Email to my aunt Leslie

Yes, I imagine it has been a busy few days, what with a new grandson in the family and whatnot!

I'm doing ok, but am feeling pretty discouraged about jobs :( I've spent 2 weeks now home alone applying to jobs all day long, and all I've heard is that they have no vacancies or that they need me to speak Dutch or that they have only volunteer positions available, which simply isn't going to pay the bills! I contacted every single NGO in the area, regardless of whether or not they had any vacancies posted (because that's what I really want to do...) and have now moved on to looking at super horrendously crap jobs, which are the only ones that require native English speakers! :( One of my friends here is in a similar predicament, and has been here for 5 weeks instead of my 2 and has accepted a job cold calling businesses in the UK to verify their post code. for 8 hours a day. I'm not sure it can get much worse...but she's done at 3 on fridays, and it's biking distance! poop. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm pretty down about it right now. :( Though I do have an "interview" tomorrow for a volunteer position with a really amazing NGO that allows me to work from home! Here's the link to it http://www.kalinga.nl/www/english/. I'll keep up with this even when I have a job because I would be so totally unhappy without any meaningful work in my life! I've always been super involved and am not going to let up now! And if nothing else, if it takes a while to find a job, it will look good on my CV that I became involved as soon as I got here!

However, I have just the remedy for these job search doldrums coming up on Thursday! A full day spent with my dear cousin, then 10 days on the beach with Mom, Dad and Grandma! It couldn't get much better, or be much more perfectly timed, in fact! And then of course a weekend spent with you guys before being reunited with T! But then...meh. Actually, then it's Thanksgiving and we already have plans with a Dutch/American couple here, and then I have a coffee date with a couple girl friends here that friday, and then we're going to the Christmas market in Aachen, Germany that weekend with that same Dutch/American couple, and also hiking with them! So I have a lot to be excited for, but then I'm not much looking forward to the month of December until T's parents come out for Xmas on the 20th. Oh well.

Thanks for checking in and helping out so much! Can't wait to see you guys!!
xx

How we spent our Halloween!

We went out last night to meet some new people, but no one in the group was dressed up. A handful of people on the street were, but it isn't really a big deal here, especially in the city we were in. Amsterdam apparently has some Halloween parties.

But the night out was super fun. We were out with Italians, Germans, a girl from the UK and a dutch guy. It really felt like traveling even though we were only in the neighboring city!

Christmas Fair and Dutch Generosity!

An email to our parents:

Just so you guys don't feel too sorry for us being all on our lonesome for Thanksgiving, here's a link to show you where we'll be that weekend:
http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/90_festivals_events/90_30/index.html

We're going with our two new friends, Stacy (from Long Island) and her Dutch boyfriend Joost. She followed him here too, surprise, surprise! I went to the cello quartet concert with Stacy yesterday and then to trivia with both of them yesterday (T stayed in to recover from all his stress symptoms), and they were so generous, they bought me all my drinks and snacks and everything! Joost seems a bit older than Stacy, who in turn seems a bit older than me, and he is running a (seemingly) very successful startup that markets business analytics solutions to local branches of government (don't ask me for more specifics, because I don't have them...), and I think he felt sorry for poor unemployed little ol' me and therefore wouldn't let me pay for anything! I sensed that perhaps the kind of culture exists in The Netherlands where people voluntarily look out for others who (at least for now) are not as well off as they may be. I remember Terry talking about this in Japan too and I thought it was kind of silly that for organized dance team events seniors had to pay more than freshman because it's assumed seniors have more money than freshman (which i disagreed with because not everyone works during college, at least in the US), but I now really appreciate the sentiment that it would be "crazy" for me to pay for gas/parking when it's a piddly amount for them, but everything is really going to add up for me!

So, I like The Netherlands! :) Can't wait for you guys to all come visit!
Miss you all!!

Love, Em
xx

Connecting with Wisconsin

Here's an email I sent to Gene and Sandy Lundergan - the two wondeful fearless leaders of the MoveOn.org Madison Council, of which I was a part. I think it would be more accurate to say that they were the Regional Coordinators, but I can't quite remember...The big day when we can start recalling our @ssh*le governor is almost upon us, and it would have been a very exciting time for me back in WI!

Hi Sandy and Gene! Great to hear from you too! We're SO annoyed we won't be able to sign for the recalls, but perhaps getting the elections schedule will be the "easy" part and then we can still be involved with voting for WHOEVER runs against Walker. I'm assuming he'll be recalled, but that voting in a new Governor would be the trickier part? Do we know yet who would run against him? What's Feingold up to these days??

Will you guys be sure to keep us updated on who/what we should be voting for when the elections come around? It's hard to stay on top of that while living so far away, but we do definitely want to help WI out!! You wouldn't believe how progressive Holland is. I'm sure you already know/have heard, but life here is just fabulous! Gay marriage is something that was over and done with 10 years ago, and now they're trying to make it ILLEGAL to refuse to marry two people of the same sex! That's a far cry for fighting for domestic partnership rights like we're doing back home!! :( Speaking of which, Terry and I are now registered domestic partners! Just for the purposes of my resident permit though. :) It's not actually a big deal for us...

I've already found another organization to become involved in - it's different from the political work with MoveOn, but more closely related to the other non-profit I was doing in Madison. Here's a link to it: http://www.kalinga.nl/www/english/

It works to educate street kids in the Philippines, as well as to engage their parents in educational programs.  It may seem a little random, but it's JUST the sort of thing I'm interested in. It's the kind of non-profit work that would make me want to get up everyday and go to work, but unfortunately this is just a volunteer position with no job prospect associated with it, but it will be interested, engaging, meaningful, rewarding and look good on my resume while I'm looking for a "real" job! :) As a preschool teacher I obviously very strongly believe in the value of educating the next generation if we have any hope of a brighter future, and I don't think there's ANY excuse for even one child slipping under the radar, but this obviously is not a global reality.

I have an "interview" with the organizer in a neighboring city next Tuesday just to talk about how I can help. I'm excited, and hope that we can find something for me to contribute! It's hard not having a social network here - the first volunteer position I applied for wanted me to hold fundraisers amongst my friends, family and colleagues, of which I have NONE! At least not here yet anyway! :) That one was based in my city, called the Kumbatio Foundation, and worked with schools in Kenya. That would have been perfect too, but oh well...

Well best of luck with all the recall efforts! Let me know if there's anything I can do remotely! Miss you guys lots!!

Em
xx

For any other Madisonians who might be reading this, I would also appreciate your voting advice as well! I find it easier just to ask trusted sources then have to go do my own figuring out about what I'm voting on and who for and whatnot. Thanks in advance!! Miss you all!! xx

More info about little Max

Since I mentioned Max I figured I may as well give a bit more info about him and his arrival. This is part of an email I just sent to Terry's parents who have just booked their flights to spend Christmas with us here! They'll be here the 21st-28th! Excellent!

In other news, MY COUSIN'S WIFE HAD HER BABY YESTERDAY!! I am, of course, VERY excited!! His name is Max Patrick Charles Carrington - LOVE the name!! I'm only slightly sad that they took two of the middle names I may have been interested in using for a potential, hypothetical future child - especially since BOTH of my grandfathers were named Charles, as is one of my uncles! Oh well. :) Max came two weeks early and everything went smoothly! How much better does it get?! Max is their first child and my aunt and uncle's 3rd grandchild. Another of my cousins has two girls, so everyone is very excited to have a little baby boy in the family! Unfortunately, Emma's side of the family was hoping for a girl since they already have 3 grandsons, but clearly our side of the family won out! :) I'll get to meet little Max when I'm in London after I return from Hawaii, and am very grateful that I only have to wait 3 short weeks to meet them and see my cousins!


Terry's on his way home from work now as he's not feeling well. He's MEGA stressed and has a headache and feels groggy/foggy. He went in to work this morning to try to make a go of it, but emailed me by 8:30 saying he was coming home :( I'll be sure to take good care of him!

I'm glad you guys have booked for Xmas and that that's (mostly) all settled. Can't wait!

Much love,

Em
xx

I have a new little cousin!

Actually, this post has nothing to do with my new little cousin, but I'm very excited about it and thought I would mention it anyway! :) His name is Max Patrick Charles Carrington, and he's mentioned in the beginning of this message I sent to one of my wonderful aunts who heard through the grapevine"that it is tough not speaking Dutch, not having a job cause you can't speak Dutch, and feeling a little lonely cause the big man has a big double job!" Terry is super stressed right now working overtime for a big build for this one important hospital and ON TOP of that, having to still be responsible for his work at Epic US that they weren't able to wrap up before the move. He's in such bad shape that he considered not even going into work today, but I told him to just go and make an appearance and see how he feels and then come home if he still doesn't feel well. It's only an 8 minute bus ride, so I felt that was reasonable, especially given that he's still trying to make a good (first) impression at the office here!

So here's my message to my dear Auntie Katie:

Yay for meeting Max soon!! :) I'm doing ok, and I've actually joined the International Womens' Club here, and I'm going to a cello quartet concert today with one of the younger ladies in the club! Then, this evening she and her boyfriend are driving us to a neighboring town for an international trivia night! We went last week and it was lots of fun. And then this Saturday evening we're going to a different neighboring city in the opposite direction for a newbees night, where they put all people new to the area in groups of 10 to go out for drinks and just chat and make friends! So we're not suffering :) The days are long and tedious, but hopefully my efforts will lead to a job, and I'm also planning on doing NOTHING while on vacay in Hawaii with my parents and Grandma, so I don't mind working hard now so that I can completely unplug while there. Except for checking email once a day to see if I've received any job responses, and of course to skype with Terry! :)

Another message to Emma!

Settling in here is continuing to go well, and having just submitted my first cover letter and resume to an interesting organization, I'm not actually feeling that overwhelmed! I've learned that only 25% of jobs are posted here, and that non-profits do almost all of their hiring directly, so what I'm doing now is finding interesting local NGOs and just writing them about "a position with their organization" even though I have no idea if said position even exists. It may sound like chances are remote, but since I spent ALL last week and today just researching, it feels good to finally have submitting something.

I honestly bet your move to Charlotte is more daunting that our move here for a couple reasons. First, you're moving on your own! Both to Madison and then here I've moved with a best friend and partner, so that's pretty much just like taking home with me! :) Second, you're moving away from family, and believe it or not, I've moved geographically closer to my family in England, who I'll be seeing twice in the next month!!

How does everyone know about meetup?? You're the second person who has recommended it to me! I actually ended up finding it on my own just by looking through expat resource/relocation websites, and it was through a meetup group that we found the trivia night we went to! It's an awesome system, and you should definitely find a group in/near Charlotte to be a part of!! It's awesome and it totally facilitates the relocation process!!

So you would think that I have good skiing options here, but it's actually a 10 hr drive :( I know this because I was talking to a local ski bunny today, and he was like, "It's only 1000+ km!" And I was like...greeaaat... Perhaps that's better than WI, but apparently Holland still has got nothing on CA!! :)

I only care about your 4 weeks of vacation if you use it to come visit MEEEEE!!! Alternatively, I have a friend doing birth right in June-ish, and T and I plan to go meet up with him when it ends and have him show us around Israel a bit. Any interest in joining??

So on top of T just being gleeful about his new-found deportation power, he's taken to (attempting) to demand 50 Euro per week from me as my monthly bribe to let me stay. I think not!! :) I think people here do live together before marriage, so that has nothing to do with the domestic partnership thing. The only reason we're registering is that highly skilled migrants (which T is) can bring their "partners" with them and those partners are granted the same living and working privileges as the highly skilled migrant worker is, but only as long as we're registered domestic partners! Now I should really tell T he has to start paying ME to stay because so long as I'm not employed by the end of the year (which is unfortunately somewhat likely), he'll be able to file his tax returns the same as if he were married in the US and spread his income across two people, so it will essentially look like he earned half of what he actually did! So really, the dom. partnership is just plain useful for him!! :)

Nope, I don't know a Mrs. Coyner, but perhaps some of my Madison friends do! That's cool that Mike knows her! I didn't even know they were giving out such awards at the White House!!

A message to a CLP mom I'm still in touch with!

I do like our new city, the scene is pretty fun and I'm not homesick yet. I've done a lot of extended travel before so this move hasn't phased me yet. The other thing about our new life here is that it's very comfortable with all the usual creature comforts, so it doesn't necessarily feel farther from home (CA) than Madison did. It's when you have food poisoning in a third world country that you feel really far from home, especially when you have no family members or your significant other with you! Also, anywhere feels like home if Terry's here! :) I'll be seeing my parents in early Nov in Hawaii for my gma's 92nd bday, and then again when I go home (CA) in Feb-ish, and then again when they come visit in May, so that's really not any less frequently than when I was living in Madison. And I have 3 cousins and their boyfriend/wives/kids and an aunt and uncle in England who I'm very close with and am seeing at the beginning of Nov and then again mid-Nov, so I really haven't been feeling very far from family at all recently! I'm geographically closer now to any family while living here in Holland than I was in Madison! It will definitely be different spending our first Thanksgiving on our own without any family this year, but I guess that's just another rite of passage. Perhaps we'll find some other people from the US by then to have a Turkey Day dinner with??

An email to a friend at med school in Vermont!

Hey, Laura! Great to hear from you! I can't really believe I'm in Holland either!! :) To be honest, the adjustment really hasn't been that bad. The thing that is most different of all is simply the fact that I'm not working, so I get up in the morning with Terry, and we get ready together as usual, but then he goes off to work, and instead of playing with little kiddos at the preschool, I just sit at home in front of the computer all day and look for jobs and apartments!! :( 

The language isn't really a problem since everyone speaks English, but we are definitely hoping to learn Dutch! We're really good about doing at least one lesson or practice lesson of the Rosetta Stone each day! I really enjoy it!!

Yes, yes, go me for having my new social group be 30-70yo moms! :) I haven't heard anything about babysitting yet, but I did find someone who wants to go to the cello quartet concert with me on Thursday and then to trivia in a neighboring town that evening! She and her boyfriend have a car, so they're going to give us a ride there so we don't have to take the train! Score!! I haven't been in a car in the Netherlands yet!! Speaking of which, it will probably be a loooong time before I drive again having no car over here! Weird!

The apartment search is going ok - we saw a couple places we liked last week, but we can't commit to anything just yet because T's residence permit hasn't come through and you can't rent a place until you're a legal resident with the equivalent of a social security number! So someone else saw both of the apartments we had seen last week which leaves us unsure if they're both still available anymore. It would be ok if they had picked one of them, since we could see ourselves living in either - one was nicer but the other was in a better location, so it would have been a really tough decision to make, so if one of them isn't available anymore then we would just pick the other one! We're also going to see 4 apartments tonight through a different agency, so perhaps we'll like one of those even better! The ones we're seeing tonight are more expensive, but they're nicer and in better locations. We just have to decide if we like it enough to make it worth it. I'm being a bit stingier with how high I'm willing to go for rent than T is. I feel like if we find a place that's good enough and is in a perfect location, then we don't need to spend extra money just because it's nicer when really we don't need the extra space and whatnot, ya know?

T likes his new job, but he's kinda stressed right now because he's essentially doing two jobs at once since the move happened so quickly that he didn't really have the opportunity to wrap up his old work before starting his new work!! :( So to answer your question, yes, it was sort of a last minute deal! His company called him during the end of August to let him know about the possibility and to see if he was interested, and then flew him out for two separate one-week trips and then by the 15th of Oct we had moved! 

I think as long as he's with Epic we'll be in the Netherlands, and it won't be until he's not working for the company anymore that we leave. We would probably want to take the opportunity to do some more travel in between our next jobs/school before going back to the States, and then T isn't sure if he would look for another job in CA/NYC or apply to business school or what. One other idea is that if at the time T leaves Epic I have a job that would allow me to sponsor T as my domestic partner, then we wouldn't necessarily have to leave the country when he quits Epic. I could keep working and he could go to business school here!! Crazy, huh?!

Another plus of the domestic partnership is that we can combine our income for tax purposes! So if I remain unemployed through the end of the year (it would be nice if that weren't the case, but is unfortunately fairly likely...) then that will do wonders for the tax bracket T is in! It basically cuts his salary in HALF!! 

Glad you like the updates, and apologies for how annoyingly gloating they are at times! I should probably take it down a notch! :) I hope you have a FABULOUS birthday weekend in NYC! We have no idea when we'll be back there! :( We're doing Thanksgiving on our own this year for the first time ever which will be weird, and then his parents are coming for Xmas, so we therefore don't even have a time in mind when we'll be back in NYC! I'm also not sure about when I'll be back in CA! :( At this point I'm thinking maybe Feb-ish. I've got a 92yo grandma there who I want to be sure that I see relatively frequently and I'm going on vacay with her for her bday this Nov in Hawaii, so I figure mid Feb might be a reasonable amount of time to have pass before I see her again, plus I bet it's a great time to get out of the Netherlands!! Although the 19/20/21 of Feb are carnival here which is a pretty big deal, so I definitely don't want to miss that! Especially since they don't do Halloween here and they DO dress up for Carnival! :( I'm determined to dress up in my last year's Avatar Halloween costume and prance around the house in it this Halloween anyway! :)

Well enjoy your bday and the city and CA in Dec! Any chance of a Europe visit from you anytime in the next year?? Summer perhaps??

Em

xx

One more thing about Charlie the Cello...

Yep, I hope I find a cello out here too. They wouldn't have made me buy a seat because back when I went to Greece I invested in a super heavy duty travel case that actually makes is safe to check Carlie through! I of course put some extra padding in there and loosened the string, and then bubble wrapped the entire case and put a pretty note hand written in colored pencil starting with, "Dear baggage handler," and then going on about how the cello is fragile and please be gentle, or something of the sort! :)

Just another update...

Hey T! Good to hear from you!! The apartment search and job hunt are going ok - I'm going to an expat fair on Sunday which should hopefully give me job leads and perhaps apartment leads and ideas for social groups to join. Here's the link in case you want to check it out: http://www.expatica.com/iamnotatourist/

Yep, everyone speaks good English, the only thing they can't understand is my Dutch! :) We are definitely being proactive about finding expat/english speaking groups. On Thursday we went to an international trivia night in a neighboring town and we're planning on going again this week and I've already found another couple who wants to travel there from here who have a car and have offered to take us with them! I found them, well Stacy, through the International Womens' League I've joined. The age group is a little heavily weighted upward for my taste, but I'm sure I'll meet some interesting individuals to spend time with regardless.

The food is unremarkable/international/german/british/belgian, but really not so much american. Terry ordered a "cheeseburger" and it was a little disappointing. I guess you shouldn't expect an amazing experience when you order what your country does best on a different continent! :)

Email to my first friend in Den Bosch!

I'm planning on meeting up with my new friend Stacy (who I haven't met yet) to go to the cello performance on Thursday, and it turns out she's a violist who had been wanting to organize a chamber ensemble here in town but hasn't had any luck! She's also giving me helpful information regarding finding jobs and settling in. Here's my response to her.

I know, I really wish I had brought Charlie the Cello, but it just didn't make sense logistically given how many bags we were already checking through and how much we were already paying in excess baggage fees for the move! :( It would have been SO FUN to be part of a chamber group here, but oh well. If you happen to hear of anyone with a cello for me to play, let me know! :)

Thanks for those links! I am indeed going to have to rely on public transportation for commuting as we're not planning on buying a car while we're over here. I have been planning on checking out those recruiting agencies by the station (I live pretty much right there too...for now at least...) but I'm just polishing up my resume before I go walking into employment agencies. I've become a pro at using Google Translate to put a whole website (almost) into English, so Dutch websites don't even phase me anymore.

I do definitely want to learn Dutch, but given my current state of (un)employment, I'm not too keen on the idea of forking out a bundle of money for classes just yet. I know it would be an investment, but I'm content for the moment with our free bootleg copy of the Dutch Rosetta Stone a friend picked up in Thailand, and possibly a free version of Dutch for Dummies - Terry's dad works for the company that publishes them! He has yet to ask about that though...

I've also joined the Den Bosch meetup group for Dutch language exchange, so hopefully that will give me another way to begin learning the language. That and my gmail and camera are now on the Dutch language setting :)

I also forgot to mention that we went to an International Quiz Night in Eindhoven last night! It was super fun! But the most important thing I took away from the evening was learning how to recognize tap beer vs. bottle beer on the drankenkaart. :)

Charlie the Cello!

In case anyone was wondering about Charlie the Cello, here's part of a response I sent to a friend who I played with in college who inquired about his wellbeing. :)

I guess now that you mention it CA-WI-Holland isn't a particularly common path to take in the first 2.5 yrs out of college, but so far it's been treating us well! I unfortunately didn't bring my cello with me. :( It just didn't make logistical sense given how many other suitcases we were bringing and how much we were already spending in excess baggage fees for the move over here. :( Instead, Charlie the Cello flew safely back with my parents when they visited in Sept and he'll wait patiently there for my return! :) My mom actually broached the subject of if I really need/want him in my life anymore and I SCREECHED at her and told her to never even consider that idea ever again. Even though this is the first time Charlie hasn't been in my immediate possession, I'm confident he'll be in my life FOREVER!!!

Speaking of cellos, it only took me 5 short days of living here to join our town's International Womens' Club and organize an event go to see a cello quartet (yes, 4 cellos) next Thursday! Can't wait!!

Description of Life!

So my best friend, Emma, who is from Boston and who I went to college with, emailed me asking about all sorts of different aspects of our new life over here, and when I got done writing her a ridiculously long email including all the answers I realized that perhaps other friends/family might be interested in hearing those answers too! So below is the email I wrote to her, only slightly revised for this purpose.
Enjoy!

EMMA!! Good to hear from you!! Yes, we did indeed make it safely and it is super beautiful here! A little cold and rainy, but that's ok. We have been enjoying it, but I've also been looking hard for a job :( Not that fun!

It's not logistically hard not speaking Dutch - everyone speaks Dutch, but I feel pretty isolated when I'm waiting in a big long line in the Vodafone store and I can't understand what everyone else is saying or make small chat with them. Another example is when we're on a full train and can't sit together and the seats are facing each other and the WHOLE car (it seems) is having some big conversation and joking around together, and I can't understand or participate in any of it so I just sit there feel like the sourpuss they must think I am! :( So I think my quality of life will improve greatly if/when I'm at least able to understand some Dutch and hopefully can speak a bit too! Epic is sending Terry off to live with nuns for a week (not sure when) as part of his language immersion training. Wish I could go to!! :(

I just don't feel like I did when I was studying abroad in Spain and felt like I could pass for a local sometimes, ya know? But that's ok. If I've got a year or more to live here and I've only been here 5 days, surely I have a lot of improving to do! :)

The house hunting is going well, but it's soooo time consuming and tedious!! We saw a couple places yesterday, and we thankfully we could see ourselves living in either of them. They're the same price, and one is nicer than the other, but the not as cool one is in a PERFECT location, so we may be willing to take that just because it would be SO convenient, but we'll see. We can't make any decisions until T's residence permit comes through anyway (you can't just waltz into a foreign country and rent a place for a year...), and we're seeing 4 more places on Tuesday which should give us some better perspective. The other thing is that ALL the apartments that are going to be available on the 1st of a month are released during the first week of the prior month, so basically everything that's going to be available for Dec 1 will be released in the first week of Nov. This is because leases are written in favor of the tenant here so you can leave anytime as long as you give notice before the first of the month during which you want to leave. So anyone who plans to be out by Dec 1 has to give notice by Nov 1, therefore it's in the first week of Nov that all the new apartments will be posted. I wish someone had told me this at the beginning of my very lengthy search process because I now understand that we're basically getting the dregs of what was posted in the first week of this month. Everyone else has had a whole 3 weeks to snatch up the best places so we're just going through the leftovers right now! That's ok, though. At least I was able to discover that information now so that we're not just super discouraged, and we now have some more options (hopefully) to look forward to!

The social scene is total crap here! Haha, no, it's not that bad, there just aren't any expats I've come across yet which is different international experience for me. There are literally NO expat bars or anything. I've been doing a lot of social networking partly to help me find job leads and partly to just improve our quality of life here, and I'm in touch with the Den Bosch International Womens Club, but the age range is 30-70. When the coordinator emailed me to tell me that to see if it would put me off, I said it didn't at all because I'm SO desperate to get out of the house and have a good conversation with pretty much anyone! Also, perhaps they will be able to help me find a job, or would possibly have kids our age I could be friends with? And she invited me to join a moms and tots group, which I'm obviously not interested in, but that was a perfect opportunity for me to say that I've spent the last couple years being a preschool teacher and that I'm well qualified to babysit should any of those moms want a fun yet responsible adult to spend some time with their kids! With any luck that'll give me some kind of cash-on-the-side income to start out with!

The head of DIWC also put us in touch with a younger-oriented expat "hub" club in Eindhoven which is a 20 min train ride away. Incidentally, it's that city that ryan air and all those airlines fly out of. So each week the hub has an international trivia night on Thursday, so we're going to it tonight! It's not just put on by the club - there are 11 other hub members going, but it's at a bar where like 100 people show up for trivia, so hopefully we'll make some friends! There's also a hub "after party" where we go out for another drink at a different bar after trivia ends, so perhaps that will be a chance to have some more conversation with other hub members.

I was hoping to make some friends here in our town, but that's looking like it's going to be very challenging. I was thinking that having friends in Eindhoven isn't quite ideal, but then I realized that probably most of your friends in NYC are a 20 min train ride away, and also when I'm at home, SF is 25+ min away by train, and that doesn't feel that far away, so perhaps Den Bosch-Eindhoven friendships wouldn't be so bad after all. The other thing making it challenging in terms of making friends is that T works in an office of only like 20 ppl (a far cry from the 5k+ Epic campus in Verona), and he manages like 8 of those people and reports directly to the Epic Europe CEO so he feels funny about the idea of needing to have a difficult conversation with someone about how they're under-performing and then go out and get a beer with them. So until I find a job it's looking like it'll be that expat hub or bust for us!! We weren't even sure we wanted to make the effort to head over there this evening but I really don't want us to get into that habit because then we'll NEVER meet ANYONE!! We're just so used to only needing to walk like 4 blocks to go hang out with friends, but this will be good practice for when we come home and live in a BIG city! :)

Actually, speaking of jobs and expat hubs, they're starting one in Den Bosch, and word is that they're going to be needing people to work for them! That's not exactly the kind of non profit I had in mind, but it would still be helping people (it's also a relocation help center for xpats moving here) and it would be a super fun job and a great way to meet people! Apparently they're not even at the point of posting jobs, but the person who tipped me off to it (the girl who showed us the apartments last night) said she would check into it for me, because she's not even sure if there's a website yet. Speaking of that girl, I was so excited to have someone to walk around with and chat with (even if for like 15 min) that when she was showing us apartments I asked her all sorts of questions including things like, how do we throw our trash away? How do we recycle? In case you're curious, we have to get a trash key from city hall when we register, then you use the key to open these trash contraptions on the street that shoot your trash under ground. And for recycling, you take your bottles to the supermarket, put them in a machine and then it prints a receipt based on the return value of your bottles, and when you buy your groceries you give them the receipt then you get that amount off your purchase! For some reason you can't do that with wine bottles, only beer bottles. Wine bottles there's somewhere else in the grocery store to throw them, and you can't put them in those trash chutes around town.

The other thing about finding a job is that pretty much EVERY job requires a masters, so I was becoming very discouraged! Until...I found out that here you get a bachelors if you do 3 years of college, and the fourth year is a masters! I made sure to verify that they don't just do what we do in four years in 3 years and then their masters programs are all one year - it is actually that if you graduate from a four year university in the States that you have what they call a "masters" which is NOT the same as our masters, so I am, in fact, qualified for all those jobs that I initially thought I couldn't apply to! Yippee! This, again, was all thanks to the girl who showed us the apartments!

One other item of interest is that T and I are registering as domestic partners at city hall on Tuesday! This really isn't a big deal, and it's just so I can get my residence permit, but I also feel like it's not not a deal at all, ya know? I mean, this is as close as some couples can get to marriage, so I feel like I should take it at least a little bit seriously! We already had to sign forms for the Dutch government stating that we're life partners, which also seemed like kind of a big deal to me, but it was just signing something and this is actually registering! Yikes! :) Though T enjoys telling me that it really doesn't mean anything since he'll still be able to deport me at will. Which is true! :( Hopefully that won't happen! :) I'm sure it won't!

Ok, I've typed enough now. Let's just skype so I can hear all about your life. Like I said, I'm around all day every day. I think you're 6 hrs behind me (Eastern Time), so pretty much when you get up or any other time until about 4 your time I'll be on skype so just see if I'm around!! Maybe we can even talk today!! Otherwise, it's the same deal tomorrow. I'll just be around all day!

Thanks, Em, for keeping in touch! Miss and love you so much!!!
xx