Where has the time gone?

I had great plans for this blog, including keeping track of all the steps it took to get me and The Man here. Apparently that never happened. Oh well, I'll start again now that things are starting to settle down a bit. This will be another log entry but going forward they should be shorter and slowly I'll figure out how this blog will work.

Brief update on what has happened since my last post in August 2013:
1) We got engaged! Yay! (Some might say it's about time after 5.5 years). Brief synopsis: the first place we ever went on holiday to was Glengarry, in the Kamberg. We've been back a few times since then so it means a lot to us. Glengarry hosted a mountain biking weekend in September so we went with my parents. Sneaky Gordon had asked for their permission the previous weekend when I was visiting friends in Johannesburg (which included me moaning at one stage to one friend that it would be nice to go overseas as an engaged couple. Little did I know...). Friends who got engaged in July (also at Glengarry) had set their date for July 2014 so we decided that was a good time as well, as all our mutual friends who live overseas would be flying out to SA for their nuptuals. So in the space of 10 days we set a date - 19 July 2014 - and found a venue in amongst the panic of moving countries. All the other stuff is organised by remote control - the internet and email make it surprisingly easy to plan a wedding from the other side of the world. I spent a week in SA in February to do wedding planning that couldn't be done from NL.

My ring!

2) We lived in Ede for 4 months with N&C. They have a lovely home in a lovely little town in the Bible Belt. So not a lot happens there although the town square has a decent collection of bars and the town is on the edge of a huge forest/conservation area so there's a fair amount to do considering it's a small town whose shops all shut on Sundays. After 2 months of interviews and "whoring out" my CV to basically every large company in NL I started working in finance at an international FMCG - the tobacco industry which I've had to adjust to as I have never smoked and have never been a fan of smokers. It's amazing how perceptions change when smokers pay your salary...
At first the 1.5 hour commute was a struggle, especially as I started during the build-up to year-end followed by the audit in January so there were numerous late nights. I did quickly get used to it though and would read or watch series on my phone. In the end I enjoyed having a guaranteed 3 hours to myself everyday to think or zone out.

This is the forest near Ede

3) We moved to a 1-bedroom apartment in Amsterdam in February which has changed our lives dramatically. We both realised for the first time that we are alone in this adventure - N&C are 1.5 hours away so we can't just pop over for coffee or wine if we've had a bad day. The London thing makes sense now - this is a struggle to survive in foreign country, away from everything you are used to and if you have access to people you know or who know people you know then you have a support structure. After a few moping days in February, I resorted to the internet and discovered www.meetup.com. It's awesome. Apparently it started before Facebook in the USA and is a brilliant concept. You sign up to groups in your area which arrange events for like-minded people in your area. A'dam has a HUGE expat community - I read somewhere that 45% of A'dam residents were not born in NL - which means there are a lot of lonely people who are also looking for friends. So we've been to a comedy show where everybody (+-50 people) meets for drinks beforehand; we've been to a dinner (+-12 people); we've been to some drinks evenings at various bars around the city (30-100 people) and tomorrow I'm going to a ladies-only brunch (+-15 people). And slowly we are making friends. There are paintball events, running clubs (I'm currently investigating), travel groups and basically anything you can think of to keep you entertained and sociable. It's cliched but it needs to be said - you don't know what you have until it's gone; and in our instance we were the things that have gone away and left behind friends who have known us for over 2 decades in some instances, travelled through darkest Africa with, been chased out of Afrikaaner-extremist towns with, laughed until we've cried with or just cried with. Oh how the mighty have fallen! But we're getting back on the horse and have started to meet some really interesting people who also just want companionship and something to do on a Friday night.

Picture-perfect Amsterdam

4) Gordon managed to get his residency permit quite easily and quite quickly so he's been able to work since January. Not that there are many Architecture jobs available. There are (literally) thousands of firms in A'dam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and surrounds but they aren't growing even though the economy is no longer in a recession. He's consulting on a risk-work project for a firm but he will only get paid if the project comes to fruition. He's interviewed at some firms and basically we're just waiting. We can survive on my salary but only because we're paying very little for rent (it's a long story but basically we don't officially live in A'dam but still in Ede. This creates other hassles but saves about EUR400 a month). And to add to the stress, my company is restructuring this year so there is no guarantee that I'll have a job in December. I'm considering marketing positions (I can hear all my university accounting friends gasping in horror) because finance is almost completely being outsourced to Romania.

5) I successfully applied for the 30% ruling, which means that 30% of my salary is not taxed. This is a benefit for expats in NL who have scarce skills to compensate for the additional costs of living here. I wouldn't call accounting/finance a scarce skill but I won't question it! Besides the additional money I get each month, I can also convert my SA drivers licence to a Dutch one without doing tests. There are some other tax benefits as well.

Vondel Park, Amsterdam

6) Nikki was an absolute star with helping us settle in. Although there are so many foreigners here, it is still difficult to get settled in NL. Registering with the gemeente (municipality), immigration, bank accounts and pin cards, public transport systems, bicycle transport systems - it's a lot of complicated information in a foreign language so having a local who knows makes an enormous difference. People I've met through meetup have also said they couldn't have done it by themselves - agencies or local friends helped. She set up our appointment at the gemeente to register us; she came with to the IND (immigration) where we applied for G's permit and spoke in Dutch to the woman at the counter (who could speak English but some things are hard to understand in a second or third language); she phoned the bank when my card wasn't activated and 1000 other small things that we couldn't have done or even knew had to be done.

The famous I amsterdam sign

So, for now, we are content in A'dam.

T-minus 29 days until lift-off

With less than a month until I embark on an exciting new adventure, I have decided to start a blog of the run-up and the actual event.

What is this all about you may ask? My boyfriend of 5 years (Gordon) and I have been mumbling about travelling for the last 2 years or so and the discussion was always brief and ended with the words "in 2013". Then suddenly we found ourselves in 2013. We had set ourselves a challenge and now we had to act. 

First question: Where? Neither of us had any desire to go to London which is where many young South Africans go for a few years with dreams of earning numerous Pounds and travelling Europe. To me, London (specifically Wimbledon) was like my local suburb of Westville except colder and wetter. I think if you are going to take the step of trying something new, you may as well go the whole hog and try a new culture. Besides the fact that the London "Saffas" all tend to hang out together (from what I've heard from friends living there - don't quote me on that!), the British culture is quite similar to some of the South African English-speaking white culture so London was definitely not on my list. I'm more than happy to visit there but I'd rather live somewhere else. Gordon has his own reasons for not wanting to go to London. 

So we looked at the Far East - specifically Singapore. At first it sounded like an excellent option. They speak English due to the English colonial history and they have a negative population growth rate so they encourage foreigners. But then we realised that (Warning! Huge generalization coming! Warning!) Asians work too hard and if we want to travel in the region it might be a problem. 

We looked at a few other countries and decided that we may as well use my EU passport and go to Europe. Europe's economy definitely has highs and lows. Beautiful Spain (my country of choice if South Africa sank) has serious economic issues as do some of the other warmer EU nations. So, by process of elimination, we have decided on the Netherlands.

Very good friends of ours (Nikki and Conway) have been living there for a few years and are very happy. The economy seems to be alright and the language is not too much of an issue. Whilst most people who live in my area do not speak much Afrikaans, all South Africans have to learn a second language at school and most white English-speakers choose Afrikaans over the African languages. The written language has many similarities to Dutch but the pronunciation is quite different. But overall it wouldn't be a huge change from what I already know. The Dutch, however, are renowned linguists and many of the job applications that I have looked at state that English is fine - Dutch is a bonus. So overall, Netherlands seems like an excellent place to live for 2 or 3 years.

 

Second question: Where exactly? Nikki and Conway live in a town called Ede which is an hour by train from Amsterdam and close to the city of Arnhem. They very kindly have offered us a room until we settle in and find our own place. Which city we will be in all depends on where I find work. Note the "I" and not "we". Gordon is on an SA passport so he will apply for residency through me once we get there. But that takes 3 months once I have a signed employment contract and his Schengen visa (to get him into the country to start with) is only valid for 3 months. This is going to be a fun game to play...

Third question: What about all our stuff? I own a townhouse in a complex which means I have a bond and a whole lot of junk inside those 4 walls. Gordon and I both have cars and between us we have 3 bicycles. The to-do list can get a bit daunting! I eventually resorted to using a letting agent as my personal networks weren't working and I have now signed a lease with a lovely older couple who will rent it fully furnished. Relief! I sold my car within 16 hours of listing it on Gumtree. Relief! I sold my mountain bike fairly quickly. Relief! Now I need to try get rid of my road bike. Gordon, on the other hand, is battling to get rid of his things. His car seems to be too new to sell as he’s had no inquiries but many views of the advert and the sale of his bicycle fell through. You can’t win them all...

So for now I can relax about our big move and concentrate on studying for an exam on Friday. And the Skype job interview I have tomorrow. And the handing over of work to colleagues. And the Rand/Euro exchange rate. And the expensive month of Social September (birthdays, goodbyes and general social activity). It never ends...