30th birthday! (Part 2)-French Police Stations and broken elevators.

Saturday was my birthday and I woke up to a beautifully sunny day in France. I started the day off right by opening my present from Meagan! It was a wonderful box full of 30's! Pictures, memories, balloons, candles, cards, and oreos. After I fully reviled in my presents, we headed out for the day to explore the sites of Paris, starting our day off right at a cafe'. We sipped hot chocolate and ate croissants and crepes while looking at the Pantheon in front of us. But, back to the croissants. They were A-Mazing! These were not your pillsbury-dough-pop-the-top-and-roll-out croissants. No, they were indescribable! After we finished. we headed for the Pantheon, which was beautiful and picturesque. From there, we could look one direction and see the Eiffel Tower and look another and see Notre Dame. The Eiffel Tower looked pretty far away so we opted to walk to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame was beautiful and awe-inspiring. It is a huge cathedral that is still in use today.  After we explored that, we bought a painting on the street as a memento of our time spent in Paris. Then we decided to head back to check on our car and grab our coats out of it before heading to the Eiffel Tower(by the metro, not by foot!).

When we approached the place where Dan parked our car, we realized that the whole line of cars that was there the night before was gone, including our car!! This could be a big problem. So we head back to the hotel and the manager called the police for us to see if it had been towed but they claimed they did not have it. The manager gave us the address for the police station to go make a report for our apparently stolen car. When we arrived at the station, no one spoke English. I felt like it was a scene from a movie. The woman helping us could say a few words but had a difficult time understanding what we were saying. We were there for about 45 minutes before they were finally able to locate our car in the French impound lot. Our car had indeed been towed.

Now to most, this might seem like a bad thing, but if you were originally thinking your car was stolen and you were going to have to buy a 38,000euro car that you don't even get to keep, then a 136euro fee for getting your car out of the French impound was a small price to pay. By the grace of God, we found the impound lot after taking the Metro(subway), getting lost, taking the Metro again and finding a police officer who directed us to the 4th story underground of a shopping center, where we found our car. It was a crazy time.

By this time, we were tired. Our feet were tired. But dangit, it was my 30th birthday, we were in Paris, and I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower! So we hopped back on the Metro and headed to the Eiffel Tower.

After we came out of the metro station, I was frantically looking around for the Eiffel Tower but couldn't see it. Finally we came around a building and I looked up. . .and there it was in all its glory. It was everything I ever imagined and then some. It was beautiful and majestic and took my breath away. We took pictures and marveled at it. We decided we were going to come back the next day (because I wanted to see it in the daytime as well) and we would go up it then. If we went that night, we would miss our train home and have to walk 4km. I could barely walk the 200 yards to the train station so we were not missing that train.

When we got back near our hotel, we decided to eat dinner at another cafe. We sat outside under an awning, with heat lamps and enjoyed some French cheese and some of the best wine I have ever tasted. My birthday was complete! I was 30 and in an amazing city, sipping wine with my husband, watching the Parisians pass us by.

The next day we headed back to the Eiffel Tour and rode the elevator up to the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor was closed due to congestion so we couldn't go all the way to the top but the view from the 2nd floor was amazing! It was very surreal. We were trying to decide if we should take the stairs down (yes and crazy people take them up as well) but opted for the elevator because our feet were still recovering from the day before. As soon as we got to the bottom, the elevator went a little lower than it was supposed to, not aligning itself with the door. All of a sudden these loud sirens start going off, not exactly the sounds you want to hear when you're stuck in a world famous monument. The elevator went up a few inches, then back down a few inches. The lady operating the elevator told us it would be 2 minutes. They would take the elevator up a few feet and then back down but it would never align itself to where it was supposed to go. Finally, it took us all the way back up, stopped half-way down, at which point I started getting pretty nervous because who wants to be stuck several hundred feet in the air? But we started moving downwards again and finally they gave up after about 20 minutes of this and pried the doors open and let us all out. It was an experience. Next time, I think we'll take the stairs down.

Then we had lunch at one more cafe' and then headed out of town. We stopped in Brugge, Belgium for the night and spent the next morning wandering around this cute city and eating Belgian waffles and buying Belgian chocolate. It was fantastic.

Overall, I have to say this was the best birthday ever.  Thank you to a wonderful husband who knows how to surprise me and makes sacrifices so that he can treat me to incredible experiences!

30th Birthday! (Part 1)

The day before my 30th birthday, Dan told me that he had to give me part of my present early because it was "time dependent". He woke me up early on Friday and handed me a book. As I examined the book more closely, I realized it was a mapbook of Paris! My brain slowly put two and two together and I realized that we were heading to Paris! He had rented a car, canceled my jobs for the day and arranged everything! He had even sent out an email to all of our friends, where he had planned a party for the my actual birthday. After which he sent out the real email, leaving me off the list, explaining the trick and asking them all to go along with it all last week.

So we got our car and headed for France! We drove through Belgium and as we entered France, we ran into our first snafu of the trip. We came to a dead stop in traffic on the highway. When I consulted the GPS, I saw that there was an accident 26 km up the road. Surely that cannot be affecting us here, I thought. Well, 3 hours later, I thought wrong.  We sat in traffic for nearly 3 hours to go 26 km!!!! Instead of getting into France about 730, we rolled in closer to 11pm!

But all was forgotten when we drove into the city. Even at 11pm, the city was alive. Cafe's were full of people drinking coffee and beer . The traffic was unbelievable. The French apparently have not heard of a fancy thing called "lanes". There were 3 "lanes" of traffic but no actual lanes. People were weaving in and out, motorcycles driving like a bunch of crazies, and our GPS constantly telling us to "make a half-right". What does that even mean?!!

We finally arrived at our hotel, only to find no parking and no place to even drop off our bags. Dan dropped me off to ask the hotel where the best place to park was and in the meantime, found a parking spot on the street, a little ways from our hotel. He brought in all of our luggage and carried it up 4 flights of stairs, because the elevator was broken.

We got into our room, which was amazing. I opened the window and felt like I was in the movie. The window had no screen on it so I was able to lean my body out and take in a deep breath of French air! Then we were so exhausted that we quickly fell into bed and slept.

Legal!

Yea! Today I became a legal resident of the Netherlands and I have the card to prove it!

Now, nevermind that in my picture I look like I'm trying to keep from laughing, I probably was. I was trying my hardest to not make my picture look like a terrorist, like Dan's. They tell you that you can smile but you can't show teeth. It's surprisingly hard to do that and not look like a freak. So, looking only half-freakish, I'm official! Now in true Dutch fashion, I had an incident at the Immigration department. After being so proud of myself for riding the train by myself to the city where the IND(immigration) is, I got my number and waited in line. When it was my turn they handed me my permit and the woman told me that it was valid until May 1, 2011 and then we would have get it renewed. That's right, as in less than 2 months from now. It's because I'm here under Dan's permit, which expires May 1 so whatever. But being proactive, I decided to ask her how we apply for renewal. Our conversation went something like this;

IND lady- " Yes, your permit expires on May 1, 2011. You will need to apply for an extension 2 months prior to it's expiration."

Me- " Sooo...I need to apply now because it's less than 2 months until May 1"

IND lady- counts on fingers, March 1st- April 1st, April 1st- May 1st "ah yes, I guess it is. So yes you need to apply for renewal now."

Me- " Ok, great, well how do I do that?"

IND Lady- "You call this office and tell them you need the paperwork for an extension and they will send it to you. "

Me- "Well since I'm already here, can I just get the forms to fill out. "

IND lady- "No, you have to call. "

Me- looking bewildered "So you're saying that I have to call THIS office even though I'm already here, and then they will mail something to me? I can't get the forms today?"

IND lady- kind of shrugs shoulders "Yes, you have to call. Well I guess you could talk to my colleagues at information. Go back out to the main entrance, get another number and then come back in (same room mind you) and wait for them to call your number. "

Me-sigh with a big smile "Ok, thank you very much for the permit".

So I go back out to the main lobby, get another little number from the lady at the front desk who I know finds it as ridiculous as I do because she gives me a little chuckle when I tell her I need another number to talk to information.

After waiting about 20 minutes and reading a chapter in Pioneer Woman's new book, my number is called. I explain to the woman what I need and she looks up my information. 


2nd IND lady- "Oh, I see your husband is a researcher? "


Me-"Yep"


2nd IND Lady- "Hmm, well we don't have the kind of forms he needs here".


Me-blank stare, cricket chirping "Soo...who does have the forms if the IND doesn't??"


2nd IND Lady "Hmm, well I would say probably his work. Yeah, have him check with his HR dept.  But you need to do that soon since it's less than 2 months until yours expires. "


Me-silently in my head-"no duh"


Me-outloud "Thank you very much!" with my biggest American smile I could muster.


And then I walked out of there proudly with my 2 month valid residency permit and walked down to the wrong platform of the train. But don't worry I figured it out before I missed my train and safely made it back to Leiden. 


Oh and I got a new haircut!

Turning 30

In honor of my impending 30th birthday, I found this little list of things that women should stop doing by the time they turn 30. Most of them are funny and some true.I'm going to try and post some gems about turning 30 this week leading up to my birthday. Maybe it will help me to face reality. :)

 things every women should stop doing once she turns 30.

1. Buying clothes from the junior section.
2. Forgetting her parents’ birthdays.
3. Filling her bed with stuffed animals (really, even one is too many).
4. Carrying a torch for anyone she hasn’t seen in the last five years.
5. Rebelling against her parents for the sake of rebelling against her parents.
6. Declaring an entire gender “all jerks.”
7. Holding a grudge against anyone who wronged her in high school.
8. Going to bed without washing and moisturizing her face.
9. Being “that person” who had a bit too much to drink at the office party.
10. Crushing on Justin Bieber.
11. Thinking she’s got it all figured out
12. Engaging in sibling rivalry.
13. Trying to get by on her looks.
14. Living paycheck to paycheck.
15. Expecting a man/knight in shining armor to swoop in and save her.
16. Aimlessly jumping from job to job.
17. Using MySpace to pick up guys.
18. Expecting a man to do all the wooing.
19. Wishing she had someone else’s life.
20. Expecting everyone to drop everything because it’s her birthday ...(uh i don't really see the problem with this one:) )
21. ... or because her “boyfriend” of two weeks dumped her.
22. Measuring her self-worth by a number on the scale.
23. Being cheap.
24. Quitting a job without having a new one lined up first (especially in this economy!)
25. Romanticizing her 20s.

Random Monday facts

1. It's still hard getting adjusted to the banking system here. You give your account number out to anyone and everyone. If someone owes you money, they just transfer it into your account (because you give them your #). They do not use checks.

2. I have seen the sun the last few days. For this time of year, that is apparently a miracle.

3. I am attempting to master riding my bike without hands. Pray for me.

4. I rode my bike and talked on my cell phone for the first time the other day.

5. We only have 120 minutes right now as a part of our prepaid cell phone. I have used 75 of those in a little over a month. That's pretty amazing for those who knew how much I liked to talk on the phone.

6. I turn 30 on Saturday. Eeek.

7. Dan and I practiced our Dutch at the shops this weekend. Well, more so Dan. It was . . .interesting:) He tends to lean towards a Russian accent whenever he tries to speak Dutch so that always garners weird looks. That and his fedora.

8. Just kidding about the fedora but let's not give him any ideas.

9. One and a half more month until tulip time! Apparently they have a big parade here and all the floats are made of tulips!

Each float has up to 1.5 million flowers on it. It's going to be amazing.

10. I need to figure out a way to get in an airplane to be able to fly over the tulip fields because this is an example of what I might see.

They stretch for miles and miles. I cannot wait to go visit it and frolic among the tulips!:)

This is all for a Monday.

International

Life here is very international. Now, that may seem obvious to you but I think we are in a unique place. Typically if you  move to a foreign country, most people probably don't speak English well and the majority of people you are surrounded by are natives of that country. Because the town we live in is a university town, there are many different types of cultures and people represented. 

We also attend an International church. It's the only English speaking service in our area, minus the Catholic mass. It's a very diverse group as well. We have people represented from nearly every continent. 

I love being surrounded by all these different cultures and people with completly different life experiences than me. For example, one Sunday at church we had a guest speaker who was from Ireland and had been an assassin for their rebel group before becoming a Christian! And later that night we went to another a worship night where the speaker was from Egypt (this was in the middle of the Egyptian protests).

Within our own lifegroup we have British families, Dutch families, American families, and South African families. It truly is a melting pot of diversity. It's exciting to hear about their lives and to explain ours. It's funny (and sometimes disheartening) to hear what the rest of the world thinks about the US or to acknowledge that I don't know much about the rest of the world. 


But sometimes it's nice to just hang out with an American. We had a friend over for dinner last night who is from Ohio. It was nice and didn't take a lot of work. We could talk freely without translation problems. We could reference cultural things without having to explain them. We knew about certain places or time frames in American history. It was refreshing to not have to work extra hard. 


I wouldn't trade our friendships and experiences for anything! I have learned more about the world in the past 6 months (Today is our 6 month anniversary of living in the Netherlands!!) than I have in my entire life. I am loving living abroad. Sometimes it's just nice to have a small piece of home.

Weather

The Dutch love their weather radar. And honestly, it is a necessity when living in the Netherlands. This picture is a snapshot of the most commonly used weather site in the Netherlands. Every Dutch person checks this site prior to going outside.  When leaving work, people will check the radar and then there will be a mass exodus when they see they only have a small window of opportunity before the rain hits again. On a typical day, the entire country is covered in clouds and sometimes you can't even see the end of the rain. Those are the depressing days.

Dan and I have gotten into the habit of checking the radar as well.  Sometimes I jump for joy when I see a radar like the one pictured above! No clouds=no rain!! Other days I throw my computer down in disgust and curl up under the covers where I wish to remain until the rain stops. But most of the time, we have no other choice but to put our rain gear on and hope that the radar is wrong(it usually isn't). Such was the case this weekend.

On Sunday, as we were getting ready for church, I knew it was going to be bad. The rain was coming down pretty hard and I could see that it was windy out there. Not, blow the cat off the roof windy, but windier than usual. So we put on our rain gear (rain paints, waterproof coat and gloves) and head out. I had to carry my umbrella because I don't have a waterproof hood. We took off biking to church and again I had one of those moments where I was ready to pick my bike up and put it in the canal and fly home. I was staying mostly dry, thanks to the rain gear and my umbrella, but the wind was blowing so hard that i was having a difficult time keeping my umbrella upright. I was biking with one hand, holding down the umbrella with the other, and trying to avoid as much rain as possible. After about 20 minutes, we finally arrived at church, stripped off our rain gear and headed into the service mostly dry but dreading the ride home. I spent a lot of that service praying for the rain to stop.

Unfortunately, in the Netherlands, all you can do is check the radar and hope for the  best. Oh, and invest in one of these umbrellas made specifically for Netherlands wind/rain.