vooruitgang/progress

Week three and finally, progress! Hmm, now that I said it three weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time but when you are impatient like me, it's forever! I've been duking it out nearly everyday with a list of people and waiting impatiently thanks to persons on another list. Last week things were finally moving forward.

The good thing about waiting is that we've quickly settled into our new routines. Mine is total hausfrau, his is student. R wakes well before I do and does who knows what as he gets ready for school. But he does one thing for me which I happily notice each morning, he opens the curtains.

I usually wake to the sound of the door locking as R leaves, get on my slippers and tidy up (usually put away the dried dishes and whatever mess was left from the day before). I'm usually a barefeet kinda girl but the floors get pretty cold at night.

Then I get out breakfast (typically one of the following: soft boiled egg/whole grain bread w butter and honey/sliced apple w cheese cubes and walnuts) always with green tea and always in front of the laptop. I spend my morning sitting at the dining table (it's four chairs long) facing our backyard (this is where open curtains are key) and catch up on my email accounts and google reader. For those of you who haven't discovered it yet, can I recommend reader? Love it, it links into all my news sites (NY Times, Kurier, DutchNews, etc) and friends blogs so I don't have to look it all up separately and get a great summary of what's new.

The rest of the day while R is away I usually spend taking care of little household details, my trip to the grocery store, a walk around the neighborhood or to the park and catching up w family and friends on skype. At night we eat dinner together and catchup, before bed we do the dishes and check into the same e-accounts again. It's still nice and cozy now but I'm expecting to get really bored of it within the week.

Tuesday is market day, Friday I take care of all the groceries for the weekend to avoid Saturday madness and Fridays I also typically meet up with some of the other wives and girlfriends of the MBA students. Friday nights we go out with some of the students. Friday nights we also pull out the oh so uncomfortable sofa bed in the living room. We call it "camping out". It's not the most comfortable sleep but we catch up on TV shows via ch131 (Hulu not allowed outside the US, insert sad face) or watch rented movies and sleep in. Our living room is in the middle of the apartment so it's also darker and quieter there which makes it great for catching up on lost weekday sleep. Saturdays we go to the market, then R does his best to finish school work because Sundays are just for the two of us. Sunday mornings are my favorite, R is the "Sunday-morning breakfast guy" and has perfected the morning meal. Then we get out of the house. This week it was checking out our local gym, a visit to one of Rotterdam's museums and the movies.

Progress all finally happened on Friday. That was 1. my landlord stopped by on her way to Switzerland (coming from Argentina) she fixed the TV, picked up her mail and answered some questions. It was cool meeting her face-to-face, she was super sweet and I was happy to have a non-email conversation with her. 2. the stuff we shipped finally cleared payment and customs so a delivery date was finally set (this one was a rather painful battle) 3. I received my So-Fi number!!!!! This is my Dutch social security number, which means I finally get to: open a bank account, get a contract for a cellnumber, get health insurance (ie get a bike), get a job (ie get income to pay for all of the above), sign up for Dutch lessons, be a real functioning person!

Which also means my blissfully easy chill schedule above is about to change. Fine by me. Tomorrow our stuff arrives which means I can also sign up for a gym membership because stuff = workout clothes and running shoes. Progress!

Now if only I could get Nikon to fix my damn camera...