We're here in Amsterdam!!!

We arrived safe and sound! Our plane ride was uncomplicated (always a good thing!) and we even got to sleep some. All of our bags made it too! Jonathan's colleague, Gareth Davies, kindly picked us and our four suitcases up at the airport. We went back to his house in Breukelen, which is where Brooklyn, NY, got its name (they are nothing alike!), to meet his wife and to visit and relax after our long flight. They took us to do our first grocery shopping so that we would have breakfast in the morning and so that they could helpt translate for the things that were not obvious (this was helpful...Dutch seems to be a very difficult language!!!).

1-Our living room

We then left Breukelen and Gareth drove us to get to our apartment. We are staying in university housing and our apartment while clean seems very much like a college dorm room. Everything is very simple and standard. We came in to find two complete dorm rooms set up off of a kitchen and bathroom in the hallway. We quickly rearranged the rooms so that we had a one bedroom with all the closets and one room that could be a living room (with all the more comfortable chairs). The shower is a bit different, but it will work (see photo for description).  It is feeling a bit more home-like now. We have internet access and a television with a lot of Dutch channels. We do get CNN and some British television...and I am excited to get a station that I remember from living in Spain (so I can watch Spanish news and see some American programs dubbed in Spanish...totally funny to hear!!). We have two boxes of kitchen supplies that the university gave us. We were laughing as we were trying to wash the two bowls and plates that we have because we weren't sure if the bottle of mystery cleaner we got was for dishes or for cleaning the floor (and it would not be good to mix up the two!!). We think it's for dishes...but we will figure out the Dutch later!

2-Other side of our living room

We struggled to stay awake at least until 9 PM. We made it by forcing ourselves out in the dark and in a drizzling rain to find dinner at some restaurants that Gareth had shown to us. We also said we could not go to sleep until we had unpacked a suitcase. Right at 9 PM, we both could barely keep our eyes open because of the jetlag and finally decided it was okay to go to sleep!!!

We head off to Vrije University tomorrow to get Jonathan into his office and to meet the people he will be working with! Exciting!!!

(Mom and Yvette, I've posted some pics of our apartment for you!)

3-The bathroom

4-Our "office" or the other side of the kitchen

5-Our room

6-Our kitchen

7-A day later, our first meal at our apartment!