Dutch Adventures: Week Five
Week Five: Boardgaming, Immigration Progress, and Maeslantkering
The week covering Sunday 9 September to Saturday 15 September.
This week I came out of the headache cluster (eventually), we played some games, visited IND, looked at apartments, and watched the Maeslantkering barrier test closure (which was so cool).
Sunday 9 September I was definitely not 100%, so Billy went to the store without me. We took a walk around the block in the evening and that (plus 2 Advil and hours of stretching) seemed to help.
Monday 10 September – Another day at home, working on laundry, computer stuff, etc.
On Tuesday evening we took the train to Nijmegen to game with a gaming guild. They game on most Tuesday nights, arranging which games and which gamers at each game in advance. It appears to be spread out among houses too, so it’ll be something like:
Root
Nikki, Billy, Cole, Avri
At Nikki and Billy’s
Eclipse
Roger, Jonathan, Julia
At Roger’s
Kind of interesting way to do it. Makes it easy to know what you’re playing that night, so that’s kind of cool.
We did play Eclipse that night, and knowing what we were going to play allowed me and Billy to watch how to play videos in advance.
The game was running late though and we were going to miss the last train back if we didn’t leave soon, so we considered calling it a game and not playing out the last turn but Richard offered to drive us home, so we finished the game.
[Side note: if someone says they’ll “pick you up at the station” that might very well mean they are meeting you there on foot and will walk with you to the next destination, no vehicle involved. Those wacky Dutch!]
Wednesday 12 September we were back on the train, headed past Nijmegen to Den Bosch to give the IND my fingerprints and have my photo taken. They still have the full 3 months to process my application (into mid-November) but we’re hopeful it’ll be done sooner than then.
We had managed to get an apartment viewing that afternoon so we had to hop back on the train and get back to Arnhem. Housing has proven difficult to get into, so actually getting an appointment to see a place (instead of, No sorry it’s already been taken) was an important improvement.
We got some good luck and got appointments to see 3 places between Wednesday and Thursday!
Here’s the crazy story: the boots I wear everywhere are slowly dying, so I have been wanting to shop for new ones. We were running errands on Wednesday in the city center, where the apartment to be seen was, so we stopped in a shoe place. They had a few options for me to try, and while there, I of course started up a conversation with the sales lady helping me. The usual questions were asked: why moving to Europe, why Arnhem, what do we do for work, etc.
We mentioned that we were apartment hunting, and she said that her old landlord was looking for new tenants, and asked if we wanted his information. Yes! After seeing apartment #1 that afternoon (and before what became #3 the following evening), we contacted him and got a viewing for the next afternoon.
Thursday we saw Apartment #2, stopping by Vendetta before and after to chat. It’s right by the Velporpoort train and bus stations; very easy for us to get to. We went home and had the viewing for Apartment #3 in a few hours, but I wasn’t feeling well (I think some eggs didn’t agree with me) so I stayed home and rested while Billy went and checked it out.
So of the 3 apartments we saw:
#1 and #3 – two apartments in the same building, same floor of the building, and reasonably alike: center of town, 3rd floor (something like 4 levels of narrow, Dutch, switchback stairs). Flooring and most of the light fixtures stay. Not a shoe box but not spacious either. No balcony. A few windows in front, one in back. Two rooms, so one used for living room and one for bedroom generally. Own toilet & shower room. Have to provide own fridge and washing machine. Front door to leave the building takes you pretty much to the restaurant next door. “Oh hi, eating people, I’m leaving to go get groceries…” The price was inclusive, which means gas, water, and electric (GWE) are covered, but you still pay your own internet and TV.
#2 – around the corner from Vendetta in the Spijkerkwartier, an area that was built up in the 1860’s and forward, and around 10 years ago had a bit of a spicy reputation (red light district). That’s been “cleaned up” (which makes me and Billy wonder where the prostitutes went) and is now a desired area. It’s a second floor apartment (remember it’s ground, then 1st floor, then 2nd) so still some stairs but not quite as narrow of a hallway as the ones in the city center. No balcony. Residential street, but shopping very nearby. Flooring all done by the landlord, who lives with his family on the ground and 1st floors. They rent out the 2nd floor (one we saw) and 3rd floor as separate apartments.
Two rooms, very spacious feeling, many windows. Comes with access to washer (in the hallway, but exclusive use), own toilet/shower room, kitchen with fridge, dishwasher, induction stove top, and convection oven/microwave. Base rent is one thing, but they also then charge for the GWE and internet & tv, so all together it was more than #1 and #3, but not by a lot. Compared to the cost of apartments in Denver, it’s reasonable. Plus we don’t have to worry about contacting utility or cable providers.
You’ll never guess which one we chose. 
Friday the 14th – We went to Vendetta and played Gaia Project aka Terra Mystica in space. There was also a fellow scheduled to be there making pizzas in a small oven, out on the sidewalk (pizzabakfiets, for you who speak Dutch), and he and I had chatted about gluten free ahead of time. He was game, so at one point in the evening he ran his little oven super hot to burn off the previous pizzas and made me a gf one. It was tasty, and I thought it was really nice that he did that for me.
On Saturday Sept 15 we headed out toward Rotterdam to see the Maeslantkering test! The Dutch are always looking at ways to deal with the destructive sides of water, so one solution is to keep the water out of the land when it’s really bad, like a super big, 10-year storm. (There was one in January 2018 actually.) They built a huge storm barrier that sits on the sides of the river bank in 2 parts (one on each side), and if the sea is predicted to rise over 5 meters, the barrier begins its closing procedure. They test it (and a companion barrier further inland) once a year to make sure they’re ready for the coming storm season. It’s amazing.
Maeslantkering barrier (one side) in the closed position.
We got to take a tour and actually touch it and learned a whole lot about the engineering that went into it. You can also see great videos online.
There are so many cool things I could say about this – I’d be here all day! (I’ll actually make another post just about it.) We watched the closing (which takes about 30 minutes for the sides to go from open to closed) but didn’t stay for the next part, which is the sinking to rest on the ground (which takes about 2 hours). They have to do the test in high tide, so they wait until the next high tide (12 hours later) to open them back up and finish the test.
It’s around 3 hours of travel each way, so we left around 11 am and got home pretty late (like 10:30, 11 pm) so it was a long day but very much worth it.
