written Wednesday 7 May 2003
| What's Dutch for "To Do List"? |
Done as of now: Plane tickets in hand (OK, actually in briefcase). Software all bought. Apartment arranged for--it will actually be in Bussum...but since it is only 2 miles / 3.5 km from work in Naarden, and since I will probably spend more time at work (Naarden) than in the apartment (Bussum), and since in any case it's all downwind of Amsterdam, I'm not changing this page's headers. So there. Winter-Park-house-selling documents all completed. Mail forwarding from Florida is working. Persuaded the US office to let me keep my US office phone number and voice mail while I'm in the Netherlands. Ordered Dutch CDs from Amazon. Bought shoes, clothes, etc. to fit my oversize frame. Have a buyer for the car (!). Arranged for rental car. Completed all US work documents: retirement plan, life insurance, health insurance, prescription drug plan, dental plan, etc etc etc, not that I'll use any of this anytime soon. Scheduled pickup of stuff at hotel room. Reserved Naarden hotel room (before apartment is ready), NL company car, and NL rental car until the company car is ready.
Yet to do: Buy Big Ol' Honking voltage converters, and ship them here before hotel-room pickup. Get US-shape paper, so they will fit the printer and filing cabinets I'm taking. Start mail forwarding from Illinois. Get passport photos for Bussum docs. Figure out why the hell Earthlink is charging me hourly internet charges on an Unlimited account. Notarize and FedEx house-closing documents. Get car serviced, sell car, close car insurance, get rental car. Get NL phone adapters for modems. Arrange to close house insurance. Get everything out of the office to the hotel room Separate all the stuff stacked in this hotel room into: (1) going on the boat vs. (2) going by air freight vs. (3) checked luggage vs. (4) taking on the plane vs. (5) shipping by UPS vs. (6) throw it the hell out. E-mail family etc. all the particulars, US and NL. Reconfirm flight next Tuesday. Check out of hotel room. Good-bye to my new friends at work. Last drive down I-90, return car, get through O'Hare security, fly nonstop to Amsterdam, get stuff, declare squat, dawn cab ride to Naarden, get room, drop stuff, hot shower, pass out.
Uitsmijter en koffie, put on walking shoes, check out Naarden. Een kopje koffie, graag. Check out Bussum. Nog een kopje koffie, alstublieft. New life.
Trackback
These weblogs have referred to this entry :
Readers' Comments
come on... it's not like you are going in the middle of nowhere is it ?
have a safe journey, you'll love schiphol, very widespread airport, at least it's big for a european person...
for the rest, i'm confident you will adjust just fine, maybe the language will be a small hurdle you'll have to jump smoothly, other than that, piece of cake eric, piece of cake...
Yes, bless you VV, I do have spare toner for the laser printer. Unfortunately it doesn't run on 220 V, so I bought this big ol' honking transformer. Pity the movers.
It's not a question of Bussum's being in the middle of nowhere (I hope!). It's just that I can't do any of that To-Do list once I've left the US. Not a good time to leave something off the list since I'll not be back to the US for quite a while. I didn't even start listing the work-related problems...
Next week I will have: 6 valid mail addresses, 3 bank accounts, 5 separate charge accounts (work and personal), 3 pay streams, and counting drugs and dental I will be juggling 7 health care plans. I counted my computer passwords this weekend: 43. Life is a bit complicated these days...
i can understand the 'administrative' and paperwork related issues... i'd hate to be in your shoes in that respect...
but cartridges for your printer ? and delicatessen ? hehehe... it's almost as if you would be wanting to travel with a little bit of america around you... quite strange... i know a british man, he owns a house here in france, the first thing he did was get a satellite dish to be able to get bbc tv channels... what's the point ? maybe i'm an unusual traveller...maybe it's me who is strange.. ah well.
i imagine you getting up and out sometime early saturday morning and going say 5 blocks south of your hotel and maybe 2 blocks west and finding the most amazing little neighborhood bakery right across from a park.....
I don't understand "moi"'s last comment. No matter how much I might integrate into Dutch society or renounce American ways...the printer will not work without a cartridge. I don't know if the cartridges are available in the Netherlands (it is an old printer), so it simply seemed prudent to get one now. No big deal, just another entry in a list.
And the deli comment was not even mine (even though I very much appreciate VaVega's kind offer!). I think I've explained in some detail how I feel about these things (and surrounding myself with Americana is quite the opposite of everything I've written), so do let's avoid imputing someone else's tastes to me, shall we? Thank you.
i know you'll do fine bakerywise (but i'm not touching the coffee and cookie thing nehneh)
after all it's only after you've been exposed to prime quality belgian bakeries that everything else is unacceptable :p and they're quite close to us and they must have implemented some industrial spionnage by now
sorry if this question is academic by now (i'm a bit sleepdeprived and haven't read everything)but i've got some friends in holland (don't tell anyone i admitted this ok ;) ) and i can find out wether they sell a certain kind of cartridge if it would be helpful...
Do you have spare ink cartridges for your printer?
If you get a craving, send me an address and I will Fedex (next day air) one German Chocolate danish from Panera.
Di