Glimlachen is verboden

  I meant this to be a weekly blog but, as any of you with young children know, I am worthless by the time I get the kids to sleep. I can't do much of anything but sink into the futon and watch the latest BBC mystery series that I've found on Netflix. With tea and biscuits of course.
  Anywho I would like to tell you about the long, frustrating, fascinating visa process. This bit of bureaucracy is like none I have ever encountered before. And I am sure I do not even know the whole process as Kurt and the Universiteit Leiden took care of a great deal of it. Since we are going to be staying for more that 90 days we can't just go on a passport visa; we need one that is more long term and thus the process is a bit longer.
  Back in September when we figured out that we would be undertaking this adventure I ordered several books off Amazon about emigrating to the Netherlands (I am always trying to hide my ignorance with information- it works sometimes). "Living and Working in Holland, Belgium, & Luxembourg: A survival Handbook" by Beverly Laflamme turned out to be a handy resource. It let us in on a little quirky requirement for getting a Visa to the Netherlands- the apostille. An apostille is supposed to be a certificate that certifies important documents like birth certificates and marriage licences. In reality it seemed to me to be little more than a regular piece of copy paper with a sticker on it. And the speed with which the documents were returned to me with the apostille made me skeptical that any real research was done to certify my documents. I suppose I should be grateful that the process was so easy and quick. All I had to do was send the documents to the right state office with a SASE and a check. But I guess I just wanted more ceremony for my $10 per document (did I mention I am cheap?).
  I mentioned earlier that we can not use just our passports to stay in the Netherlands for this length of time. But we still have to have passports. Kurt and I already had ours and they will not expire until long after we are home so we were set. Leif and Klaus however did not. We learned early on from friends (thanks Richard and Carrie!) that getting passport photos for infants can be a tricky business. At the time that I was endeavoring to get this all done, Klaus was only 4 months old and could barely hold his head up nevermind sitting. Since no external support can be visible in a passport photo (hand, pillow, vise, etc.) it is best to take an infant passport photo with the baby lying down and the camera positioned over them. There are not many places in Gettysburg to get passport photos. I only know of the post office and AAA. But neither of them will bother with infant photos. So we decided to take them ourselves. Leif was pretty easy. I am always coaching him to smile in pictures so I think he was relieved that I encouraged him to keep a neutral face for this one. For Klaus' photo I took him into the basement so that I could control the lighting a bit better. I laid him on a blanket under one of the can lights and unscrewed all the other lights so that they would not cast shadows on his face. I then had to hover over him to get a straight on shot being careful not to catch my own shadow in the picture. After about 20 photos (yay digital cameras!) I got one that would work. Fearing that I would not be able to get the biometrics just right I sent the digital files away to paspic.com. They made sure everything met the U.S. passport photo requirements and sent me a print out of 3 photos for each boy for $5/each. Not a bad deal (did I mention I am cheap?)
  Meanwhile Kurt was busy trading emails about visas with Yvonne Kerkhof, the extremely polite and helpful secretary of the biophysics department in Leiden. To our surprise (and seemingly to hers) it was going to cost around $3000 for visas for our family of four. While this was not prohibitively expensive it is an expense that we did not know about and it gave us a little pause. Since I am currently home with the kids, we are operating on a single income with a little sprinkling of money from my art. In short- three grand is a lot of money for us right now. Kurt relayed as much to Yvonne and she passed it on to Professor Van Noort. He and Kurt planned to meet in February at the annual Biophysical Society Conference and he suggested that they could discuss it then. So we waited in limbo until February rolled around. At the conference, Professor Van Noort graciously offered to pay some of the visa fees for us out of his own budget. I was not there but I can just imagine Kurt's grovelling and copious 'thank yous'. With this generous offer our plans were back on track! (On a sidenote- As we gathered all the documentation that we needed the Netherlands just happened to cut the cost of a visa by about two thirds. Thus Kurt's funds from Gettysburg College now cover all of our visa costs and Professor Van Noort is released from his offer.)
  From there the Universiteit Leiden initiated the visa process. Neither Kurt nor I really know what this all entailed but we dutifully scanned and sent all the documents that they requested. Luckily I had already acquired the apostilles so we were able to get everything to them almost as soon as they asked for it.
  About a month later they asked which Dutch Embassy we wanted to pick up the visas from. Since Gettysburg is only 1.5 hours from D.C. we, of course, requested that convenient option. But we couldn't just pick up the visas- we had to make an appointment during the embassy's office hours M-F 9:30-12:30 to get them. Actually since there are four of us we had to make two appointments. We were able to schedule the appointments online without much difficulty (apparently people are not clamoring to get to the Netherlands at this time of year).
  No indication was given to us about what happens at this appointment but we were told to bring all our documentation plus a passport like photo to meets these qualifications: Photograph Guidelines. Feeling confident after my success with Leif and Klaus' passport photos I was ready to take on this challenge. But after reading several more websites about how particularly difficult these pictures are to get right, Kurt and I were feeling less confident ( I was particularly afraid of the rule that there can be no flash reflections on the face- my skin can often blind the unsuspecting onlooker if they pass at the wrong angle between me and the sun.). The consulate recommended a place in D.C. called Embassy Camera that is adept at their specific requirements. So we debated- should we take our own and hope that they will work and that we will only have to make one trip to D.C. or should we take two trips to D.C. and feel confident when we go to our visa appointments? We decided on the later even though the photos cost $20 each (did I mention that we are cheap?) Our neutral expression photos turned out great as you can see posted above. Cute, right? And it was pretty fun to take two trips to D.C. in one week. Although the traffic is abysmal at any time on Connecticut ave.
  April 25th (the day of our appointments) arrived. We woke up early, dressed in our best embassy visiting clothes, snapped the kids into their car seats and took off. The Dutch Embassy is actually located in a quiet neighborhood off Connecticut ave. It is a modest structure with a pleasant tulip-filled courtyard. Still not knowing what to expect, we were buzzed in and proceeded to the consular desk. For the next 40 minutes the boys and I played on the floor while Kurt passed documents back and forth with the woman behind the desk. Then she asked when we wanted to pick them up. As same day service is not available, Kurt agreed to pick them up on the upcoming Tuesday. "Ok" she said, "Goodbye." And that was it. No interview. No meeting with officials. We stood there wondering what we had made an appointment for. Yay bureaucracy! Again, "Why are you complaining?" you might ask. I dunno. Just expectations I guess.

Kurt and the boys in the Dutch embassy's courtyard tulip chairs

Waarom?

We are going to the Netherlands! We are going to the Netherlands??!

You might be wondering why we are going to the Netherlands. Well here is some insight into the posh world of a college professor: Before tenure, professors get a one semester paid sabbatical to do research or what have you. After tenure you receive this same sabbatical every 7 years or so. You can use it pretty much any way you want but it is a good idea to actually do research.

 Anywho this 6 months will be Kurt's pre-tenure sabbatical. He studies DNA folding and the physics of how it packs into our cells (apparently this is very important). When we started talking about this upcoming sabbatical, Kurt explained to me that he wanted to use it to expand his research methods and pool of collaborators. He asked me if it would be ok if he looked for collaborators in a different country seeing as the logistics might be a bit tricky with two young children and all. I, of course, said 'yes!'- I have always wanted to live abroad but, as you may remember from my first post, I am really a coward when it comes to interacting with the wider world. Neither Kurt nor I studied abroad in college. How could we pass up this opportunity to be glamorous expats? We couldn't and thus Kurt's search began.

 I was hoping he would find someone to work with in the UK. I am a huge Anglophile (plus I would not have to learn a different language and thus avoid confronting my monolingual state). Alas there was really no one he was interested in working with. He found groups in the Netherlands and Singapore that worked in his particular field. The coward in me sputtered "Netherlands, Netherlands!" when he reported back. Singapore seemed too foreign a prospect for this interested but reluctant world traveler. I figure that we should start with a western country to warm my skills at living abroad before we jump into a place where I could really get in trouble for my ignorance.

  Kurt cold-emailed Professor Jon Van Noort at Leiden University in Leiden, Netherlands.  He had been to Leiden in 2005 for a conference and got to see some of the university. To our delight Professor Van Noort responded with enthusiasm and agreed to let Kurt work in his lab and study his technique. He even suggested that we stay 6 months rather than just a semester to give time for Kurt to get some real work done. Kurt and Professor Van Noort met up at the last Biophysical Society meeting in February to work out the particulars. Kurt is going to help him with some ion pulling experiments (for more information on this- talk to Kurt. My grasp of physics is pretty limp). Anywho I am sure it will be very exciting for him.

  So that is why we are going to the Netherlands (!)

  When my husband and I took a backpack tour of Europe in 2009 we both kept hand-written journals detailing our time there. It was an enjoyable way to pass the time on the train as we traveled to our various destinations. Something about it felt very 'old world'. Maybe I just watch too many period dramas. But I am really glad to have done it. It was a trip that I will never forget but I'm sure the specifics will blur as the years go on and my life fills up with other preoccupations.

  We are about to embark on our next European adventure. This one will be considerably longer (by about five months and two weeks) and will feature all the trials and tribulations of life and travel with two very young children. Leif will be 3 years and Klaus 10 months when we take off for Leiden, Holland on June 2nd.  

This trip will be very different but I'm sure it is also going to be amazing. Instead of my little paper journal, this time, I  plan to keep up this blog. Both for my own memories but also to keep friends and family abreast of our daily life. I am also viewing it as a guide for others who may find themselves on a similar adventure.  Perhaps you will be able to learn from my almost certain mistakes.

I feel that I should let you know that while I have been out of the United States several times I am in no way a wise and worldly traveler. I am actually a very nervous traveler. I am very afraid of making mistakes and pegging myself as an obvious foreigner. I am also horribly afraid of my own ignorance and insecure in my knowledge of the greater world. These days it seems that everyone outside of the U.S. knows multiple languages and just about everything about the U.S.- our politics, our history, our culture. There were so many times on our last trip to Europe where I felt like an impostor posing as an educated person; It seemed like everyone could speak English with very little effort (Kurt and I were soundly beaten at Banangrams by a random German guy at an Amsterdam hostel).They seemed to know so much about our country and language and we  knew next to nothing of theirs. It was very humbling to say the least. I have studied both French and Spanish but I can do little more than order food in a restaurant in either one (and even then I tend to mix them up). At this point I want to throw up my hands and say that I physically can not learn another language. Or I am just afraid to fail at it. The truth is I am a horrible coward and I am afraid of being found out.

This trip I am determined to change that.

I want this trip to push me out of my comfort zone and force me to confront the things I do not know with grace and ease and determination. I want to make mistakes publicly and laugh them off. I want my kids to see me do it and to grow up thinking that it is ok to make mistakes and to be found ignorant as long as you learn from the experience. I don't want Leif and Klaus to be held back by the shrinking confidence that I have fostered in my own life. I have shied away from too many people and experiences be cause of it. 

A few years ago our friend Abby gave us a book entitled "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol Dweck. My husband is a big fan of this book and periodically reminds me about the books basic tenant: all people can be successful in all things they just have to put the right amount of effort into it. When we are in Leiden I plan to put this to the test. I have already started studying Dutch. I love the language and I want to learn it. I want to make every effort to use it and not fall back on the fact that every Dutch person knows English. I want to make Dutch friends and speak to them in Dutch. I want to have horribly awkward conversations with them while I butcher their language. I need to do this for my own self confidence and to shake up my otherwise cautious and plain life.

That is the plan. Lets see how it goes. Het is goed, he?