It was a little weird being ‘home’. First of all, it’s hard to call a place home when you don’t live there, even if all your friends are there and you’ve spent a significant chunk of your life there. When you’re driving around in a rental car, and you have to sleep in someone else’s …
Monthly Archive: November 2004
Nov
22
The Little Differences
Let’s say you get a new debit card in the mail and have to activate it, how would you normally expect that to be done? You call the number on the back, punch in your card number, maybe punch in some personal info, and voila, done right? See, this is where those “little differences” that …
Nov
16
Our First Trip Home – Part I
I’m sitting in Hartsfield airport in Atlanta. I’m halfway through my trip home. It’s my first official trip home as an expat. At first this was just going to be an extended business trip, I needed to go through Newark to get to New Orleans for a business meeting. I did the rational thing and …
Nov
07
IKEA Overload
For those of you who ever wondered, the maximum amount of times that one can safely shop at IKEA without experiencing IKEA Overload, is twice a month. Yesterday Ann and I took our fourth trip in as many weeks to freaking IKEA. We rented a car from Avis in Dordrecht and drove there. To say …
Nov
06
Geriatric Ward
Ann and I have met five neighbors so far. All of them had to be over 65. A few of them were in the 70s I think. I think Ann and I brought the average age of that apartment block down about 20 years when we stepped in. At least they won’t make a lot …
Nov
03
Election
Our new TV has CNN International. Stayed up until 6:00am watching election coverage, hoping to see a trend in Ohio that would allow me to go to sleep with the knowledge that we would have a new president. Instead went to bed angry and frustrated and woke up to find out that four million more …
Nov
02
Moving Into Merwekade
This weekend we moved into our new apartment. Here are some of the highlights: Four appliances came Friday morning. I succeeded in getting them out of the packaging, but after that I reached the limits of my usefulness. Ann’s dad and Mieke came about around 11:00am to help us out. Since Ann’s dad actually knows …