As Rob and I left our apartment on Monday morning, we braced ourselves for the unknown. It was Queen’s Day in Amsterdam, which means a citywide party in the streets and canals, all in celebration of the Queen’s birthday. Because the Dutch royal family is the House of Orange, the citizens of Amsterdam show national pride by dressing in orange, decorating their buildings in orange, and even dying their hair orange. The Dutch flag flies proudly on buildings, trams, and the occasional passerby.

Kegs of Dutch beer are tapped early in the morning and continue to flow through the afternoon and evening. Needless to say, we were mesmerized. And to top it off, the weather could not have been any more perfect for the event: 20 degrees Celsius and the sun was shining.

We set off to meet some friends at Café Mankind, catching a tram headed Westward. It wasn’t long before we realized that we were headed south, towards De Pijp; the tram route had changed due to street closures. It was good that we hopped off the tram when we did because we got to take a leisurely walk through Frederiksplein, where we saw the Queen’s Day pastime of the vrij markt in action. Basically, people set up stands around the city, especially in parks, and sold their second-hand items tax-free. People even go so far as to tape off the sidewalk days in advance to reserve the best spots. It was here that Rob and I collected some wearable orange (for free!)— fedora hats with Dutch flag ribbon.

When we arrived at Café Mankind, we loitered in the street with other orange-clad revelers, drinking beer out of recyclable plastic cups and watching party boats cruise down the canals, turntables and DJs in tow. A band began to play, and I was transfixed by the swing dancers that caused the crowd to expand and form a circle around them.

At some point we went to have lunch near the popular Liedseplein area, and there were DJs in the streets, large crowds and confetti guns. We sat and ate pizza at a sidewalk cafe, watching the ever-flowing crowd of orange pass us by.

Later on, we decided to wander Westward to the Jordaan, which we heard was where the real party was taking place. At first, it seemed really serene, sitting by the canal, watching bicycles whir by, but then we noticed that the canal just ahead of where we were sitting was completely covered with people: on a raft, setting off red distress flares as they danced to the beat of the DJ on board.

At this point we continued on our path, determined to discover the heart of the Queen’s Day festivities. As you saw from Rob’s videos, we found a suitable vantage point on the Prinsengracht canal to watch the parade of party boats pass by. One after one, the boats precariously packed with people drifted by, including one boat in particular which hosted a woman who unabashedly flashed her breasts at the crowd.

Once we had had our fill of the parade, it was another feat entirely to work our way back to Café Mankind. Street after street was clogged by DJ after DJ and crowd after crowd. I realized there was some truth in the advice: “Don’t have plans on Queen’s Day, just go with the flow.” We eventually arrived at our destination, but it took a lot of weaving through side streets and dance-offs. Once situated at Café Mankind we had one final drink and said goodbye to our fellow revelers. In our minds, Queen’s Day 2012 was a great success.

This Monday (April 30th, 2012) was Queen’s Day here in the Netherlands.  Michelle will follow up with a post elaborating on our Queen’s Day experience, but I thought I’d share some videos that I took that day in the Jordaan.  The Jordaan is a neighborhood in Amsterdam, and apparently it’s where the real party is at on Queen’s Day.  From what we saw, it certainly did not disappoint:

Two weeks ago, my brother Justin and I were riding around Amsterdam, getting a feel for the bike lanes and trying to not get run over by cars, trams, and other cyclists. Or at least I was; Justin is somewhat of a “pro” on a bicycle. Except for that one incident last year. Oh, we’ll never let him live that one down. But, I digress! Justin and I were waiting for the cyclist stoplight to turn green somewhere near Waterlooplein when we spotted it. Well, more like heard it:

“VROOOOOOM DOMINOS DOMINOS DOMINOS LEKKER DOMINOS”

The culprit of all that noise was a Dominos delivery scooter, not gas-powered as the initial “vroom” suggested, but electric! And incredibly silly! Justin and I were cracking up in the streets, vowing to look it up on Youtube when we got home so that we could better explain our encounter to Rob. Alas, when we got back, there was no Youtube video to be found. Until now! One of Justin’s Facebook friends sent it his way. Completely awesome in its own right but made even more spectacular when we discovered that we were STARRING in the video! I’ve posted it below for your viewing pleasure! Lekker (nice/tasty)!

A more in-depth account of Justin’s visit to come.
-Michelle

Well, we’ve been here for over< a month now.  Since it’s been so long, both since we’ve moved and since we’ve had a decent-sized post, I thought I’d summarize our experiences since we got here.

It’s funny; in the weeks before we left the United States, everything seemed to go wrong.  We bolstered our spirits by telling each other “This is the hard part.  After we move, everything will be easier.” Then, when we moved here, and everything seemed to go wrong, we kept telling each other “Wow, we had no idea how hard this would be!  Well, after a month here, everything will be easier.”  And now, a month into our journey together, I can happily say that things got a lot easier.  We have an apartment, we have bank accounts, we have residence cards, we have working Internet, and we have cell phones.  Things are finally starting to calm down around here. Michelle has been instrumental in getting a lot of this taken care of; she’s taken a lot of her time to doing research and going out into the world.  So now that all of this is out of the way, she can finally focus on looking for a job.

Getting set up here is fairly difficult; it seems that setting up every service is dependent on some document, and getting every document is dependent on another.  We couldn’t even get phones until we had our residence cards (which we got at the very end of March) and a pay stub from work.  The adage “patience is a virtue” rings especially true when getting set up in a new country.

Several times over the last month, usually after encountering some issue with the language barrier, we asked ourselves if moving to another country (particularly Germany, due to my German skills) would have been easier.  I think that blending in would have been easier (as well as grocery shopping!), but things would definitely have been harder regarding our status as a legal partnership.  The Netherlands is very accommodating towards unmarried couples; because we’re together and I have a work visa, Michelle is granted one implicitly.

Shortly after we had most everything straightened out, we had a visitor from the US: Michelle’s brother Justin!  It was a relief to have him here, especially since he came at a point where the reality that we wouldn’t be seeing our families for a while was beginning to set in. The sadness of his departure was further amplified by going to church on Easter Sunday the following morning; it did help, however, to talk to our families on Skype that evening.

My job is going very well; it’s challenging work, but I was placed into an area of work that I only knew a little about, so the potential for learning is high, and that’s very important to me in a job.  Everyone at work has been very friendly and welcoming; I think that my job has been critical to my adjusting to life here in the Netherlands.

Though the last month has been challenging, I have faith that things will only continue to improve. We will continue to keep you updated on our acclimation to life here, and we will elaborate on some of the more noteworthy differences from life in the US.

-Rob

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long break in between posts; Michelle and I have moved out of our temporary lodgings in Amstelveen, and into our own apartment in Amsterdam!  Of course, afterwards came the seemingly harmless task of setting up our Internet, and shortly after that came Michelle’s brother Justin for a visit.  We promise to recap everything that has happened in the last few weeks!

-Rob

Hey everyone, sorry for the break in posts; Michelle and I are currently dealing with a bit of an “Internet outage” (confusion between us and our new ISP), so I thought I’d provide a filler post for the time being.

One thing that has been interesting adjusting to is the slight dialect differences between the US and my work environment.  While some of these are minor (ex. the American vs British pronunciation of “router”), the most startling of all is the pronunciation of the letter ‘Z’.  In the United States, we pronounce the letter as ‘zee’; my colleagues (and most Dutch people that I’ve met) pronounce it ‘zed’.  I thought the difference was interesting, and merited its own post. =)

-Rob

When walking across Rembrandtplein towards Rob’s new office, I noticed a large covered storefront that bore the Starbucks logo. Nobody was coming in or out, so I assumed that it wasn’t open yet. When I met up with Rob, he mentioned that there would be a large Starbucks opening in his building on Friday, and that he had discussed it with his co-workers. They typically go out for coffee at a shop called Coffee Company which is just around the corner from their building, but they were willing to check out the nieuwe Starbucks on opening day.

Rob didn’t mention much after his first visit except, “THEY HAVE STROOPWAFEL THERE.” As I would find out later, this particular Starbucks was a concept store, and had fresh baked goods on a daily basis, including some Dutch favorites such as appeltaart: a thick, cakey, strudel-like apple pie. The rumor is that they tweet every time there’s a new batch of goodies fresh out of the oven.

I’ve been there twice since the opening, and I have to say that I was really impressed with the interior decoration and styling. There was a lot of attention given to preserving the integrity of the original building; 1920s tile flooring was used from the vault room of the bank building where Starbucks now resides. There was also a focus on including Dutch culture in the design. Antique Delft tiles line some of the walls, other walls have been lined with bicycle innertubes (as the Dutch love their fiets), and yet other walls have been covered with collages of antique wooden Speculaas molds. The space is crafted in re-purposed Dutch oak, canvas and concrete, giving the space a feeling of a trading post. I especially liked the large flower bouquets on the tables, staged seating arrangements, a and the colorful window seating near the front of the store. Enough words, see for yourself:

Read more (courtesy of Fast Co. Design).
View a video about the opening day (Rob was there during the filming).
The video is Dutch, but you will get the idea.

Also, see the slow brew theater in action:

This post is dedicated to my former CPM coworkers and Starbucks aficionados,
Meredith and Libby.

“Spreekt u Engels?”  That’s Dutch for “Do you speak English?”  It appears to be a harmless question, but as I would discover later, it has a dual meaning.. In the heat of the moment, I blurted out this phrase as I entered a conversation with a Dutchman today. He didn’t seem to act out of the ordinary to me, but Michelle pointed out afterward that he cringed a little at the question. I hadn’t realized that I had commited a minor faux pas:  asking a Dutch person whether or not they speak English is kind of like asking them if they speak Dutch. The English education here is so good that almost everyone here speaks the language.  So the response to my question is “of course he does!” I was trying to show a little deference by addressing this man in his native language, instead of playing the part of the stereotypical arrogant American that thinks everyone in the world must speak English! So, I have a homework assignment: learn the following in Dutch:

I don’t speak much Dutch; do you mind if we speak in English?

-Rob