Winter blues and no regrets (mostly)

Once again it has been a long time since my last blog post. I've gathered that my last post gave the impression that we're never moving back to SA. Clearly that was written before winter had properly started! It's the end of March now and I think G and I deserve a medal for surviving the miserableness that is Europe in winter. At least this year we had snow - our first winter here was just cold and wet. I really struggled with the cold: I was prepared in terms of clothing but unprepared mentally. How can you go so long without the feeling of a hot sun beating down on your skin? Us poor African children were brought up to play outside 365 days a year. Boy I struggled. 

View from my train platform on a snowy day

But now Spring has arrived and the flowers have starting to appear on the islands in the middle of the roads. It’s not hot but at least some days the temperature is double digits. As I write this I'm sitting on a blanket in the sun in Vondel Park watching a lady throw sticks into a pond for her dog to fetch. I'm not sure who is happier - me or him. The sun is glorious and I think the whole of AMS is out to enjoy it. G is cycling by himself towards the dunes on the west coast and I had brunch earlier with some friends from that girls group I mentioned in the last post. Today life feels pretty good. 

Dog jumping into a pond in Vondel Park

But it's not all sunshine and daffodils. On Monday we got back from a very quick trip home for a friend's wedding. We had 10 days of family and friends and all it did was remind us where our hearts truly lie. We came to Europe with the intention of travelling and we have done that. We also have some nice trips lined up for the next few months (Berlin, Mallorca and Norway are already booked). But home is starting to call. Our friends at home are having babies, buying "grown-up" houses and saying goodbye to ill parents. We're missing out on being there for them. It's a very strange feeling whenever we go back. Everything feels the same but so much has changed and will continue to change. This whole experience is one big reminder that the only constant in life is change.

View of Llandudno (taken while cycling in Cape Town)

All of that said, I have no regrets. Yesterday I started compiling a 30 Before 30 list (30 things to do that I've never done before I turn 30 in August 2016) and I started where all other personal goals and projects start: Pinterest.  It was quite an ego booster to read other people's lists and see that I've done a lot already. I'll do a separate blog post for my list once I know what they all are (I'm stuck on 21 items). I think my mother will be horrified to read that the first one is roasting a chicken. Yes, I am a respectable married woman who has a postgraduate degree and has lived abroad, but I have never roasted a chicken. We can’t all be perfect…

Anyway, back to no regrets. In my last blog post I mentioned buying racing bikes. We did this in January and almost immediately starting riding them. In January. In Europe. Let’s just say my feet are still recovering from the first 3 rides – a beautiful range of purples, blues, yellows and reds that would look lovely in an art gallery but painful on my feet. We stocked up on suitable riding kit but that only protects you so much…I can also confirm that this country is flat. Training adequately for the Cape Town Cycle Tour was challenging and we were both slightly relieved when the course was drastically reduced from 109km to 47km following a week of fires around the Cape peninsula. The weather and flatness of NL had not prepared us sufficiently for the full distance’s route profile. We would have completed the race but we would have suffered a bit more than we’re used to suffering on long rides like that. Now that it’s over, I’m training for my second half marathon in April and G is concentrating on cycling for Iron Man.

G on a ride along the Amstel river with his shiny new racing bike

I finally arranged to attend a beginner’s Dutch course for 8 weeks earlier this year. I’m glad I did it but it was 2 nights a week which becomes quite taxing, especially when you’re trying to build new friendships and then have to turn down invites. I’d like to continue with the next course but not yet. I’m also not 100% sure it will benefit me in the long run. I know one of the reasons I wanted to go to a non-English speaking country was to learn a new language (I even wrote a whole blog post about it in June 2014) but it becomes a lot more difficult when the locals prefer speaking English to me because it’s 1000 times easier than trying to put up with my broken Dutch. All the discussion about moving back to SA doesn’t help matters much either.

A wine, food and craft market at Westergasfabriek (western AMS)

But summer is just around the corner. We've already noticed the terrace bars and cafes have more tables and chairs out. The general mood of the city is a little happier - I don't think we're the only people tired of the cold. Vondel Park is packed most evenings when I go for a run and tickets for the summer music festivals have gone on sale (I managed to get tickets for PinkPop - whoop whoop). Last year we missed a whole month of summer due to our wedding and I'm really looking forward to experiencing a full season here. If last year was anything to go by, it should be good.

Overall, the mood in our little home in AMS is positive but we’re missing SA and counting the minutes to summer.

The Surname Issue

Warning! This isn’t a blog post about traveling or moving to a new city. This is a wedding-related post and it is also an opinion piece: MY opinion #ShockHorror #DontJudge #NoPhotosInThisPost #YesIAmHashtagging.

Gordon and I consider ourselves to be a 21st couple. We lived together before we were engaged, we both work full-time as professionals in demanding fields and all household expenses are shared 50/50. Both of our opinions carry equal weighting and all decisions are made in consultation with each other (except the honeymoon location – that he needs to keep a surprise). But with some things I am traditional. He had to ask for my parents’ permission to marry me although I never told him this (good boy – he knew) and I want a traditional wedding with some tweaks because they look fun. I am also taking his surname. Yes, a self-proclaimed independent 21st century professional working woman is giving up her identity. What a load of c$%p.

I am not getting married for religious reasons – I was raised in a mixed religion household where I was whatever religion suited me at the time (simplified explanation: being Anglican got me into a very good private school and being Jewish gives me a German passport both of which got me to where I am today). I am getting married because I want to make a promise in front of every person who means something to me and I therefore respect that I will love Gordon for the rest of my life and I will be loyal to him and to us, no matter what. If God/Buddha/The Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us in the process then that’s great. The more who witness it the better. I am not getting into this marriage so that my father settles a debt with Gordon’s father or for us to breed a superior race of humans and therefore cure cancer. I am doing this because I love him and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him as his partner. As a bonus, I get a new surname.

I will always be a Gans* and I will still be on the Gaggle of Geese whatsapp group that my immediate family has. For about a week I thought about getting a tiny tattoo somewhere of a goose but that means getting a tattoo which is something that I will never do. My legal surname will change but my email address will remain. Gordon has said a few times that he feels honoured that I would change my surname to his but for me it’s part of the Wedded Couple Package.

A friend of my parents’ kept her surname and she apparently found that it became awkward once their child was at school and people would ask why the child’s parents have different surnames – people assumed that they were divorced or never married. South African society is quite conservative about things like this – in NL people often don’t get married and it’s accepted by society as being as normal as being married. Our future as we currently see it is in SA but this is not the reason I’m taking his surname. Yes it means fewer discussions and raised eyebrows when we drop the kids off at school or birthday parties but that is an added bonus.

I know people who kept their surname for professional reasons but at age 27 I haven’t sat on the board of a Fortune 500 company so my name is not that important for my career – potential employers will still need to look at my CV to determine if I’m the right candidate and I haven’t worked at a company (until now) where if you ask for references and say “Louise who worked in Finance” the company doesn’t know who that is. My current employer is a huge global company but I’m here whilst changing my surname so my manager/HR will know me by both names.

My manager kept her surname when she married but she said changing it would have meant going from one long complicated name beginning with an S to another. And she said she was just too lazy to change it (I gather that it’s not an automatic thing in NL whereas in SA it is).

I could double-barrel the old and new surnames but someone once told me that double-barreled names meant there was a divorce in the family at some stage. I have subsequently learnt that this is not the case and in fact it indicates a marriage but I still can’t get the idea out of my head that I would be creating the perception that I was divorced. This is a good example of my stubbornness – I know my reasoning is wrong but I’m so set in my ways that I can’t overcome the thought.

So, then, why am I changing my surname from a 4-letter single syllable one to an 8-letter 3 syllable one with awkward capitals in the middle? I have 2 passports, a driver’s license (soon to have one for NL as well), an ID, 2 current bank accounts, 2 credit cards, a property plus all that goes with that and all of the usual bills and accounts that currently say Gans. It will be a nightmare to change all of these so why not just stay as I am? These are all just things. They do not define me. My current surname is simple and I enjoy the Dutch pronouncing it in Dutch – they will probably panic when they see the new one. To me, getting a new surname is one of the few traditional things that I’m doing in amongst the sea of New World things that I do every day.

I will miss Google automatically translating my NL internet banking name to LT Goose and Gordon’s silly laughter whenever he calls me Lieutenant Goose. I will no longer Google my name and see a New York Acting Chief Justice’s name but rather a freelance translator. I am looking forward to the day when someone calls me Louise Gans and I have to correct them. They will immediately know that I have married and I will quietly think to myself that I am still Louise Gans but I am also Louise McTavish. Mostly, I am still myself.

*Gans in German and Dutch (and some other languages) means Goose in English