Finding our Rhythm

What a week its been since our last post!
Emily got VERY sick, we're still trying to get our belongings which have yet to ship out yet, and we're learning what daily life is like here.

One thing we've learned is how day-to-day people seem to live, you only buy 1-3 days worth of groceries, so your fridge is small, and you walk very often to the grocer. Albert Heijn and Jumbo seem to be the main grocery stores. Within a mile, we have at least 3 Albert Heijns and 1 Jumbo, so groceries are very accessible.

So far the food is regulated to a higher quality, so our meats are incredible, but their palate is very mild, so unless you're eating meat, bread, and cheese in some capacity, you don't really know how good your food is about to be. But I'll be darned if I haven't had the best reuben of my life here.

We've been getting to know one of our neighbors a few blocks down who moved here from Texas (and are taking care of their cat while they're on holiday), and in the same week that we met them, we've already bumped into them thrice in Albert Heijn.

One thing that's taking some getting used to is how condensed everything can be. Stores are generally small, and pack as much merchandise as possible into what space they have. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people, so it's kind of expected that you go into a store with a plan, follow the flow, and pick things up on the way. What surprised me was seeing how much this applied to every store. People will meander while walking, but as soon as I'm in the print and scan shop, you need to know what you want, where you're going, and do what you're there to do quickly. That's not to say that people haven't been patient or immensely helpful, but it certainly means I can't take my time figuring out what I want out of something.

For my birthday, I got a bike, which was quite an experience in itself.
When you look for a bike, what do you look for? In a search for the answer to that question, the response was usually to the effect of "something with two wheels and pedals. If you wanna get real crazy with it, some handlebars. Luxury? A seat."

We eyed a few bike shops, as there are MANY around here, and our first one was a very nonchalant used bike guy who gesticulated to some generic area saying "we've got this one, this one, and this one."
In a country where your bike is your car, I was shocked by this mentality and continued to answer none of my questions, but as it became apparent to me; bikes here remain outside in the cold, rain, and other fun elements, if your bike isn't rusty, that's a win in the Dutch book.

Thankfully, after visiting a few more bike shops, I met this incredible bike shop owner (who speaks 8 languages casually?!) who was willing to guide me more.
I came in thinking "21 gear, handbrakes, familiar kickstand."
He talked me through all of it, that in the Netherlands, because these are ridden so hard, often, and left in the elements, the fewer parts that can break, the better.

"Bikes don't have that many gears, why do you need that many?" He was a little taken aback by me asking about the gears. "There's no reason to ever need more than 7."
"I have bikes that have handbrakes, but between us, those break first, if you can learn pedal braking, you'll be so much happier."

Upon buying the bike, I figured that was that, but the gentleman insisted on "cleaning it up." He took the bike to the back, hung it up on a sort of bike pulley, and started replacing everything on it for me, brand new wheels, painted the bike, sprayed it with a weather coating, attached a new lamp and rear light, attached a bag to hold the bike lock, a phone holder (it's illegal to hold your phone while biking) and handed me some oil to keep the lock working smoothly, all free of charge!

Here it is, my new rig (clearer daytime picture coming soon), and wow do I suck at riding this. Dutch people are statistically the tallest in the world, and that results in many things being very tall, my new bike being no exception. I have the seat as low as it goes and it's still as tall as I can handle. I did know that I wanted to be as comfortable as possible for long rides, so I did go for the taller handlebars and large seat.

Riding the bike, I was nervous about, less so for the riding, as I'm an avid bike rider, but more for the navigating around pedestrians, because they are E V E R Y W H E R E.
Only my second outing on the bike, and in trying to avoid people, I ran myself directly into a tree. This pedal braking thing was going to take some getting used to.
I had over 5 people come to my aid before I'd even looked up from the ground, one of them started repairing my bike, two helping me to my feet.
One gentleman was especially trying to check in on me and make sure I was alright, but he spoke very little English. I tried explaining I was new to this type of bike, to which I got the Dutch "ehhhh?! First time biking?" In my frazzled state, I tried to think of the way to explain in Dutch "Eenen omafiet (First Grandma bike)." He bursts into laughter "I been there. Go home, relax."

One way I've been describing living here is that it's not polished, but it's designed for people. Everything is optimized for people, pedestrians and bikes always come before cars, bikes even get their own roads, public transportation has a constant rotation where if you miss a bus, you can take the next one in 5 minutes, and the app for it will walk you through which bus to take to which stop, then which tram to get onto, and if any walking is necessary, includes a walking GPS to guide you to your destination.

People stay in their bubble, but if the seat next to you is open on public transport, someone will likely take it. They won't talk to you, it's not a personal space issue, it's a desire to get from one place to another. That said, the people are have been very nice. There was one seat left where Emily and I were going to sit, so Emily got the seat. The girl next to her then asked if I'd like the seat to be able to sit next to Emily.

There are so many examples of kindness I can bring up here already. While I was at Trekpleister (think CVS without the pharmacy) looking for cold medicine for Emily, a woman there saw me being confused looking at a wall of drugs and trying to translate each one in my app. She asked me what I was looking for and helped me find multiple solutions, brought me an employee and explained what I was looking for to them, then while in the checkout line also made more recommendations - "oh, and she'll need some drops (licorice), those are very Dutch (it seems to be very Dutch to talk about how Dutch you, something you did, or someTHING is), and you should go get her some oranges."

Customer service is not generally as friendly as the PNW, but as far as I understand, no place really has as friendly of customer service as the PNW, so I already had that expectation. I'm getting really good at frustrating old guys that really don't want to be working or speaking in English, but everyone else has been very accommodating.

The Country is highly bureaucratic, but understanding of human error, and are very trusting. For instance, I forgot to pay my deposit here initially and was still working on setting up my bank account, the landlord had no problem with waiting for that, and wasn't even aware I hadn't paid yet.
Emily went to a store to buy some postcards but forgot her debit, the employee let Emily take the postcards home and said "I know you'll come back to pay." Our neighbors forgot to include an ID in a legal form, and the municipality went forward with everything and said "just bring us the ID sometime, but we'll go ahead and send you residency."

There is a lot of focus here on taking pleasure in the little moments and respecting time. Do not be late to anything. When you're off work, you are OFF WORK. Schedule time that you will spend with people, live by your calendar. But also enjoy the journey to wherever you're going. Have coffee with anyone who asks. Say hi to people you see, but no expectation to have small chat as they are likely on their way to something and you want to respect their time. If they pause, chat away. If you go to a restaurant, that meal will make its way to you when it's good and ready, no rush, spend time with the people you went with. Nothing is rushed, time is respected,

There are a great many things to get used to, I will not deny that, but it's been phenomenal so far, from a more active lifestyle and healthier food, to the incredible people that we've met, to the gorgeous architecture that we are perpetually surrounded by, causing us to regularly pause to take in the fact that we live here. We are living in a college town, which rarely effects us, but are reminded every now and then by students moving in and out of housing and on one particular night, a party outside our window that went until 3am. This has us excited for our next spot, loving where we're at, but looking forward to what's next. This really is a special city and we look forward to showing our loved ones around someday.