1. If you have a fear of spiders, the Netherlands may not be for you.
We would get an occasional spider in our rental, but have now noticed that spiders are everywhere. Luckily, I don't have any significant fear provided they aren't too big or hairy. A big 6 inch long furry one once scurried out of a tarp I was unfolding during my camp counselor days and that still gives me the heebie jeebies! The spiders are a problem outside and thankfully have not been an issue (yet!) inside the house. Anytime you reach you hand into a dark space or bend over, you are sure to put your hand or head through a web. Every time I go to unlock my bike, new spider webs cover it. Pete came home down the alley one day and I watch as he tries to wipe the webs off his face as an amused Jude sits on the back of the bike. We will get used to this I'm sure.
2. Befriend your Buurman
We have been very pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of our new neighbors. Buurman (pronounced something like "beer man) is dutch for neighbor. We are in a row of 7 houses and met all of these neighbors except 1 plus a few to the different sides of our house. People will be out walking and see us and say hello. I don't know why this has surprised us so much, but it has. We have an idea to host our neighbors for a little American welcome party. Will let you know if that happens!
3. But beware of some buurman and burglars
The elderly neighbor who came over in her nightgown to tell us to quit hammering the night we were removing the cork stairs has a grown son. As I was leaving the house one evening to meet friends for dinner, he approached me and began talking my ear off. He shared that his mother had been burglarized (or at least an attempted burglary) only 2 days prior and that he had talked to some neighbors who also had recent break in attempts. While I appreciated the intel, he would not stop talking and I was already running late. Cue the next night when he rings our doorbell. I did not want to talk to him again, so Pete answered and after ~10 minutes of the man talking Pete's ear off, I called Pete and pretended to be his parents calling from Portugal to give him an out. We think that he means well, but we have too much to do when the kids are sleeping to stop and shoot the shit with him for ages!
He did share some hilarious intel though. When describing how his mother was burglarized, he explained that she has some dementia and was sitting in her front garden with her front door open. Apparently, a polish man walked past her in the garden and went into the house and used the bathroom. The son didn't know if he also stole something while in the house as it seems there is a bit of a hoarder phenom going on over there, but he did warn us to watch out for the "Polish pooper." His words, not ours!
4. We better brush up on our Dutch
Property insurance, internet and cable contracts, electricity and gas providers, home inspections and contractor reports, furniture assembly instructions, etc, etc, etc. All of these things are tedious to begin with and then add on top of it that everything is obviously in Dutch. It makes me dread getting the mail as I know there will be important things there, but I won't be able to read it! Google translate on my phone has a feature where I can hover the camera over the text and it instantly translates it, but this really only gets you so far. Time to take learning Dutch more seriously!
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| We hosted our first friends for dinner Friday. Jude got a kick out of the kid table set up. |
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| Jude helping load all of the cardboard into the borrowed ISA van to take to the dump |
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