#2 August 15, 2011 Settling in to Our Neighbor

We have a modest but comfortable 2nd floor flat at the end of a long row of connected homes on a quiet residential street.  Its about 950 square feet with 4 rooms, including an office with book shelves, and all the typical apartment-style furnishings: a couple easy chairs, TV, dishwasher, table, desk, and one of those stacked washer/dryer combos, with a washer that sounds like its trying to achieve sub-orbital speed when it hits its spin cycle.  It has a tree-shaded balcony overlooking the court at the end of the street, which we have already used extensively for enjoying coffee in the morning or a beer in the evening.  This is the first time the owners, Hanneke and Marcus, have rented it out.  He is an airline pilot flying out of Spain, and she decided to spend more time there, so we are now living in their “baby”.

The neighbors are very friendly.  Florine and Arthur live on the bottom floor with their kids, 3 little blond bundles of energy aged 7,5, and 3.  Florine is a stay-at-home mom, and Arthur runs a business.  Above us are Crystal and Sanna.  They have one little tow-headed boy of 2, and one more child on the way.  Sanna looks for all the world like a California surfer dude.  He is finishing the last year in his medical training as a surgeon.  Crystal manages a foundation she established which builds schools for under privileged in Nicaragua. Just around the corner in the intersecting line of row houses is Jan and Ank (“Anna).  She is a retired English teacher and he is a nearly retired civil engineer.  They invited us out for a wonderful bike ride through the surrounding countryside this past Saturday, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

We love going down to “Roberto’s”, the little neighborhood gelato shop a couple blocks away.  We are never quite sure what flavor we are ordering, but they are all good and made fresh on the premises.  There are usually other neighbors down there as well, and best of all, they don’t sing to you like at Coldstone.  Another favorite is the little bakery a little further down the street where they make fresh croissants and bread every morning.  Further away out on the busy street (“Biltstraat”), we have discovered a California Bagel shop, “Beans and Bagels”, with the best latte’s and bagels with interesting and delicious spreads.  It is always packed with students.

The most interesting feature of our neighborhood, however, is a huge medieval building down the street with two towering gothic spires with high shuttered windows on it.  The sign outside identifies it as a “hoge school” (a combination junior college and 4 year state college), but to us it is “Hogwarts High School.”  It looks like it is right out of central casting.  School hasn’t started yet, but we are looking forward to watching the quiddich games and the occasional errant lightning bolt that might escape.

Our neighborhood, like most in Holland, has its own “green” car as well.  Cars are more expensive to own and run here, so a government program parks cars permanently in many neighborhoods.  Local residents can set up accounts and reserve the cars for trips when needed.  Normally they would run their errands on their bikes, but when they need  to run an errand requiring a car, they can go online and get an access code and use the local “green car”.  The cost is charged to their account.  Back home, we have a similar thing, but we call them “bait” cars.

     Time to venture out of our neighborhood and explore Utrecht- the University town!

#1 August 10, 2011: The Adventure begins

All I could think of was "We must be out of our blooming minds."  We were sitting in SFO with a one-way ticket to The Netherlands.

A one-way ticket.  Thats like, no set return.  Who does that for their retirement? I had a comfortable retirement job taking temporary assignments for the state after 20 years as a Judge.  Why would anyone want to disrupt that for a one-way ticket?

Ever since my college days and my time in Europe with the Army in the seventies, I have nursed a secret desire to study in Europe.  I thought that maybe this itch would be relieved after being sent by the state on a paid sabbatical to The Hague in 2006 for four months, but, unfortunately, it just got worse.  I was like an addict.  I had to have more.

After I retired, it was all I could think of.  I spent hours at the computer, neglecting my wife and other family responsibilities.  Finally I selected the ideal program studying war crimes at the University of Utrecht Law School in Holland, just a 45 minute train ride from The Hague.  It would be a year long program.  Although the other participants would all be practicing attorneys, I would certainly be the oldest.

My wife, whose common sense was no better than mine, liked the idea and agreed to it.  We spent the summer making the preparations to rent our house ("My beautiful house that I spent so much time decorating!" she said.)  We farmed out what furniture we could to our kids and stored the rest.  We gave our old cars to our kids.  We got a PO box and sent in a forwarding address.  We checked out the flats in Utrecht over the internet, picked one out and rented it.  We tried to think of whatever we would need to do to be gone for a year.

When the day came to get on the plane, we were exhausted and ready.  We were hoping it would be  a routine flight.  It almost was.

Of course, all the things we anticipated might be a problem went well without a hitch.  All our luggage, all  6 bags at around 250 pounds, was accepted at the Modesto airport with no extra charge and checked through to our destination, Brussels.  What a relief that was.  Later, we would find out it was really a bit of a curse as well.  The flight to San Francisco Airport was uneventful and we got checked through to our gate in plenty of time to relax and have some breakfast.  Then as the first boarding announcement was being made for our flight, I felt my face get flushed and hot, I started feeling queasy, and felt a sharp pain in my left side, just above the kidney.  I had felt this feeling before.  This is exactly how it felt every other time I had a kidney stone attack.

 The start of a 14 hour flight is NOT a good time to get a kidney stone attack.  The last two times, I had to go to the ER because the stone was too big to pass and I was vomiting uncontrollably.  They had to blast it to oblivion while I was out cold.  I seriously considered telling the ticket agent to cancel our tickets and have Veronica take me to the hospital.  I did not want to have such an attack while the plane was in flight.  I only had 10 minutes to decide.

I decided to get on the plane and hope it would go away.

It did not.  I got worse on the plane.  Veronica noticed and starting getting concerned, but I told her it was just an upset stomach so as not to cause her any anxiety (she hates it when I do that).  I started drinking as much water as I could.  And spending lots of time in the bathroom. Fortunately, I did not start vomiting uncontrollably, so the plane did not have to make an emergency landing in the middle of Kansas.  When we touched down at O'Hare, I was actually starting to feel a little better.  During our lay over there, I leveled with Veronica about what was going on.  She rounded up some McDonalds lemon freeze and some lemon wedges from the bar for me to suck on (lemon is supposed to neutralize the acid that forms my stones).  

I dont know if it was really a kidney stone or just nerves or what, but by the time we boarded the flight to Brussels, I was feeling pretty normal once again.  Glad I didn't call off the trip.  

The flight to Brussels was peacefully routine and we were able to sleep during the flight.  We landed in Brussels and picked up all of our luggage with no problems.  We were feeling pretty good about the trip at this point.  The full impact, however, of deciding to try to negotiate the train system from Brussels to Utrecht with our 6 suitcases was about to hit us.

I don't know why I decided to chose the train as opposed to renting a car.  I have no problem renting cars in Europe and have done so on previous trips.  In hindsight, I could say that I was lulled into complacency by how easy and efficient the Dutch train system is. I could say I was impressed by how easy it was to get from the Amsterdam airport to The Hague before.  But in reality, it was really nothing more than a total brain fart.  I just didn't think it out.  It just never occurred to me that a car would work so much better.

So we bought train tickets and shlepped all our bags onto the train from the airport.  Now there are a couple of funny things about Belch trains.  First, they really aren't set up to handle passengers with 6 bags.  I guess they figure if you are just going from Brussels to Utrecht, you probably don't need 250 pounds of luggage.  So there is plenty of room for a briefcase or an overnight bag, but other luggage can only go right in the entry aisle between cars- inconvenient for all.  I thought one conductor was going to throw us off. 

The other thing is that they sell you a ticket based on where you start and where you want to end up.  They don't bother to list where you have to change trains to get there.  I guess they figure thats up to you to do.  I guess they figure there is usually more than one way to get to most big cities, and its up to you to decide how you want to get there. Of course we had to go to the main station in Brussels and change trains.  Of course, I got us off at the wrong station and we had to change trains again to get onto the right one.  Of course, the train stops in Antwerp to board new passengers, most of which are pick pockets and baggage thieves, so while I was watching people trip over our luggage in the entry aisle, one of them snagged my backpack from beside Veronica and was off the train and gone before she could even react. Fortunately, it did not contain any money or credit cards, no cameras or computers.  But it did contain our passports, my glasses, and my mac backup hard drive.

We reported it to the conductor as the train was pulling away and he unsympathetically said something similar to "Stupid Americans, you must get off at the next stop and report it to the police.  They arrested a couple thieves, so maybe they recovered your items."  I looked at the 6 bags and considered bribing the conductor not to tell anyone that we had been theft victims.  Then I felt waves of anger at the thief for taking the lightest bag and leaving me still with 250 pounds.  Eventually we decided that we did have to get off at the next stop, which was the Belch version of Smallsville, and contact the police there to see  if we needed to return to Antwerp. So all 6 bags went off the train one more time.

The station attendants and the local police were very friendly and helpful, but the news was both good and bad.  The bad news: they did arrest two thieves, but apparently there were so many this was just the tip of the ice berg, and the ones with my stuff got away.  The good news: we DID NOT have to go back to Antwerp with our 250 pounds and unload and load it again to claim anything.  So we loaded back up on the next train to Utrecht once again. 

Another change of trains in Rotterdam (my arms and back were jello by this time, and Veronica was looking a little peaked) with an added surprise. The train to Utrecht was three tracks over.  To get there, we had to go up an infinite number of steps to an overpass and back down.  Due to construction, there was no elevator.  As Veronica and I stood at the bottom with our 6 suitcases staring up, we both unconsciously began looking down at the gulf where tracks separated us from where we wanted to be, silently calculating in our minds how much further it was going up and over as opposed to down and across.  We both caught ourselves checking to see how far away the oncoming train was before we snapped out of it and realized that up and over was the only way.

 So up and over we went just in time to catch the train to Utrecht, with the sympathetic help of a number of local Dutch passers-by.  We arrived in Utrecht tired and exhausted.  I managed to go the real estate agent's office while Veronica watched the luggage at the station.  I returned with the keys and we made our way to the taxi stand to head over to the flat to meet the agent.  One last hitch however.  Seems that Dutch regulations prevent carrying any luggage in the seats, it must all fit in the trunk, which ours would not, even in the biggest cab there.  So we took TWO cabs to the flat.  (That seemed cheaper than hiring a lorry.)  After going through the details with the agent, we fell into bed totally spent.

Tomorrow we would have a chance to explore the neighborhood, but for tonight, we were toast.