De eerste week

 It is Monday which means we have survived our first week in the Netherlands. If we had not it would have been a pretty clear endorsement of natural selection for it is really easy for an American to settle into Dutch society. It is a super cooshie landing. The Dutch are very friendly and accommodating and absolutely everyone speaks English (which has not encouraged me to test all the dutch I have leaned. More about that later.)
 Because we took a night flight we switched over to the time zone easily. We are still encountering a bit of sleep trouble due to the two bed room situation but I will tackle that in a later post. For now everyone is getting some sleep but probably not as much as we need. The 15 hours of daylight is not helping. We have darkened the boys' room with curtains but we keep forgetting to go to bed at the right time because it always seems too early. Hopefully we will get used to it soon.
  Anyway our first week was all about settling in. We reached the apartment at about 2 on Monday. Jasper, the landlord's brother showed us around and gave us the keys. He had left us some beautiful flowers and some stroopwafels as a welcome gift (made me feel bad for not doing anything of the sort for our renters. Oh well.).
   The apartment is wonderful. It has high ceilings, enormous windows, and an elegant wooden spiral staircase. The kitchen is a galley but the one side has a picture window which looks out onto the yard, making it feel larger than it is. There is one bathroom on the ground floor with a warm bath and luke-warm shower (I've only been taking baths). There is a shed in the yard that contains two bicycles and a washer dryer set. Up stairs are two size-able bedrooms. One overlooks the garden and the other has a great view of the canal across the street. We have really lucked out on the location of this place. Besides the canal, we are close to several parks, the downtown historic district, the shopping district, the train station, and the visitors center. Kurt's workplace is about a 10 minute bike ride but there are bike lanes the whole way. Actually there are bike lanes just about everywhere. It is awesome.

   Our first outing was to the nearby grocery store. We had a great time trying to decode the ingredients of various products with our limited Dutch. It was pretty exciting to see all the new and different foods and really to have no idea what to expect. It felt very adventurous. Leif and Klaus were a bit less impressed. We ended up with some toddler puffs that were covered in paprika.
   On Tuesday we toured Kurt's new lab/office and did some more paperwork at the HR office. As we finished up the HR employee informed us that she had made an appointment for us at the immigration office in Den Hage on Wednesday at 1:30. I wanted to say "1:30?!?!? Are you nuts? That is nap time." but what I said was "Dankuwel." So Wednesday we took our first European train ride with the boys. As expected they both loved it. All the trains going to Den Hage were easily accessible for a stroller.  The trains on the way home were not leading to some precarious double stroller high jinks. Everyone is ok but it made me wonder about disability accessibility laws in Europe.
   Kurt started work on Thursday and so the boys and I spent the morning scoping out various parks and playgrounds. There are a few good ones very close by. Now we just need some friends to share them with.
  On Thursday night we took a walk after dinner to the old city citadel. It has a great 360 degree view of the city and it is a pretty easy climb. While we were at the top we were pulled aside by a docent and camera man with the other tourists that were there at that time of the evening. The docent explained that they are putting together a grant proposal to get a giant map of the city installed in the citadel. They wanted a few pictures to put in the proposal. So Klaus and I will be featured listening to the docent with Kurt and Leif in the background looking out at the city. I'm not sure if the photo will be published anywhere else but I will let you know if we find a copy.
  So I must confess I have been too cowardly to use much Dutch this week. I really need to work on my vocab. I was able to respond when a woman on the train asked in dutch how old Klaus was. But that has been the extent of my success. I'm giving myself a pass until I get a few good nights of sleep.