our membership and a new gym, got a transformer so we can use our US computer, went to the Media Mart which is like a best buy, and went to the supermarket. After our errands we decided to go to dinner at a place outside the square. It was a nice little place with tables exceptionally close together. When we walked in and asked for a table for two he brought us right over to a table in the middle of a restaurant right between two very very close tables. We felt like we were eating at a table with 6 of our closest friends but these people were all strangers. Anyways when we sat down the guy placed the menus in front of us. On the front it said ENGLISH MENU in big capitol letter about 10 times. The people next to us laughed. We didn't even have to ask this time. So far we've only been denied twice for English menus. That has made things much easier.

So at this restaurant we got delicious bread with really good herb butter. Then we decided to get a mixed grill plate and a pasta dish and share them. Then we would have a bit of everything. In the mixed grill there was spare ribs, beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin, chicken, and a spicy sausage. Besides the spicy sausage everything was absolutely amazing. The pork was my favorite and the ribs were Jared's favorite but they were all great. The speghetti was also really good.

After dinner we went to a place called cafe Jour de Fete. We sat outside (yes it is freezing cold here) but we sat under heat lamps and had blankets from the back of the chairs. It was really nice, Jared smoked his first Cuban cigar and had a big Bavaria beer (a beer brewed here in the Netherlands) and I drank a baby beer. I have started to drink beer every once and a while but this one was perfect size and very light and because we were outside in the cold it didn't get warm. To end the night we ran over to McDonalds and grabbed a McFlurry before we came home. It was a very nice night.

My arch nemesis - the wash machine

So washing machines here are a bit different than they are at home. Here, some washing machines (like mine for example) are combo washer/dryers. How that works I'm not totally sure but I strongly dislike them. So as it is figuring out new appliences with Dutch words is not all that fun but this machine, in particular, I have been dreading. In our hotel, there was a washing machine and I asked for an English manuel and when it came (a week later) it was for the wrong machine. So now that we have moved into our new apartment I have a new one to experiment with. During our tour of the new place our realtor showed me the basics of using this wash machine. She showed me the buttons for washing and drying cotton and synthetics and so on. So going in for the first time I thought I would be okay with these basics. Boy was I wrong!

On my first day in the apartment by my self, I went into the laundry room remembering what I was told about the settings for the machine the day before. I opened the washing machine door to put in the first load and out poured TONS OF WATER. I closed the door as quickly as possible and there was water everywhere. I immediately threw all the clothes I was about to wash on top of all the water and ran up stairs to get towels. Once I took care of that mess, I went looking for a drain button. Every word on this stupid machine is in Dutch, who am I kidding with no English manuel I was officially screwed. So I just tried turning the machine to the cotton wash to see what would happen. After a few seconds the water starts to drain. Thank God! But then it stops. Only about a quarter of the water has drained. So I turned the machine off and turned it back to the same setting and another quarter drains. So two more times of that and all the water was gone. I really needed the Manuel.

I went looking online for a manuel for the washer/dryer that would help me and after some searching I finally found one. After reading over some of the instructions I did a prewash to get all the "crud" out of the machine. However there was another problem. There was an error light flashing. So back to the manuel to figure it out. So come to find out there is a pipe that wasn't open all the way. So I fixed that and set the wash for the pre wash clean to clean the drum and it was going to take 2 hours and 20 minutes. I thought that was an awfully long time but either way I let it go. Once that old was done, under the rubber gasket right inside the door there was this gross brownish muck and so once I wiped it down with a towel I figured I should probably wash those towels right away. The load for the towels takes 2 hours and 30 minutes and to dry them takes another 2+ hours. I am able to do like two loads in a day. Also come to find out all the loads take that long to wash and dry. And when the clothes come out of the dryer they are extramly wrinkley. And they are constantly coming out with lint all over them. And there is also no dry cleaner here. In the states we always brought Jared's work clothes to the dry cleaners. So looks like laundry is my new full time job.

Riddle Answer

So dani you need to teach other people how to comment but the answer is...

The people on the first floor pressed the call button outside the elevator to bring the elevator to the first floor. Then the three men with luggage got in the elevator and the fourth man ran up the stairs and called the elevator back to the fourth floor. You don't need a badge to just call the elevator to a floor.

This happened to Jared at work. The badge system didn't work and one of the men with Jared offered to run up the stairs to call the elevator so the other three could ride in it.

Funny.

Out door dining in winter

So tonight Jared and I went to an italian restaurant in Maastricht for dinner. It looked small from the outside but was really big inside. There was no English menu but the waiter promised he would translate anything we needed. I decided I wanted pasta and of course there were like 20 pasta dishes but he translated every one. There were several things to choose from but Jared and I, maybe for the first time every decided we wanted the same thing. We both got ravioli filled with ricotta cheese and spinach. It was very good.

We left there and decided to go somewhere different to get a another drink and maybe some dessert. We had always walked by and seen people eating outside in the freezing cold and they are not shivering. So we tried it today for the first time. We found a fairly large restaurant on a corner and took a seat outside at one of the tables. There was a blanket on each chair and big heat lamps hanging from the canapies. It was actually pretty cool. We shared a Brussels wafel or waffle with fruit and whip cream. It was pretty good. It was a very nice night.

New Apartment!

Yesterday Jared signed the lease for our new apartment. Once I have the place cleaned up I will post some pictures. It is really nice. We lugged all 10 of our bags from the old place to the new one and our other stuff that was shipped here was also delivered today. So getting the place all fixed up will keep me busy for the next few days.

Last night we ate at a steakhouse Evita's and it was great. Reasonable prices, good food, good atmosphere and English on the menus!

Jared and I also registered at the town hall. We should get our residence cards soon and then we will officially be residents of the Netherlands!

Tonight for dinner we met up with a new friend that Jared made at work, Kevin. We went to a Thai restaurant and our food was delicious!!! Kevin was also great company. Very nice guy only a few years older than us snd He's a contractor at sabic and works close to Jared often.

Sunday's

Last night was a patriots playoff game. Here it played at 2am. Jared decided to wake up to watch it and(forgot to wake me up too) and then ended up sleeping till noon. This was not such a big deal becuase Sunday's are really a day of rest here. Jared and I decided to take a walk so that I could show him some things I found while he was working and to go to the supermarket to get something for dinner. On our walk we noticed that there was not too much open. The restaurants were open but no shops or stores. On our way to take some money out at the bank we walked by the supermarket and realized that was not open at all on Sunday's either. Okay so note to self go grocery shopping before Sunday. Also don't plan to visit any stores on Sunday either... It was a nice walk though.

Word of the Day

Frei = Free

This is actually a German word that we saw a few times today. We saw a parking garage sign that had several places to park. We saw one that said "frei" and assumed that it ment full, because the other signs said how many spots in the lot were still available. However later that same day we saw a street sign that said "bicycle frei zone". Using our intuition we realized that it probably didn't mean bicycle full zone so we should have parked in that lot and it probably would have been free or "frei".

Aachen and Monschau

Today was our first encounter with quiet a few things. We got our car and drove to Monschau. It was tough driving on all completely new roads with all Dutch signs and no signs that say north or south. You have to know the major cities in the direction you are heading or your SOL. Anyways when we found Monschau it was a beautiful city all in a deep valley. We parked the car and went to a brewery museum. We felt like there was not very many people there but maybe more would come a little later. So the brewery was not like the breweries you go to at home where they take you through the place and tell you about the whole process. No we got a little book that we read to ourselves and walked through on our own and gave ourselves the tour. Different!  One really neat thing was there was this room with a few thousand beer bottles, all different ones from all over the world. It was really neat to see all the different kinds, labels and places. After the independent brewery tour we walked around a bit and went to a glass making place. There were thousands of different glass designs. There were vases, ornaments, dishes, figurines, and tons more. Because it is winter there were no glass making shows but it was neat seeing all the things they had already made. We left there and we just felt like there were still really not that many people there.
We looked around and did a little walking and realized there really was just not much to see or do in the area that we were in. We had heard good things about Monschau but we really didn't see all that we had heard. So we decided to drive a bit farther down the road to see what we were missing. Just a little bit farther down the road we found tons of shops, beautiful houses, restaurants, food stands and more. We parked again and decided to walk a bit more. For lunch Jared had a bratwurst and I just at French fries. After walking around a little bit more looking at all the beautiful sights we decided to head to the second half of our trip Aachen.

Aachen is a much bigger city than Monschau. Following the signs we found our way into Aachen and the first thing we saw on the side of the road was this bathroom. It is made of aluminum and you had to put money in the side. Once you put enough money in, the door opens and you can go inside. Once you've done your business and the door closes behind you the whole place washes itself down. Standing outside you can here it just completely flush itself. It was funny!

Not knowing the area we found a place to park and got out to walk around. With much walking and getting lost and more walking we ended up finding what we went there for. Although we had parked in the completely wrong spot, (no wonder it was so cheap) we got to the cathedral and it was enormous! It was absolutely beautiful. There were so many people and tons of shops there too. We walked all around stopped for a beer and walked some more. Then it started to get dark much colder, and with no sun and a long walk back we decided that we would return to Aachen when it was warmer and make sure we stayed for dinner. We headed back to Maastricht and thank god for street signs leading us home. We made it back safe and sound and pretty hungry.

We went to dinner at an Irish Pub down the street. There were tons of people, good music and all the waiters spoke English(with Irish accents). We had soda bread to start which was the texture of banana bread but tasted more like wheat bread, very filling. Then for dinner Jared had meatballs filled with cheddar cheese and a salad which both were delicious. I had fish and chips but the fish was not breaded and deep fried like at home but it had a breading you would usually have on chicken, but either way it was great! This place has trivia night every Tuesday where they do world wide trivia. Jared and I might go try to make some friends one night some time soon.

Real Life Riddle

There are four men that need to get to the fourth floor of a work building. Three of which have luggage. The man without the luggage can take the stairs to the fourth floor the other three with luggage need to take the elevator up. The elevator car is currently parked at the fourth floor. In order to operate the elevator you must get in, swipe your work badge and then select your floor. However today the badge system is not working. How is it possible for all four men to reach the fourth floor.

Today this happened to Jared at work. See if you can come up with how they got up. It's kind of funny. Leave your answers in the comment box we'll tell you the real answer in a few days.
Can't wait to hear your guesses.

Ps I did not get the answer right.

Jared's First Workshop

For Jared's project his first trip was to Brussels for a workshop. He met with a service consultant to go over project plans and documentation. They worked all day and met up for dinner later that night. Jared had the pleasure of driving into the center of Brussels which was quiet an adventure. It would make New York City look tame. Picture an intersection with 10 different ways to drive through it and a train heading straight for you. It was definitely an interesting drive for his first European driving experience. At the restaurant they started them off with the pre-appetizer of goose liver over mixed veggies. He said he wished they hadn't told him what was in it until after he ate it. But it wasn't anything special. For dinner he had tuna which he said was excellent.

After dropping off a coworker Jared had to find his was back to Maastricht, with no map, no gps, no cell phone and no help. It was sure an adventurous trip. After a few wrong turns and little bit of panic, he made it back safe and sound.

So of all times for this to happen, today on our way to dinner after Jared got back from his workshop, we ran into one of Jared's old bosses Christine. She was talking in a small group as we were crossing the walking bridge ( which a boat was crossing under so it the bridge was rising as we were talking) and Jared stopped to say hello. We couldn't believe it. Of all the places to see someone you know. Crazy!

Tonight we went to dinner at a place called La Bonne Femme. Before our meal and appetizers they brought out this "soup made of carrots" he told us. It was a very small cup and I swear, it smelled like baked carrots just out of the oven. It also tasted like liquified baked carrots? I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. For our food we started with this delicious, warm bread that I thought was going to come with some dipping oil, but actually came with tapas I guess, which was this chopped/paste of spices, oil, olives and some other things that you spread onto the bread that was actually very good. I was nervous at first but I ended up eating a good amount of it. Jared had a French onion soup, that was different from home but good all the same. For dinner I had Brochettes Van Scampi which (was pretty adventurous for me) and it was delicious! It was a kabob with shrimp and scallops on puréed potatoes mixed with tomatoes and more and zucchini and red peppers and onions yummy! Jared had a pasta shrimp scampi with linguini and red sauce and some mystery seafood mixed in. Was pretty good. I really enjoyed the people, the atmosphere and the whole place all around. It was a nice quick, but a bit cold walk back to our temporary apartment. Only a few more days here and then we'll be off to our new apartment.

Tomorrow we are going to try to go to Monschau, and Aachen for our first mini trip. Hopefully we'll get some good pictures and fun stories.

Word of the Day

Kip = chicken

Jared's First Day of Work

Today was Jared's first day of work. He met with the project manager that will be helping to transition him into his new role. Jared will be the Global Project Manager for the Asset Management and Reliability Tool. He found out what his project entails and what he is expected to do. For his first trip, he will be attending a workshop in Brussels, Thursday and Friday, where he will be meeting the consultants assigned to his project. This is going to be a big role, his biggest yet. He is looking forward to working on a truly global project, and being able to travel to Asia and the Middle East.

I began my job search and althought where my Aunt Cathy was, in Germany is a bit far I looked into some work there. I also have looked in the Maastricht area for some schools where I could teach while I am here. We'll keep you updated.

Word of the day

Morgen = Morning or tomorrow

New Apartment

Today was a pretty slow day. We tried a new bakery for breakfast this morning and also went there for lunch. We went to go see one more apartment right next to all the shops and restaurants and the city square. Just to make our decision a little harder, we really liked that one too. If you would like to see it check it out at...

http://www.hethoofsehuis.nl/aanbod-huur/418-maastricht---centrum-kleine-gracht-.html

We ended up choosing this one. It is near all the shops and is only a 12 minute walk to the train. It is very modern and has a regular oven, full shower and enough storage for both of us. We are excited to move in. Once we have unpacked our things that were shipped and have our real computer we will be able to add some pictures and we will post some of our own of the apartment.

Tomorrow is Jared's first day of work and he's excited to back into a real schedule. I will begin to look for a job and in the area to teach English or in an American school near by. I have an appointment to get me registration and visa soon so it will be in no time that I will actually be able to start working.

Word of the day!

Alstublieft = You're welcome

It could also mean "please" or "hear you go".

Sunday

Last night we went to bed at midnight and Jared again woke up at 8:00 and I woke up at 9:45. Our jet lag gets better everyday. Today we hung in for most of the day and watched what was on tv. We get a few channels here including discovery, national geographics, animal planet and a few others. They are in spoken English, with Dutch subtitles. We are very happy to have at least something to watch. They have some pretty odd commercials and there is a good deal of porn on at night but mostly the discovery channel keeps up busy. We went out to have lunch at a place across the walking bridge in the other side of the river and we were denied for the first time for an English menu. I hope that doesn't happen very often or we may just have lasagna and burgers everyday. With the menu not in English we might as well close our eyes and point when the waitress asks us what we want because you can't read much of it. So we found another place to eat a little farther down the road. It was a small fast food type place and it was pretty good. There was no English but it wasn't hard to read that menu, burger is pretty universal.
On our way back we found a place called pinky's. It has these delicious waffles that you can fill with chocolate, or have ice cream on. We just had the original, sprinkled with powdered sugar for the first time and they were great!
For the rest of the evening Jared and I hung at the temporary apartment and we were able to watch the football game on Jared's dads home tv from here. Technology is a great thing.

Walking

Our jet lag is getting better. We went to bed at 10:00 or 22:00 they would say here and Jared woke up at 8:00 and I didn't wake up until almost 11:00. A little opposite of the usual but hopefully we'll be back to normal soon. Anyways we ate breakfast at the bakery again and headed to our first potential apartment. Our goal was to see how long it took to walk from each of our potential apartments to the train station and how far away they were from everything else, such as shops, markets, etc. So we headed to the first apartment. This is the farthest apartment from everything, the train and shops, and to walk to the train it took 23 minutes. That was a long walk especially for one we would have to do every day. It is almost as far to get to all the good shops and markets. The second place was only a 10 minute walk to the train but probably 15+ minutes walk to the shops. We stopped for lunch at a little Mediterranean restaurant called Fifty, and then we headed back to the temporary apartment for a little more of a break. The last apartment was a 13 minute walk from the train but it was in the center of all the shops and restaurants. Our favorite places are the farthest away but we are willing to get our least favorite of the three, just to be in the center of everything. We'll see. We are going to try to make our decision Monday, well keep you updated.

Pictures

Pictures for now are on Facebook because we have no way to up load them to the blog until we get the pc delivered. So check out Jared's facebook page all the pictures. We will continue to update there.

Word Of The Day

Dank u wel = Thank you

Wild train extravaganza

To start our day Jared woke up at 2am and I woke up at 3 am and we were both wide awake. We headed back to bed at 4am trying to help our jet lag stay on the right track and then woke up adt 8:30. Once we were up at the real morning time we went down and had breakfast at a nearby bakery and headed to the train. We asked where we could get passport pictures which we needed before our appointment with immigration, to get Jared's residence visa. They told us where to go and the shop happened to be just across the street from our apartment that we just left. Once we got the passport pictures we headed back to the train. We asked for tickets from Maastricht to Rijswijk, where the Immigration office is located and that we wanted to make a stop in sittard that was on the way. She said no problem and just handed us the tickets. Little did we know it was going to be quite a long and confusing journey. We got on the first train leaving Maastricht hoping we were going the right way. We saw the Sabic building only 10 minutes later and the train stopped at its first stop, Sittard. It was a much quicker ride than we had expected. We walked 10 minutes and arrived at the front door of sabic building. It was a large glass building with a unique structure and neat layout. We met with a man, Fritz, who gave us paperwork for Jared's meeting and we were off again.
We walked back to the train station, went the information desk and asked for a train map. She asked where we were heading and we said Rijswijk, but she didn't understand so we said it again and again and asked me to spell it. I showed her how to spell it and she said ooh Rijswijk, (exactly like we said it) and then gave us a paper with all the track exchanges we should take. There were 3 different changes that we needed to take, that we never would have known without that paper. So we hopped on the next train continuing in the same direction from which we came (north, although it doesn't say that anywhere), heading to Eindhoven. An hour later we got off the train and switched to another one toward Dordrecht and in another hour we switched again heading towards Rijswijk. Finally we arrived and found our was to a big building and Jared got a temporary residence permit. We stopped a Subway (Jared's favorite (not)) and went down to the train. One big problem! The directions on how to get to Rijswijk, didn't include the directions for the way back. So with much trust in our own intuition we headed back using the same stops and we made it back with no problem. Once we got back we realized we had no food at all. So we went back to the super market for another whole adventure.  
Our second grocery store experience was better than the first knowing those extra words but was still very hard.  We bought dinner for that night and the next.  Some fresh fruit and veggies and some bread and cheese.  We tried a different kind of milk.  We bought verse karne melk, along with what we thought was butter, garlic salt, potatoes, salad and dressing and chicken and bread crumbs= translated bread crumbs haha and many other things.  When we walked home to go make dinner we had breaded fried chicken, potatoes and salad and we did pretty good for our first real meal shopping.  But when Jared poured the milk into his glass it ended up being yogurt, which is what they put in their cereal ... Weird.

Day of Exploration!

Day 2 in the Netherlands brought lots of new things. Breakfast was frosites with melk and bananas. The milk tasted more like whole milk then milk with half the fat it just seemed a little off.

Then we met with out settling services woman, who helped us with sooo much. First she gave us a bag full of information, including translation dictionaries, phrase books, maps, maps, and more maps, and a few other booklets to help us survive. She told us tons of information about the area, having a car and parking it, and other useful tips. She accompanied us to meet up with our real estate agent and to all of our potential apartments. We saw many great places to live but each one had their problems. Some had no real oven
just a microwave/oven combo which I have no idea how to use, and the ones that did have a real oven were fairly small. Many were in town close to the shopping areas but others were a decent walk from both the train and the shopping. Once we got back to the real estate office we talked about each place and narrowed our choices. Out of the seven potential apartments we saw, we were able to narrow our choices down to three, they told us to take some time to think about it. After we left there, we went to the bank and opened a bank account. We also both got personal liability insurance. It costs 5 euros a month for both of us together and it insures you for when you run into someone with your bike, when you go to someone's house and break something, or you fall down in the cobblestone street. A little weird.
Then we went to the super market. It was very small compared to ones at home but bigger than the one we went to yesterday. Our settling woman, walked us through telling us what many of the things were. She gave us tips like bringing our own shopping bags, because they don't give them out and she taught us how to use the cart. You have to put in a coin and then take the cart. When you return the cart they give you the coin back. She gave us a cheater coin to use the carts. Tehe. It's a plastic coin that goes in place so you don't have to put in a real one. She taught us about buying milk and meat and some words that would be good to remember.
After she left we came back to find our new apartment. It was a bit smaller than the first one that didn't have wifi. It has a a bedroom separate from the living room and kitchen. The kitchen is smaller, has a microwave/oven combo, and fridge and freezer. (freezers are apparently uncommon). There is no traditional oven and no dishwasher. The tv is smaller, and the bathroom is much different. This apartment does have wifi, which was more important to us than the other things. This will work for the month.


We were on our feet all day long so we decided to make it an easy dinner. We got a New York style pizza which wasn't any different from any other pizza you've ever had, and came back and fell asleep pretty early.

Trip to the Netherlands

Saying good-bye to our families was difficult but once we had gotten through security at the airport, we officially started our journey. While we were sitting waiting for the plane we heard our names over the loud speaker. Turns out we got an upgrade to travelers plus with nicer seats and more room. They had tons of on demand movies, new ones too. We did try to sleep to help our jet lag but neither of us could. In the airport in London I had a delicious crossant from the bakery and Jared had a chocolate one. The second plane ride was pretty quick and we couldn't sleep on that one either. Once we got here our chauffeur picked us up and drove us back to our hotel. We arrived in Maastrichtat 10:30. Then when we got into the hotel we had to wait until 3:00 to get into our room.
We walked the streets looking for something to keep us busy and awake and found a very large shopping area. We found a little restaurant called De Lanteern. We could only read two things on the menu, lasanga and burger. So that's what we got. Jared's burger was huge, and my lasagna we very good. Once we finished eating we still had to burn a few more hours so we walked around and around through the shopping areas then went back to the hotel lobby and sat and waited for the last hour. A little after 3:00 ( they had some cleaning issues) we got our keys and had to lug all six of our bags a few blocks down the cobblestone streets to our new apartment. Everyone was staring at us and talking about us in Dutch so we had no idea what they were saying. Our temp. apartment was very modern, updated, and spacious. There was a big living room and comfy bed. The kitchen had a dishwasher, fridge, full oven, and stovetop. But there was one major problem, no wireless internet! So we took a walk back to the lobby of the main hotel and asked to switch to a different room with wireless Internet. They arranged a new apartment for us in the morning, and this time they would take our luggage. Thank God! To end our day we experimented with the supermarket for the first time. We asked where the closest market was and went looking. We got a little lost, but once we found it we were a bit surprised. It was very very small. There was obviously not a single word in English and we had no idea what we were buying. We left with a box of frosties = frosted flakes and a small thing of melk verse half volle = what we hoped was milk with half the fat. We also got spaghetti and pasta sauce. For our first trip we think we did pretty well.