The Process II

It's been a while since I last posted on said topic, but we finally got our BSS numbers, and the bank account. The first time we went in, Andy accidentally mentioned that the UChicago department address wasn't our home address. They didn't like that and informed us we would need to provide them with a utility bill (A UTILITY BILL!) with our home address on it. Fortunately, since the California mail fiasco*, I have one of the utility companies send me an email with our bill as a pdf (not so tech savvy), and Andy could print this out at work. When we next went into the bank, Andy avoided mentioning the information regarding said address, and we got the account setup without further difficulties.

As for the envelope my mom sent us, we don't know where it went, but it took FOUR weeks to get to us. Priority mail my bootay. In the meantime we probably received a half dozen letters from Andy's mom, each within about 3 days of the postmark. Priority mail must get routed through Chicago... Fortunately, we didn't need that to get the BSS numbers, just to register as citizens and get our special I-live-in-Europe cards, which we didn't really care about anyways, though maybe if they knew we didn't have them after 90 days they'd kick us out. Who knows.

Once we got the original documents we went back to the Gementee office (I guess that means government or that other word I'm thinking of, but I can't remember what it is and it starts with a c**) and registrated*** our marriage. A couple weeks later, Andy received a letter stating that he need to present himself in Rijskwijk to pick up his citizenship card thingy. We walk into a long room with little offices along each wall. You had to be buzzed into the offices, which, if I remember correctly, had windows facing into the bigger room. It was very strange and somewhat creepy. So Andy walked in, showed them his passport, received the card and we went home. Why why why?

I still don't have my card. I was somewhat hoping it would be important, I would be caught without it, and then I would get to go home early courtesy the Dutch government. No such luck. ;)

So that's it for the process. I've since learned that it's a bit ridiculous in every country, but I still don't understand why we had to go to THREE different offices to accomplish this task. I can sort of understand Den Haag and the local office, but Rijkswijk??? Did they just elect the right guy who pulled the right strings to get them the important office of temporary-citizenship-card-thingy issuers? And why weren't the photocopied documents that were acceptable to the national government acceptable to the local government? These are questions of lasting importance to the well being of the world, and they must be answered!

*The California mail fiasco was initiated when Andy and I spent a summer in California. We had our mail temporarily forwarded there, and now a good chunk of our mail still goes to California. I haven't seen certain utility bills since we left California, while we were still in Chicago, I had my insurance company mail me at work, and I don't even want to know what I don't know didn't arrive at our Chicago address.

**Actually, the word does NOT start with a c. It in fact starts with an m and is municipal. ;)

***What in blue blazes is registrated anyways? Is this a word the British use instead of registered and the poor, unfortunate Dutch picked it up from them thinking it was proper English? ;) Or is it a Dutchified version of registered? The world may never know...

More Dutch Fun!

I have only seen two of these in my entire life - the first being when I arrived in our apartment, and the second being the dreadfully strange French movie L'Enfant that Andy and I watched sometime after we got here. It turns out that the thing doesn't simply provide you with water in your kitchen, it's hooked up to the bathroom as well. Happily enough, despite the fact that I think it's got to be some sort of huge fire hazard, it actually heats the water fast enough to provide a hot shower for however long you want to stay in there, regardless of how long your neighbor runs his shower. It turns out that when you start to run the hot water, a series of flames light up to heat the water, and if you move that knob that appears to be on a track to the left, it heats the water less. I actually kind of like it... =/

I really wish we hadn't thrown our old American tube of toothpaste away, then you could see just how much smaller the Dutch tubes are than the American ones. Instead of buying toothpaste every other month or maybe even every three months (I so seldom buy toothpaste in the States I don't even know how often I buy it!), I now make toothpaste purchases at least once a month.

What the heck are those yellow things in my bread???*

I think everyone has heard some little snippet of the cheese rant. Some of you may even have read the accompanying story over at Betwixt Mine Ears. In an effort to find something BESIDES gouda to eat, I purchased this little cheese wedge. I figured that maybe on some off chance it might actually taste a bit like cheddar. Well, it does. But it also has a consistency reminiscent of Velveeta. I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry at the absurdity of cheddar that melts smoothly. Of course, if I could get this in the States, it would surely improve the taste of my already fantastic queso. And now, after being in Spain and in Europe, I find that I must refrain from defining queso just in case you don't know what a Texan means by queso... I think I'm going to need help...

I don't know if they're ducks or geese or what, but they're kind of ugly. It's sort of like that one slightly defective looking duck that's in every duck pond - you can't decide if you should let it starve so that Mother Nature can run her course or if you should give it extra bread crumbs, because it's probably not going to reproduce and all the other ducks probably make fun of it. I don't think these are mutants, though... Poor ugly umm duckies er goosies er whatever the heck you are...

And finally, last but not least, the Chupa Chups. I have loved these things from the moment I first saw them, though that perhaps has more to do with the slogan than anything else... I'd been wanting to purchase a box just so I could take a picture for the blog, but couldn't convince myself that it was really worthwhile. As luck would have it, however, I got a bit of a sore throat this week and thought maybe they might sooth and uhhh relax my throat.

It turns out I should have read something on the label besides the slogan, because I was terribly disappointed when I opened the box and realized they were SUCKERS. I hate suckers. There's always that little bit of saliva that wants to dribble out your mouth where the stupid stick is, and then there's the fact that you actually have to HOLD the sucker in place in order to suck on it. There's absolutely nothing relaxing about a sucker. I hate them.

If, however, you turn the box, you discover that I am not the target consumer, but smokers stuck in locations where they can't smoke are. After all, a sucker "Does not harm those around you!" Oi ve. Anywho, Raquel was kind enough to look up the Chupa Chups online and found out that the darn things are from SPAIN. Now THAT is a country that needs an alternative to smoking...

*I think it's cheese, but it didn't taste very yummy.

King of Cheese

Gouda is by far the most popular cheese in Holland. This is understandable since Gouda is a town in Holland and that's where it comes from. Unfortunately Gouda's popularity makes it the only sliced cheese available, which means that they only cheese I've had on my sandwiches for the last two months is Gouda. More than that, aside from some "Italian" cheese of unidentified type we found grated at the store, Gouda is the only cheese we've cooked with for the last two months. In honor of Gouda, King of Dutch Cheese, I wrote a story over at Betwixt Mine Ears. I hope you enjoy. ;)

Shaving Cream

Andy and I are almost out of shaving cream, so I decided to buy some more. Since we're not here for long, we're just sharing a men's gel. I always buy the Gillette gel back home, and since that's what they have here, that's what I went for. Imagine my surprise when instead of a gel that I would have to lather myself, out comes pre-lathered shaving cream! I've never seen Gillette cream that wasn't gel in one of these bottles in the US, so I just picked the one that was cheapest and walked to the cash register. If only I'd been more careful, I might have noticed that not only does it say "mousse" on the front of the can, the little dollop of gel isn't a dollop of gel but is a dollop of lathered shaving cream!

To top it all off, I'm really not certain if I'm supposed to shake it, since it sort of sputtered out of the can and that's what you do with the pre-lathered canisters in the States. On the other hand, it came out pretty much the way I would have expected it to had it been shaken. Needless to say, I'm a bit on the disappointed side, but I guess I'll make it through this can... How many more days until we go home??? ;)

And when do the bells toll?

A strange phenomenon here is that the bells in the belfries don't toll on the hour. It is now 12:15 and the bells are ringing*. They did NOT begin to ring at noon. Furthermore, I have noticed them ringing at other times of the day on other days, but I have no idea at what time or on what days. It's not every hour, and it's not every Thursday at 12:15, so what the heck is the pattern? And what the heck are they ringin' for?

*The bell rang for 10 minutes. Why 10 whole stinkin' minutes???

The Process

Having never lived in another country for any extended period of time, I've never gone through the process of establishing residence within said country. So, I'm going to tell you what we've done so far.

First we had to get the visas. This involved getting a thing called an apostille (I may be spelling that wrong) for our marriage license and birth certificates from Austin and faxing/emailing copies to the people Andy is working for. Once the paperwork on their end went through, we were sent to the Dutch consulate to "apply" for the visas. That meant we had to take photos of ourselves, our passports and the originals of our marriage license and birth certificates, along with copies of the housing and working contracts to their office in downtown Chicago.

Next, we had to get here. That was probably the easiest and most obvious part. =) You buy a ticket, board a plane and away you go.

Once we got here, Andy met with the HR department who informed him that he must go to an office for foreign people and apply* for residence. We went to another, much nicer looking town called Rijswijk for that (I'm beginning to wonder if we're in the only dirty little town in Holland). Once there, we presented the housing contract and our passports, the attendant laughed at Andy's three looks as seen through the passport (from Backstreet Boy to rock 'n roll/motor cycle gang member to average joe), the attendant glued our photos to a piece of paper, we signed our lives away to the Dutch government (we might have, I don't read Dutch!), the attendant taped some stuff into our passports and we were on our way.

After that, we needed to register as citizens in the town we're living in, so we walked over there (after we got off the train), took a number and sat down to wait our turn in the queue. It turns out that of everyone we'd spoken to they're the only ones who need to see the original documents. Nevermind that the originals were required for the visa! So now we're halfway registered as citizens (I'm guessing that doesn't mean we get to vote in any elections) and awaiting an envelope from my parents. Doh.

Once we're done registering as citizens we'll get a BSS number (I don't know what it means) with which we can get a bank account. Once we get a bank account, we can get paid. Whoohoo!

That leads me to another interesting phenomenon here - Dutch banks. Supposedly the town we live in is exceedingly safe, but somehow we still had to be buzzed into the bank - they had two little buttons on top of each other, one green and one red. I don't know what the red one does, but the green one makes a loud buzzing noise. Once the noise goes off, someone pushes an identical green button on the other side and opens the door for you. Now that you're in, if you want to open a bank account, you have to make an appointment, which you can't make until you have your BSS number, which will take two to three weeks. Doh. I'm wondering which documents they'll require in order to open a bank account for us...

If you do this on your own, it costs a lot of money. Fortunately TU has been paying for everything so far. Some departments require that visitors or students pay them back for a portion of their expenses. That hasn't been mentioned to us so far, so hopefully we won't be paying for any of it.

Stay tuned for further updates. If you've lived in another country and gone through this process, tell us about your experiences (especially if another country for you is the US).

*At first the word apply concerned me, because in the US it suggests there's a good chance that you might not get what you want, but they've used it so many times that I'm beginning to think it just means "file some paperwork".