Our Stuff is Here!

After 6 weeks in transit, our stuff was finally delivered on Friday. What took a day and half to pack, took only half a day to unpack. The moving guys were done by lunch time. Now comes the hard part of finding where everything is going to go.

Since we had to leave our big furniture in Chicago, we don’t have as many places to put things. We don’t have the armoire or the dresser, the china cabinet or the entertainment center. And the kitchen here is very small compared to our old one. Our dishes have to be stored in one of the closets in the dining room. The pantry is also a closet in the dining room. There are only two small drawers for kitchen utensils. Since I love to cook, I have a LOT of kitchen utensils. The problems became obvious very quickly.

So we did what the Dutch do – we went to Ikea. We found a couple of very inexpensive shelving units to go in the kitchen. There are plastic tubs that slide like drawers giving me enough space for all my utensils. These fit right next to the stove so I now have a bit more working counter space too. We also found a dresser that would easily fit in the bedroom. After reconfiguring all the stuff, it looks like we found room for most things. Now that everything is put away, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to find it again!

On Saturday, we went to Wassenaar to visit one of my coworkers from my previous job. She and her husband have been in the Netherlands for several years and are heading back to the US. That makes for great timing because they are selling their Dutch appliances just as we are trying to buy some. Since the electricity is different in Europe, the motorized appliances don’t work very well even with a conversion plug. Computer equipment is generally OK – the ones that have the huge blocky plugs self-convert. Also, TVs work on a different system here, so a US TV wouldn’t get a signal here. We left our TV and most of our kitchen appliances at home and now we need to find Dutch replacements for them.

We picked up a TV, a fan (there’s no air conditioning here), a mixer, and a boatload of books for learning Dutch and traveling in Europe. We also have our name on a microwave, a vacuum, a crock pot, and a toaster that they don’t want to give up for a few more weeks. We took their car for a test drive and we are hoping to buy it, too. Buying second-hand is saving us a ton of money!

Finally, on Sunday we were finally able to go biking. The weather is still holding and the bike paths are everywhere. For the most part, if there’s a road, there’s a bike path. At major intersections, the bike paths have their own traffic lights. Of course you have to push the button to activate the signal. But they put the button where you can reach it from the bike, unlike the US, where they put the buttons in some really goofy places!

It was a pleasure to be out exploring by bike, but I can tell that it’s been almost 8 months since I’ve ridden. We went less than 20 miles and my butt was pretty sore! The only thing to do about that is to keep riding to get toughened up.