I’ll keep this short, as we’re around at a friend’s house, using her computer.<\/p>\n\n
As you can surmise, we made it to Amsterdam intact and are now living in a rented house. However, we’re quite unhappy with it and are considering moving elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n
For one thing, most of the nice furnishings that attracted us to the house in the first place have been removed since our friends viewed the property, so that which we signed for is not that which we received. I’m very angry about this, but accommodation doesn’t grow on trees here, so I’m not yet sure what the solution will be. In the meantime, we have no comfortable furniture, no tables and a crappy old television that can’t even do Teletext.<\/p>\n\n
Since arriving, we’ve accomplished a few of the bureaucratic tasks through which we must wade, but Sarah’s residence permit is going to take longer than I’d thought, because extra time is needed to verify our marriage certificate (yes, even though it has an apostille attached).<\/p>\n\n
I’ve got a new mobile phone. If you want to call us, ring my old mobile number and you’ll get my voice mail message, informing you of the new number.<\/p>\n\n
We were supposed to have a new house phone as of last Friday, but it’s not working and no-one works at the weekend. Hopefully, this problem will be fixed early in the coming week.<\/p>\n\n
DSL is going to take a little longer. I received a letter from the KPN, informing me that I can expect to wait 20 business days for our new DSL connection to be delivered. Bah! I might try to see if I can cancel the order and get cable Internet instead, because that would probably have a shorter delivery time.<\/p>\n\n
The culture shock is surprisingly significant. Things feel (and are) very crowded and neither of us is used to this (any more). Places are not baby-friendly (lots of smoke), the weather is horribly humid and the pace of life is snail-like. It takes an infuriatingly long time to get anything done, partially because no-one whose job is to provide service is in any hurry to do so.<\/p>\n\n
As you can see, I’m complaining already. It feels as if we have a mountain to climb in terms of the number of tasks we must accomplish to establish something approaching a normal life here. At the moment, things feel very alien — even to me — and we’re struggling quite hard just to stay in good spirits.<\/p>\n\n
It’s clearly going to take a while to get on our feet and feel settled here, perhaps a lot longer than we’d considered. Time will tell.<\/p>\n\n
Given the lack of Internet connection, communication from our side is going to be sparse for the next four weeks. Don’t expect blog entries or replies to e-mail during this period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ll keep this short, as we’re around at a friend’s house, using her computer. As you can surmise, we made it to Amsterdam intact and are now living in a rented house. However, we’re quite unhappy with it and are … Continue reading