Five months have passed since my last post and that’s not because there hasn’t been anything happening here – quite the opposite. In these 5 months:
1. G and I got married which
involved 3 weeks in SA (2 weddings, 2 hens/bulls parties, lots of running
around and lots of socializing – it was exhausting) and a week of honeymoon in
Mauritius (swimming with dolphins, reading, cocktails on the beach, many rounds
of Scrabble and great food – it was perfect). I’ll post about the wedding separately.
Our happy day
2. I changed jobs. Before we left I
told my recruiter that I wanted to start looking for a new job when I got back
as I thought it would take a few months to find something suitable and I didn’t
want to get to December when my contract expired and be stuck in a dead market.
I was wrong. The day after I got back my recruiter phoned to say he had a
position I might like. Less than a month later I’d signed the contract and
given my notice. I’ve now been at my new huge global corporate for 7 weeks and
it doesn’t sound like they will be retrenching me anytime soon which gives me
comfort. I’m very happy to be back in the food industry – I can identify with
our consumers more than the tobacco industry and I don’t introduce myself by
saying I work for the devil…
3. We moved. We realized that our
very convenient but uncomfortable apartment had served its purpose and it was
time to move on so we started the tedious task of trawling the internet and
open houses for a new home. We were lucky to find a nice spot after viewing
only a handful of apartments. From what I’ve heard this process can be a
nightmare and very competitive. We moved on 1 November into a 2-bedroom
apartment in the west of AMS. It’s a much nicer neighbourhood and we have: a
dishwasher (hallelujah!), a microwave (hallelujah!), a spare bedroom
(hallelujah!), a decent oven (hallelujah!) and a TV (hallelujah!). No, we did
not have any of those things in our old apartment and, yes, I do think we were
living in a cave. It’s 10 minutes closer to my new job and G is a 5 minute bike
ride from his office. So basically we’re winning. Oh, and we had to pay three
months deposit plus first month’s rent up front. Eina.
A chicken before it went into our new (decent) oven for roasting
4. We’ve had our first visitors
that weren’t Nikki & Conway so we had the opportunity to test out our
personalised guide to AMS.
A windmill - part of our AMS tour for visitors
5. We’ve been to Budapest
(possibly my favourite city), Geneva (beautiful but expensive), London (always
a pleasure) and a small family holiday resort near Nijmegen. We’re in Paris
next weekend, London for Christmas and the German/French border region for New
Year with some friends visiting from home and London. We’ve also witnessed how
AMS comes alive during summer – the entire city vibrates with energy and feels
so exciting. Everywhere you look there are things going on and people doing
interesting things. It’s hard to explain.
Budapest - in front of the parliament
6. We trained for and completed
our first half marathon, the TCS Amsterdam. We concluded that G is a lot faster
than I am.
7. We registered for the Cape
Argus Cycle Tour in March and G signed up to do the cycle leg of a triathlon on
May so we realized we might need actual racing bikes and have started shopping
around. Budget constraints might push this to January though (we both need new
phones, we need to pay for the flights for March and our savings are tied up in
the deposit for the flat).
8. We’ve done several Meet-Up expat
group tours of AMS to learn more about the city: a Homeless tour (red light
district tour done by a former junkie who illegally squatted there back in the
70’s and 80’s), a kayak tour through the central canals, a Jordaan district
tour and an Eastern Docklands district tour. This weekend we’re touring the
Zuid district and next Wednesday we’re doing a historical Dutch Golden Age
tour. We’ve seen Sinterklaas and his troop of Zwarte Piets arrive in AMS which
signals the start of Christmas in NL and in December we will go to Gouda to
watch a very special lighting of the Christmas tree in the city square.
Kayaking through the Amsterdam canals
9. I’ve joined a new ladies’
Meet-Up group that is also keeping me busy. The girls are lovely and there are
a few regulars who I’ve become friends with. I think I’ll keep it up although I
always feel a little guilty when I abandon G on a Wednesday night or Sunday
evening for drinks/dinner. Boys don’t do this type of thing.
10. My laptop crashed along with 11
years of photos – only the first 6 years are back up. Oops. We managed to
recover everything although it’s not nicely organized by year, month and event.
My mild OCD cannot handle unorganized photos so I’ve sifted through over 45000
files (basically they were all duplicated several times and about half have no
useable data so they’re blank) and deleted the junk ones and am now sorting
them into years.
So it’s been
busy few months and the next couple of months don’t appear to be letting up
much. We seem to have built a mini-life here even though we’ve been very
distracted by the above. The wedding was the biggest distraction and it felt
like a relief when it was over. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and day
but I never want to do it again! We’ve had several discussions on our timeline
for staying here and haven’t reached any concrete conclusions. Both of our
hearts are definitely in SA but I love it here. Last night I cycled to a
restaurant for dinner and on the return I realized that I would never do that
in SA – cycling by myself with my handbag over my shoulder at 10pm in the
middle of the city. In SA you can’t jump on a train and be in Paris in 3 hours
or jump on a plane and be in Budapest on 1 hour. You don’t move house and have
your pension provider automatically send your statement to the new address less
than 2 weeks after moving without you telling them (or even if you do tell
them). But then I look at my Facebook feed and see my friends lounging by the
pool or having a braai on an average Thursday evening and it looks like
paradise. If you want a garden you don’t need to be a CEO or FD – a decent job
can afford a nice house. The food has flavour and a new pair of average running
pants doesn’t cost as much as an expensive dinner. Both experiences are very
different and the grass is not greener in either place. What I do know is that
I’m really enjoying it here in AMS/NL/Europe and I’ll hang around for a bit
longer.
