Finally settled....well kinda

Suppose it is time for another quick update.

I finally have a bank account set up with and active debit card and have some money in it.  Tomorrow it will have more money as it is payday :-)  i still need to go pick up my actual resident's permit, so hopefully i will have that within a week or two.  I also still want to go get a cell phone with a data plan.

i think i've been cooking a lot more for myself in the last month than i did in probably the previous 6 months.  Most of the dinners are some kind of pasta in a pesto sauce with various kinds of peppers.  Every now and then there's chicken in it as well.  I also made some mashed potatoes and breaded some chicken tenders (and then also bought some chicken schnitzel to eat w/ the rest of the mashed potatoes as i made too much).  Adding some cayenne pepper to the breading was definitely a nice touch i though :-)

Last Thursday i had made my way to play volleyball in Haarlem with a club.  It was quite fun especially since i missed playing a little bit.  The fact that it got me out of the apartment was also nice.  The training/practice wasn't too bad.  I had been worried that i wouldn't be at the skill level everyone else was at, but i think i was at least close enough (as long as i wasn't trying to spike, haha).  It was also interesting though as the coach was giving directions in Dutch, so i really wasn't sure what he was saying.  Depending on what it looked like the drill was i would just observe or ask either the coach or one of the other players and they would tell me in English.  Afterwards everyone went to the bar that was next to the gym, so that was nice as then got to talk more with the people.  I'm going to be going to the training/practice tonight as well and hoping to become friends with some of them so i'll have people to hang out with.

Hmm...what else....I'm in the process of making my first travel trip to meet up with my cousin who is in Spain for a month.  Right now the plan is to meet in Geneva, Switzerland on June 14th and be tourists there for a couple days, and then to go back to Spain since she flies back to the US on the 17th.  I'm not going to fly back to the Netherlands until the 18th though so i can see a little bit of Spain...mainly Barcelona and go to a beach :-)  part of me wants to stay until the 19th as the flights are cheaper coming back to the Netherlands, but dont really want to take another day off work and then also the cost of staying another night will cancel the cheapness of the flight.

I think that is about all i can think of right now.  Sorry my stories aren't all that exciting.  Maybe they'll get a bit more exciting when i find some people to hang out and do a little bit of traveling with.  Learning some Dutch could also help....haha.  Anyways, ciao ciao

Netherlands Weekend 2

So finally decided i would write a bit of an update.

Last weekend I had gone to Haarlem on both Saturday and Sunday to hang out with some coworkers.  On Saturday we went and saw Avengers, which i thought was a pretty good movie.  Was glad that it was in English and had Dutch subtitles, although part of me wishes i knew what was said during a scene where some people were talking Russian.  It didn't seem to be all that important of a scene though, so it didn't bother me too much. One interesting thing about the movies is that when you buy movie tickets you actually choose which seats you want.  I kind of like that you get to select where you sit as then if you're going with a group you can make sure you all are able to sit together (and if you get the tickets early enough you can have good seats as well).

my prizes from the "Casino"

Sunday was fun as well.  Met one co-worker to do some shopping to find some orange accessories for Queen's Day.  Ended up getting a wrist band and then some Hawaiian leis.  Then we went to the little fair that was going on and played the coin push game in the "Casino" area.  I won enough tokens to get a couple of prizes....although what i spent to get them verse their actual cost is definitely not the same.  Then again it was a couple hours of entertainment, so it may be equivalent with that factored in.  Dinner was then fun as well.  Had gone to a place where each person gets a card at the beginning and then whatever station you go to, you give them the card and they charge it for whatever you order.  The card does only allow you to get 15 euros of beer/wine though.  The place works out quite well though for going out to eat with a large group as then you don't have to worry about who ordered what as you just take your card to the cashier when you leave.  After dinner we headed out for some drinks to celebrate Queen's Night.

Monday i woke up rather early for a day i had off work so i could make it to Amsterdam to meet another coworker for Queen's Day.  I wanted to leave early so i could avoid the crowds of people heading there for the festivities.  I think i heard there was somewhere between 1.5 to 2 million people in Amsterdam on Sunday.  I don't think i had ever seen so much orange before, haha.  Definitely stayed out longer than i should have, but i figured i would try to celebrate the national holiday like a native, haha.  Made for a long day on tuesday though.

Some other news....

• i have a prepay phone right now just so i can have a phone to get hold of coworkers and all here if i need to.  i will be getting a phone plan once i get an actual bank account set up (it's been taking forever to get one and is starting to get rather annoying that i don't have one yet)
• tomorrow there are about a dozen people from my work that will be playing soccer after work.  i'm quite excited about this.  the games are usually put together once a month (and when it's nice weather sometimes people head to a nearby beach to play sand volleyball)
• was going to head to Brussels this weekend, but those plans have been postponed for now.  Not sure what my weekend plans will be now.

And that's all for now.  Ciao Ciao