Dude?! Where’s My Train!?

Learned two valuable travel lessons this weekend. I had a petsitting job in Den Haag and on my way there my train stopped part way and wasn’t going any further, leaving me with no idea how the heck to get to my destination. Lesson learned: ALWAYS plan an alternate route when using public transit!! On the way back I learned that if your train isn’t due for another 25 minutes in November, when wearing a t-shirt, summer jacket and no socks. Wait inside!!!

I passed my Dutch course. Didn’t just pass, did very well. Now I am free as a bird and don’t ever have to go back to those sily classes again. I can’t say I didn’t get anything out of it, because I did… but not enough. So I’ll try to learn as I go from here on… unless I hear about some really cool course that someone has already done and can assure me is worth the effort.

One weird thing has been happening to me a lot lately. Whenever I speak to Dutch people in Dutch, say on the phone or something, the first thing I’ll ask is if they speak English. Simply because things are easier for me to explain in English. Lately though, most have been responding “Yes, but you speak Dutch as well!” (only in Dutch of course) and just have no interest in speaking English to me. This is great for helping me learn more Dutch but kind of makes me go “GAH!!” at the same time.

For example, the week before last Xander was off sick and an absolutely HUGE bill came in the mail. (The Eneco end of the year energy bill, for those of you who live in NL and might feel our pain haha) When Xander opened it, he became more pale than he already was and I thought he was about to have a cardiac arrest. He didn’t want to deal with it at all while he wasn’t feeling well, but I could feel the tension radiating from across the room. The entire time I’ve been here I’ve just let him deal with the bills, and there have been times where a surprise bill shows up that we weren’t counting on and he gets all wound up over how to pay it. A few times I’ve mentioned calling up to the place and asking if there could be some kind of arrangements made, but I was told “That’s now how it’s done here!” So I just would back off and go “alrighty then!”.

This time, though, I felt so bad for him and the stress he was feeling while he was sick. I said the hell with it and got the phone and called the number on the bill. I wanted to see if there was some way to make arrangements to ease the pain of this “Big Bill” (If you live in NL you’ll know why I said it like that, for those that don’t.. there is this ad on TV here all the time about getting Big Bills and Small Bills in the mail. With people carring midgets out of their mailbox and stuff.. like Bill, as in people. Hard to explain, guess you gotta be there). Anyhow, when I phoned up and got a guy on the phone, I asked if he spoke english and he gave me the “yeah but you speak Dutch anyway” answer. I ended up having to have the conversation entirely in Dutch and managed to figure out that the bill could be split into 3 monthly payments. Also, that it wasn’t quite as much as we thought, as our latest Eneco payment hadn’t been subtracted from it.

When I got off the phone I was so chuffed because the whole thing went off without a hitch. I phoned up and spoke to someone about our bills, made arrangements and sorted it all out IN DUTCH!! A small feat some may think, but it was huge for me. It wasn’t that idiot dutch that usually stumbles it’s way out of my mouth, I actually spoke to this guy and understood him when he spoke to me. It was great.. and it’s times like that that make me want to learn more.

I’m still in my quilting class, which I am really enjoying sooooo much. This is an example of the kind of quilt we will be making, and these are the fabrics I am using. Suitable for this time of year I think! :)

You can see some of the blocks I have already completed here:
(Light blue fabric isn’t part of it, it’s just a cloth I kepe it all rolled up in to keep it clean)

Star 1
Star 2
Squares
Squares 2

Eventually they will all go together (with 5 others) to make a quilt. At the moment I am working on the basket pattern that is in the middle bottom square of the example photo.

I never realized how much work went into quilts until I started doing this.. everything has to be measured so precisely and there is so much more that goes into it. The stitching is all done by hand and takes so much longer than I thought. I enjoy doing it though, it’s really relaxing.

I’ve started knitting as well. My mother sent me this really cool Bernat Boa yarn and some needles for me to start trying to knit. She had the stitches started for me but once I tried to knit I screwed it up, got frustrated and ripped it all apart. Then I had to look up how to cast on online and how to start the whole thing. I’m going to make this scarf only in black. At the moment it’s about the size of 3 facecloths together. I’m taking my time with it though as my quilting is my main project at the moment.

Xander’s birthday was on Nov 1st, he got geeky stuff, geeky stuff, some more geeky stuff and about 20 minutes of horribly altered Happy Birthday songs from me after midnight. You know how they go…. you look like a monkey and you act like one too! etc He’s 31 now, which means in a half a year I’ll be 31… god help me!! Last night as we were waiting for the train he was looking at the top of my head and said “I see a… ” He was cut off and threatened with death, so I never did hear what it was he saw, even though I know.

I’ve been seeing a fair bit more of my new Rotterdam gal friends. One of them more than the others as she is doing the quilting class with me as well. It’s so great to have girlfriends here in the city. This is the first time I’ve had that since I lived here and it makes the most tremendous difference in NL life. Sadly, I don’t think any of them are here permanently but it’s great to have them here now!

We are thinking of doing a one day scrapbooking class sometime this month. They want to try to get enough people together to have a class just in English but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to swing that. I think it would be too hard for me to translate for them in a Dutch class as well as there would be a tempo to keep up. It’s different if we go to a restaurnt or something, then I can translate the menu or help them order… or if we are in a shop and they need help with something. Translating on the fly during a class like that would be too hard though. Hopefully we’ll be able to sort something out, or find a class where the lady doesn’t mind explaining things in English as well.

Last week I got a box from home, the one the knitting was in. She was sending me a few items thatwere left from my nana’s house. When Nana died, she left some things to me that I could take rightaway (like her jewelry), other things had to be left in the house (like her diningroom furniture etc) for as long as Pearly was still alive. After Pearly died mom went through the things from the house and sent me some items she thought I would want. I don’t know what the postal guys did with the box (game of footie anyone?!) but when the box got here, all but 1 item were broken. I was heartbroken… some of the first things I’ve seen from my nana and pearly in years and they were broken. Xander is going to try to fix them for me, which I hope he can.. but it was still sad. We definately learned our lesson though, anything else breakable that will come from home will be coming with my mother when she and dad come here in the spring.