That's a Lovely Bicycle

I hope you all weren't bored by my thorough description of getting to the Netherlands, and that you have come back to read once again.

We just finished lunch on our fifth day, and we are experiencing our first day of full on rain.  I think we've maintained a good mixture of getting stuff done and having fun throughout our days here so far.  Todd says we haven't been acting like it's vacation enough, and we have been pretty busy starting our lives here.  But most of the "business" we have to take care of is pretty fun.  Like house hunting.

We've now been out twice to check out potential homes.  One trip around the city with our agent was planned, the other was sprung on us via a phone call first thing in the morning telling us to be at the train station parking lot in 10 minutes.  We tore off our pajamas, threw on our jeans and ran out the door.  Our agent is a busy guy, so we had to move quickly to get some more house hunting action.

It has been a pleasant surprise to find many options that are pretty great.  Our criteria for what we're looking for has changed a bit, and we are definitely searching for a more traditional Dutch style house now.  This is in contrast to the apartments right in the center of the city that we thought we wanted.  These homes we're checking out are a quick bike ride to the Centrum, but they have more space and Jack can have a tiny spot outside at the back of the house.  The neighborhoods we've seen are lovely - lots of parks and green space, small cafes, and weekly markets all right around the corner.  We hope to have a place secured in the next couple of weeks.  I'll be sure to post pictures once we find one!

In the meantime, here's a pic from one of the neighborhoods we may live in:

Todd's most exciting development of the past few days was buying his "omafiets"...his granny bike.  We have found the market for bikes is saturated, however, they don't come cheap!  Todd's bike is just what he was hoping for, and he has lots of plans for tricking it out.  Here he is hogging the road:

Actually he wasn't hogging the road at all, almost every street has a wide and beautiful bike lane.  Biking is certainly preferred to walking in this city.  I just need to find a bike for myself!

Now I must turn my attention back to the tiny cup of coffee Todd has brewed for me using our Phillips Senseo.  Once we move out of this temporary place, we'll have to buy one of these for ourselves.  Yum!  Perhaps we'll venture into the rain for another cup later this afternoon as well...

We're Getting on the Highway...Again

We have arrived in Eindhoven, and we are very happy to finally be here.  The city is vibrant and full of life and things to do.  Today has been our first day to relax, so we are enjoying the time we have to explore our new city.

The trip here, however, was not so relaxing.  Heck, even retelling the story is stressful.   So I thought it might be easiest to give a bullet pointed list of our trip over.

- Dropped Jack off at the cargo facility

- Waited for our plane to be "fixed", then took off an hour late

- Flew across the ocean wondering how Jack was dealing with everything

- Landed, told by gate agent to pick Jack up in "Odd-Size Cargo"

- Went to odd size cargo, no one in sight, just an extra large conveyor belt

- Got our regular, non-dog-shaped cargo

- Went to the United desk and were told she's at a cargo facility called WFS

- Picked up our car after going to the wrong spot first and walking about 2k

- Tried to use the crappy little map we were given to get to WFS

- Followed the crappy map, but then could only get onto a highway heading for Utrecht

- Couldn't get off of said highway for many kilometers

- Finally exited, turned around, and proceeded to be lost within eyesight of the airport

- Continued to be lost and driving for about an hour

- Found a cargo area, asked people who worked there, but they said we weren't at the right spot

- Gave up, went back to the airport, the Info Desk called the cargo facility for us so we finally knew that Jack was there and safe

- Thought we'd try driving following the new directions we were given

- Tried to get to  WFS, but ended up on the highway again, with no way to get off

- Yelled very loudly at the road

- Somehow found the spot, cleared their security, went into the building marked with a very small "WFS"

- Asked to pick up our dog, were told we had to first go back to the airport, to customs, to get Jack's papers stamped

- Fed up with driving, took the bus back to the airport, got her paper's stamped

- Traveled back to WFS

- Finally got to pick up our very sweet, calm, clean puppy

- Got in the car and headed to Eindhoven - Hooray!!!

The drive to Eindhoven was lovely: we saw our first windmill, waved to hundreds of cows and sheep, and arrived in our new home without too much hassle.

Here's a few pics from our first day:

The iPad isn't loving my blog writing, so I apologize for weird pic sizes and formatting, I will update the blog again soon with the details of our first days here.

The Big Day

Today's the day my friends.  We fly out of Chicago at 6:13pm this evening.

It's been quite the week: our last days at work, moving out of our first home, and saying goodbye to the very special people in our lives. 

Jackaroo is getting mentally prepared for her trip as well...

Pensive puppy.

Well, I'm off to finish packing my gigantic, very heavy suitcase.  My next post will be from the Netherlands - until then!

Welkom!

Welkom to the Riksen family blog!  

Hopefully you're visiting this blog because you want to say in the loop on the adventures and experiences that Todd and I (Megan) have in the Netherlands.  If you hadn't heard, Todd was accepted back in June into a global exchange program with his company.  This means that on August 26, 2012 we are heading to Eindhoven, Netherlands to live for 18 or so months.  

We couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. I have to keep pinching myself that we actually get to live in Europe!  Although I may secretly (or not so secretly) have been hoping to live in France again after having such an amazing time there in college, I am pumped about the chance to live in the Netherlands.  The land of the Dutch. The Motherland!

In fact, I have been preparing for this move for the last 15 or so years as evidenced here....

I'm sure this modern look will fit right in.

There's been a lot going on over the past 2 months since we found out we're moving.  Perhaps the piece that stresses me out the most is getting Jackaroo across the pond.  It's been a very fun time figuring that out.  My favorite part is the kennel we need in order to ship her via United:

This girl is going to be flying in style in her doggie apartment!

But, she will make it, and then the hardest part will be fitting the massive kennel into a small European rental car (and our small Dutch apartment). Speaking of our small Dutch apartment, we are living in a great spot for our first 30 days.  I couldn't have picked a better location to help us get acclimated to our new city. Check it out:

Our view of the "Markt".

Our temporary digs.

Today marks exactly one week until we head out to the land of tulips, windmills, and bicycles.  New adventures, here we come - as we go "From Holland to Holland"!