A busy week

I have been so genuinely busy this past week; I didn’t even realize it has been a full week since my last post!

Last Sunday I spent the day with Nina. As she had to get back to studying on Monday and I had some important meetings back in Amsterdam, we had a very short 1 day visit.

Monday morning I boarded the train back to Amsterdam and headed straight for Sloterdijk, a suburb on the outskirts of Amsterdam and the location of the tax office. Fifteen minutes later I walked out with my SoFi number in hand. I was now registered as a tax payer, and legal to stay and work for as long as I wanted.

Monday afternoon I was supposed to have a meeting with my employer, but he postponed it as he wasn’t feeling well. So I checked back into the same hostel I had been at for the previous week. Luckily they were able to put me in the same room as my friend João.

Tuesday morning João and I had breakfast together. João was in Amsterdam for the film festival and his movies didn’t start until mid afternoon, around the same time as my meeting, so we had some time to kill. We walked over to the Artis Zoo and Aquarium to spend a few hours looking at the animals.

One of the more unusual exhibits was a butterfly emporium. It was a tropical room with high humidity and filled with lush plants. Hundreds of butterflies of all colours and sizes flew around the room among the people. They would land on plates filled with cut fruit to feed and occasionally landed on us as well.

On one of my walks I came across a large construction site, to the East of Centraal Station, where they are building a modern block of office towers. I was able to get a good perspective on the method used to hold back the water around the site, so they can dig the foundations. It is a similar method to what they use in Vancouver when they are digging near the water. Here this is used on almost every construction job!

Tuesday afternoon I arrived at the address Stefan, my boss, had given me. It was a canal house on one of the canal rings in downtown central Amsterdam. It was a white building with a brown door, ironic as the company is called The White Door. Next to the door were several company names, each with a buzzer next to it. I rang the appropriate buzzer and a man with an Australian accent answered, buzzed me in and told me to wait in the room to the right.

I opened the door and was standing in a large white hallway with a tall ceiling, ensconced with white mouldings shaped like flowers and vines lining the length of the hall. To the right was a small sitting room. I waited for a few moments until a slim man, around my age, arrived. Stefan escorted me down the hall to the stairs, and up to the top floor. Their office is the lone suite in the attic of the building. Inside the small A-framed office was a tiny lounge with a few chairs and a kitchenette and four desks arranged along the sides of the room. With the windows and skylights, it was a bright room, but very confined. Only four people work there, all recruiters, and all expats. Two were Brits and the third was French.

Stefan and I sat down on the couch and discussed the details of my job. As the office is so small, he doesn’t want me to work there on a regular basis. In fact, he doesn’t really care where I work, as long as it gets done on time. I don’t even need to be in the country! As long as I have an internet connection, I can work wherever I am.

He gave me a copy of the employment contract, in Dutch, then admitted he had no idea what it said as he hadn’t learned Dutch in his 5 years living in Holland.

I felt quite happy with the way the conversation went. They were very happy to have me onboard as they wanted to put their energy into expanding the business, and were looking for aspects of the work they could farm out. I was happy with the flexibility and scope of work I was responsible for.

I met up with João at the movie theatre and watched one of the movies with him. I saw a movie from New Zealand called The Devil Dared Me To. Of all the films at the festival, he thought I might like this one the most. The genre of the festival is scifi, horror and fantasy, which are not my favourite types of movies. But this one film was quite entertaining and I enjoyed it. This particular festival is well known and the key speaker was Tim Burton, who João met. I wasn’t as lucky.

Wednesday morning João and I had breakfast together then headed to the Van Gogh museum for the afternoon. With 200 of Van Gogh’s 800 paintings in their possession, this is the largest collection of his works anywhere in the world.

On the first floor of the museum are a collection of paintings Van Gogh would have come into contact with before becoming an artist himself. He worked for an art dealer in Paris and was influenced by the works around him. It was fascinating to see these pieces, especially as some looked like they could have been painted by him.

The second floor of the gallery is the main exhibit, the life’s work of Van Gogh. It takes you through the different periods and countries he lived in, showing how his work changed over the years. It was a great museum, although overall, the pieces they had on display were not my favourite of his works. Of course, there were a few pieces I had not seen before and was very fond of.

The top floor of the gallery was an exhibit on print media, and how it influenced art. They had a large collection of art nouveau, which has never done much for me.

Wednesday was a beautiful day and as João headed to the movie theatre I went for a walk through central Amsterdam during rush hour. This was a unique experience! Cars are not common in the middle of the city. The A10 Ringroad — the highway that encircles Amsterdam — has 18 roads that lead from it to the city. But as you get closer to the middle, the roads become smaller and many don’t allow automobiles. In fact, in an effort to discourage cars from the city, several years ago the people of Amsterdam voted (again) to reduce the number of parking spaces available by several thousand.

So, the last 4 pictures you see to the left are all different streets, in the same neighbourhood, and the way "rush hour" affects each one of them.

Amsterdam has a population of 750,000 and there are 600,000 bikes in the city! As almost everyone has a bike, they use them for more than just getting from A to B. They are also used to assist people in doing their work. I have seen many bikes here that I have never seen before. Below are some of the bikes you see on a daily basis in Amsterdam:

With the help of Nina’s Dutch skills and an online translation program, I was able to decipher the 5 page employment contract. For the most part it looked standard and everything was in order. There was a whole section on not being able to work at a similar job with another company while employed by The White Door for fear of a 250€/day fine! Stefan agreed to remove that section.

Thursday morning I attempted to open a bank account. In Holland your pay is automatically deposited into your account. Cheques are rarely used here. But, I had to have a permanent address before I could open an account. I wasn’t going to get an apartment until I had a job, I needed a bank account before I could work, but I had to have an apartment before I could get a bank account! This was like an evil catch 22.

I went to the office to meet with Stefan, got the contract sorted out (and signed) and received my first two assignments. Finally, I was able to start working! He was also nice enough to allow me to use the office’s address as my own (as far as bank was concerned) so I could open my account.

That afternoon I met up with João for the last time. We went to a café across the street from Rembrandt’s house in a plaza that bares his name. We sat outside enjoying the sunshine on the cobble stoned street. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. We said goodbye and I returned to the hostel to start working.

Friday morning I got myself packed up and checked out of the hostel. I went downtown to the Postbank and walked out 10 minutes later with an account. Another necessary objective crossed off my list.

Friday afternoon I boarded a train to head to Nina’s place. Friday morning was Nina’s big exam, the one that was keeping us (relatively) apart for the first 2 weeks. Having done really well on it, we went out to celebrate Friday night.

A friend of Nina’s was having a party in her Aachen apartment, so we went. I met many fascinating people and had a really good time. Everyone brought something (we brought a dessert) and one of the girls had brought a punch made from Advocat (egg liquor), champagne and orange juice. It was really delicious and creamy, and went down a little too easily.

Saturday was spent around the apartment, with very little energy I was just trying to feel better. Saturday night we headed to Aachen again with a few of Nina’s girlfriends to a pool hall. We played a few games of pool, a couple rounds of darts and a half dozen games of foosball. This time I was drinking Desperado beer, a French lager with tequila and lime which boasts 5.9% alcohol. I was a little more aware of how much I was drinking this time and limited myself to 2.

I will stay here with Nina for almost a week. I can work here, and during the week she will also be working (on her thesis). Today I am going to start making contact with people who have apartments for rent with the hopes of viewing them next weekend and hopefully moving in shortly after.

I still have people calling me for interviews based on resumes I sent out over my first two weeks here. The most interesting offer I have received was from an internet company in Utrecht (30 minutes south of Amsterdam and the 4^th largest city in the country). They want someone to deal with the distributors of the content they host on their site, and to deal with technical issues as they receive over 1 million hits a day! After talking to them they gave me more details about their company and it turns out they are a porn site!

I am so glad the job hunting is over, that caused me more stress than any other aspect of this move.

This is one of my favourite pictures. It's the reflection of a row of canal houses taken on a sunny afternoon.

I do hope you appreciate the fact that I did not rub in the fact that here it is 22 degrees and sunny. I understand Vancouver is sitting under a new blanket of snow!