Deep Fry Country

Today I almost bought a bike, I even went to look at it, but it was 26 inch and therefore to small. So I'll keep watchin marktplaats.nl for something suitable for tall people.

Johan enjoying his gehaktballen

I and Johan went to IKEA last Friday, after a long walk from Bijlmer to Bullewijk we had "Köttbullar och lingonsylt" i.e. Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam, or as the dutch say "gehaktballen met vossenbesjam". Taking advantage of the country's lax alcohol laws we drank Spendrups Gold. Drinking beer at IKEA felt quite wierd.

Unfortunately the Dutch like their food fried and subsequently served the dish with french fries instead of just potatoes (I am sure the deep fried Mars bars served at the chippies in UK would have been a hit here, if they arn't already). It was still worth the trek but I couldn't help feeling that some potatoes would have made the dish so much better.

On saturday we went to Club Rascal at Club Eight. I had a massive headache but still managed to play some table tennis before I took I cab home.

Dutch spice

Over my two weeks in my new country I've noticed that some meals are so horrible that eating them is impossible. The food tastes like it's been out in the sun or like something fried in butter way past it's best before date. Some of my Swedish collegues have noticed this to. The question is what is it that makes the food taste so horrible?

The taste is hard to describe, it's neither sour nor sweet. "Härsket" is my best shot.

I'll post more on the subject when I have tracked down the cause.

Soft weekend, Hama and Ikea

On friday I went out with some people from work. We had a really nice dinner at De Kroon at Rembrandtplein and then when to Pijp and had a couple of beers. On saturday I went to town and bought a ten euro iron at Hema.

Hotdog with mayonaise

Today I went to IKEA in Bullewijk and bought an ironing board. IKEA was basically the same except that the hotdogs came with mayonaise. It was a weird feeling to walk around among the Swedish product names, feeling a misguided sense of national pride and thinking about whether there was someone else there who knew what the names ment.

I've also come to realize that you need a separate travellingcard for the trains to Schipol and antoher one for the trams, busses and metro in Amsterdam. This is because they are run by different companies. Overall it's been an exciting weekend.

Belastingdienst, Eindhoven and luggage

Belastingdienst


Working at Eindhoven


Pata Negra

I just came back home from eating dinner with Björn, Johan, Jonas and some of their friends. The food was good but the service was horrible. It was a tapas bar and it took ages for the next course to get served. Maybe it's a plot to get people to order more drinks. Anyhow, I'm still feeling very full.

Today I got my burgersevicesnumber (preciously known as sofi-number) from the belastingdienst. I called them a few days ago and they called back again and set up an appointment. I went to a large brown building near Sloterdijk station and got a queue number, sat down and waited. A very unfriendly woman took my details and ten minutes letter gave me a paper in Dutch with my very own burgerservice number. Smooth...

Other than that things are going well. A guy from DHL dropped the luggage of yesterday. I became technical manager for a project. It might be interesting to see how that turns out. And getting up at 5 to go to Eindhoven is not as fun as it sounds but I guess I'll get used to going there every wednesday.

Tomorrow is casual friday.

Tomorrow im off to Eindhoven

Tomorrow I have to wake up at 5.00 to travel to the south of the Netherlands to attend a meeting in Eindhoven. The trip will take to hours. Except from waking up so early i'm looking forward to meeting the Eindhoven development team.

On another note. Still no luggage but fortunately my insurance pays for some of the necessities I need to buy in order to be presentable at work.

The taxoffice called, in order to get a burgerservice number (which I in turn need for getting a pay check) I have to meet with some official and apply. The Amsterdam office couldn't meet with me for a forthnight so they asked me to go somewhere else in the Netherlands and apply there instead. I think not.

And tomorrow it's casual dresscode!

First day as an expat

I've arrived in Amsterdam and tomorrow I'm of to Schipol for my first day as a Technical Consultant.

The trip was a mess. Somehow the competent crew at Kastrup Airport failed to load my luggage on to the connecting flight to Amsterdam. So arriving half an hour late I was finding myself in line to report my missing luggage with the other passengers from Stockholm. I don't know if it was the ground personel's or SAS's fault but it makes you think about whether or not choosing KLM would have provided a more comfortable journey.

Therefore the first thing I did when I came here was to go and buy soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush.