Adjusting to Life in Amsterdam

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  Amsterdam, Netherlands
Monday, April 14, 2003

Hello everyone.

It's been one week and as I'm sure Joey is keeping track, 993 days left. While Julie is asleep in my apartment battling jet-lag, I am at the internet cafe again. Today we viewed 10 apartments and while a few of them were really nice, none of them were "the one". So we will continue looking on Thursday. Tomorrow Julie and I will be going to the Expat Center, the area of the bank that will help us get adjusted and direct us to all the appropriate agencies (I think the phrase 'red tape' was created in Holland). After that we need to open a bank account and head to the area of town where the Jews live so that I can buy some food for Passover (there is not an aisle of 15 types of Matzah at the neighborhood grocery store here like we have in the States - the gentiles on this email might not have ever noticed this but it does exist). I made arrangments to spend Passover today but it is impossible to find one that is English-speaking. I would think my next TravelPod will have some thoughts on my first Dutch Seder. Other than that, here is what happened last week...

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WORK - EXPAT CENTER
I went to the Expat Center on Tuesday because as I think I mentioned in my last TravelPod, the person I needed to speak to does not work on Mondays. Well, Tuesday came, I took an ABNAMRO shuttle from the local ABNAMRO building to some place way the hell out of town and the woman I needed to see told me that she did not have my visa or contract ready and so I should come back a week later. I guess this is what everyone meant when they said things that get done in 1 visit in the States takes 3, 4, 5 visits here. So I am attempting visit number 2 tomorrow. They will be telling me what I need to do and who I need to see to register with the foreign police, get my foreign drivers license, etc. So, since I was unable to do that last week, I had nothing else to do but go to work.

Now, I knew that work was not expecting me and that I would not have a computer, phone, logon's, etc but I had nothing else to do so I went. I worked on a few little things, the most significant being an excel spreadsheet that compares a few banking-type of ratios that deal mostly with how much ABNAMRO is budgeting for bad loans compared to our competition. All in all, not too exciting but I think this will be my job for some time.


WORK - DEBATE
The most educational thing that was accomplished last week at work was just working with the Dutch. It is odd because I have heard things about the Dutch before and have read a little bit about them but until I was sitting in the room, it didn't sink in. The Dutch like to argue. Correction, they love it. You can have a room of 10 people and they will argue the sky is blue. It is a more popular sport than futbal (soccer). And they all have to have their opinions heard. If they all agree that the sky is blue, the conversation does not stop after 3 of them have argued the point, they will continue to argue the same point that someone else just said. Do they realize that they are not changing anybody's opinion? I don't think they care. The conversations could go as follows:

"The sky is blue."
"I agree."
"Me too."

But this is what the conversation usually sounds like:

"I think the sky is blue at the horizon, the sea and the sky seem to blend together and we all know that the sea is blue."
"I agree, because the sea is blue and therefore the sky is blue."
"Yes, but I think the sky is also blue."
And so forth.

You can imagine that this does not make for a very efficient workplace.


WORK - LUNCH
The other interesting thing that happens at work is everyone sits at their computer, working hard, every so often stopping to discuss whether the sky is blue and then in the middle of the debate, the most senior person in the room says "lunch?"

He asks but it is more of a statement. You see, when he is ready to eat, and never before then, everyone in the room eats. You might be on the phone or in the middle of doing something important, he is ready to eat so we all eat. And don't think of making lunch plans with a friend. We eat as a room. We walk to the elevator together, enter the bank cafeteria together, pick your food (for this, you can go by yourself), and then sit at a table together. As if I have so much to say to these people that I have to spend every moment of my day with them, including lunch.

Now, we are at the table, talking about who-knows-what (sadly, it has only been 3 days and I have already zoned them out during lunch). Everyone takes what they ordered and places it on slices of bread. It doesn't matter what you order, chicken, salad, stew, you place it on a slice of bread and eat it with a fork and knife. It reminds me of the Seinfeld when Mr. Pitt eats his Snickers with a fork and knife and then eventually everyone does the same because it is viewed as barbaric to use your hands. Nevermind the fact that they used their hand to place the slice of chese on the bread, it would be unsanitary to then use the same hands to insert the same cheese into your mouth. I would say it is very odd but I don't think that is accurate. Instead, I will simply say it is very Dutch. All in all the food is descent and about E5 (roughly $6) although I can image the selection will get old very quickly, especially since there is not much I can choose from until they create a kosher butcher in the corner - which is HIGHLY unlikely.


LUNCH - COFFEE
The last interesting thing that happens at work is each floor has a super-duper coffee-maker. It is so complex that when you leave the room to get yourself a cup of Joe, everyone else in the room barks out orders..."2-1," "1-4-4," "8". You see, you have to bring back for everyone and rather than saying "coffee, little sugar, no milk" they say "1-4-4." And don't even think of getting just for yourself. They ever have these fancy cup-holders so that you can bring back for everyone. Incidentally, I am a 2-2...tea with a little sugar.


TELEVISION
I figure if things don't work out for me in banking, I could be a military strategist because I have watched more Iraq crap that anyone I know. CNN and BBC are the only English-speaking channels in the Netherlands. Every so often, I can catch a "Tool Time" with Dutch subtitles on channel 5 but I have a tough time watching that since I thought it was a crappy show in the US. I have seen commercials for "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" but have yet to see it. The other night I watched the Dutch version of "Temptation Island" and surprisingly, or not surprisingly, I understood exactly what was happening. It is still a bit odd to see hard-core pornography on regular televison as well as 1-900 ads with the same sort of visuals. Lastly, I can say with certainty that "The Osbornes" is not nearly as funny without the censors bleeping everyother word Ozzy says. I hope I don't feel the same about Howard Stern if his show ever makes it here.


PHONES
It has been a great first week and I can honestly say that the only thing I was able to accomplish was setting up my voicemail at home. You might laugh but this took me 3 solid days. It is dificult to guess what the automoted operator is saying when the only word of Dutch you know is floo-sha (BEER - I'm sure that's not how you spell it but it is how you say it). While setting up voicemail, floo-sha was never mentioned. I had to visit customer service twice. It is still not exactly right but at least the outgoing message has my name and I have figured out how to collect my incoming messages. Good for now.

I am still in the process of finding a good long-distance provider. It seems as if I can call the States for a pretty good rate but I have also been told that those in the States can call Amsterdam for about 15 cents a minute. I've also been given 2 cheaper options. I have heard either to get a prepaid calling card from AT&T or my mom was able to find some Israeli woman who sells prepaid calling cards for 5 cents a minute and about 10 cents a minute when calling from your cell phone. You might also whan to look into how much it costs to call from home-to-cell or cell-to-cell. I do not have a cell yet...that is the project for this week. Anyways, the woman my mom bought her calling card from is named Rachel and can be reached at 818-884-3909.

As for my mobile phone, I have already made a few visits to the mobile phone providers and am getting closer to finding one. I have to buy something called a SIM card which seems like it is just a memory chip with all my phonebooks and personal info on it. Each provider has it's own SIM card. I will likely go with VodaFone since they are British and the rest are a bunch of fucks (T-Mobile - German, Orange - French). Also, my brother-in-law is a commercial director and his firm works with VodaFone so hopefully my patronage will help them and then they will need to make more commercials and then he will get hired and will become rich and will treat me right since it was my choice in mobile phone providers which really gave him his first break =) The phones here are pretty sophisticated, allowing you to call from almost anywhere in the world, including underground in the subway stations and elevators. A lot of them include cameras so that you can take digital photos with your phone and receive radio signals. Pretty cool. I am hoping to find a plan that allows me to recive calls from the States at a reasonable rate since that might be the easiest place to receive calls given the 7 hour time difference between here and Chicago.


MISC.
The only other really funny thing I've seen so far was I happened to have stumbled upon a huge crowd the other night, complete with baricades and a red carpet. I asked someone what we were waiting for and the man said with great enthusiasm, "Rowan Atkinson's new movie is being premeired." Wow, the new Mr. Bean movie. Such excitement. Anyways, I thought that was pretty funny.

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Nothing else doing. I'm going to try to enjoy the remainder of the day. The weather is still beautiful and it has been light out until well past 9 o'clock. Hope all is well wherever you are and for all the Yids in the house, Happy Passover! To my people of the Cross, Happy Easter! And to everyone else, Happy Day!

-Stephen

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