Avontuur

A healthy and a happy New Year to those who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah (and anyone else who can use one!)

Ted has been and gone, so now I’m back to bicycling to work every day. There’s a Scandinavian saying that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing, and to some extent that’s true. (Clothing can’t do much about strong headwinds; when the weather is especially fierce I take the bus.) I rode in through drizzle this morning and was very comfortable in my rain jacket and rain pants (it is definitely Fall here, not summer; I’ve needed to wear jackets for a few weeks now). It’s a pleasant ride in; most of it is along bike paths that are not only separate from the road but completely away from it, through parks. It takes about half an hour, which is only slightly longer time it takes to drive to work. In fact, going home it’s faster to bike because of all the homebound traffic. Plus it’s nice to be able to get some exercise in during my commuting time. My Dutch classes have started back up two evenings a week so it’s harder to find time to work out otherwise.

Last week I went to Amsterdam to tour the Royal Palace on the Dam Square, which has been closed for a while. Of course, you can only see parts of it, but those parts include not only the great hall but also some of the rooms where heads of state stay. Odd, though: it’s the only palace I’ve ever seen that was originally built as a city hall. So a room might be furnished as a dining room or a spectacular bedroom with decor from the Napoleonic period, but the audio tour would be talking about which city burghers used to meet there. After that I walked over to Gassan DIamonds and took their tour – I was quote surprised that they took us into a small room and let us see a €70,000 diamond up close, not behind glass.

This weekend should be calm, but then things get hectic (in a good way). I’m rowing in a 50km tour around the city (not an aggressive marathon, a slow and scenic sort of tour) then my mom comes to visit, we go to London for a few days, we come back and I move into a new apartment while she’s still there (sorry, Mom), then she leaves and a few days later I go off to Taiwan.

Meanwhile Ted will be in the US, getitng some work done on the new house. I’m still not quite sure how he convinced me that moving to a new apartment (here in Eindhoven) before he gets here was a good idea…

- sirens (maybe once or twice a day)
- distant shouting (only once, when I had the windows open – I think there might have been a game in the nearby stadium
- church bells (from here – sorry, website is in Dutch, but it has pictures). I can only faintly hear it, unless the windows are open, in which case it’s a pleasant sound.
- traffic (but not very loud, and again only with windows open)

This is as opposed to the Taiwan apartment, whose soundscape featured:
- fireworks (all too often)
-singing from the temple nearby
- announcements from political trucks
- traffic
- any conversations anyone had in the space in front of our elevator, and some held in the next apartment
- every flush from the people upstairs (sounded like a waterfall over our bed).
- airplanes (the smaller local airport is right across the river)

As you might guess, I’m enjoying the quiet. Wish I could add the sound of Ted’s voice, but otherwise it’s nice.

Edited to add: I spoke too soon – apparently the party just hadn’t ststarted yet. Now I’m getting really loud music – recorded, and it keeps switching, so I’d guess it’s one of my neighbors rather than a bar, but I can’t really tell. Good thing I always keep earplugs around.

Some people have the knack of making a place looking homey in a very short time, without spending much money. I, on the other hand, have the much less useful knack of spending gobs of money (in a very short time) and just making the place look cluttered. Lived-in, yeah, that’s it. And I still don’t have a dish to put my new soap in or a rack for the wine I bought today. On the other hand, at least I have the useful things covered, not to mention a pretty clear set of indicators of my priorities: wine to drink and vacuum corks to seal it, pretzels to eat and a container to keep them fresh, nicely scented soap to wash with, an iPhone to play with call people on, speakers to plug my iPod into and so I can hear music, a bathmat to keep my feet warm after showering, a big mug (well, big by local standards, normal in the US) to drink tea out of. Desk supplies so I can write things and file paperwork, herbs and a big pot to cook with, things to wash up with after cooking.

And some tealights to go in the several candle-holders here, so I can at least pretend I’m good at the ornamental side of things.

Here’s a slightly fuzzy video of my new place in the Netherlands if anyone wants to see it. (It’s taken with an iPod, so the quality isn’t perfect and it’s a little shaky. Still, pretty impressive considering the size of an iPod Nano.)

When the movers came back after lunch, they took all my stuff downstairs and stacked it on the sidewalk. I felt sort of like a homeless person. Well, OK, a homeless person with a truly ridiculous amount of stuff. All told it came to 50 boxes, which seems like an awful lot considering it’s only clothing, books, assorted stuff, one bookshelf, one small chest of drawers and a storage ottoman.

They packed up everything, from my rowing shell (carefully labeled “CANOE”) and oars (carefully labeled “PADDLES”) on down to a big piece of styrofoam I took in case I need to cartop the boat to the boathouse in EIndhoven. Even the styrofoam was boxed (carefully labeled, you guessed it, “STYROFOAM”).

I can’t say I’m totally sure my boat will survive the voyage unscathed, but they really did a pretty good job; it’s supported by boxes and tied to the roof of the container so it can’t move much. I thought the container would be quite empty, but it’s fuller than I expected. Not as full as it looks, however; in a really genius move, they used empty boxes to fill out the remaining empty floor area, so nothing can shift. They were good about taking suggestions from me, too, so the boat is padded with cushions of extra bubble-wrap at all support points and under all the tiedowns, and they taped all the empty boxes (which, by the way, are carefully labeled “EMPTY BOX”) together so they’re less likely to shift in rough seas.

I got pretty filthy climbing into the truck to check on stuff and take pictures. I’ll have to do at least one more load of laundry before I leave. Luckily, since I don’t have a whole lot of clothing left, it turns out Ted’s cargo shorts fit me quite nicely!

Full:

Empty:

You can see why that room was ideal for my craft stuff; I’m going to miss it. (Especially because Dutch apartments don’t really do storage – though this new one is a lot better than our last place. (Walk-in closet!!) Hopefully, someday we’ll build or renovate a house back home and I can recreate something like it.

No, not really.

Of course I realized what else could go in the air freight (I get 30 kilos) right after they sealed the box. Oh well. Supposedly the airfreight will arrive in 10 days and the stuff that goes by sea in 5 weeks, but when we came to Taiwan the air freight got hung up in Customs and the sea freight arrived early, so they were only a week or two apart. My luggage is already at 20 kg and I haven’t added my computer yet (I’m bringing both work and personal laptops, one in my suitcase and one in my carry-on) so I’m pretty sure it will be overweight, but if it is I’ll just pay for a kilo or two. Hopefully I can use air miles from their partnered program.

The movers seem slightly taken aback by my boat – they knew about it, of course, but it is 9″ longer than the container, so they’ll need to be a little creative. The coordinator asked if they could move it with Ted’s boat when he comes out if the fit is too tight, but to do that I’d have to take it back to Yi-Lan – if I leave it in the park here it will get damaged whenever they move it out for typhoons. I think they can slant it if necessary, on a base of boxes.

They arrived 45 minutes ago and have packed about 15 boxes so far. Pretty fast!

Thank goodness that’s over. What a stressmare.

On Wednesday I received the following email from one of the rowing coaches:
“Hello Paula

I have been announced by the government that all the boats have to
move away this week or they will move by themselves, because of
dragonboat festival.They will put it back after that.”

(He meant the city government would move the boats themselves. We have not yet achieved self-propelled rowing shells, unfortunately.)

Now, this is progress, because any of the other times the boats have been moved we were not informed in advance. However, this year we’ve met Henry, another local rowing coach (from a school) who is both very nice and speaks good English, so he was being kind to send this notice along. However, every time the government has moved our boat they’ve come back with new dents and dings – the last time, Ted’s Empacher needed repairs to be even rowable.

My boat was not a problem; One of Henry’s kids borrowed it and scratched the paint, so he’s taking it to an automotive place to get the scratches repainted. He’ll just leave it there during the festival. Also, as an open water boat it’s sturdy as rowing shells go and has an excellent cover that completely surrounds the boat. Ted’s Empacher prima donna, though, is more fragile and has a sucky cover that leaves the top deck exposed. (Boats are usually stored upside down.) Ted reallyreally didn’t want the government to hurt it again.

Ted, may I point out, is also in the Netherlands racing the Elfstedentocht this weekend.

Moving the boats would have been no big deal in AZ, where we had a good rack, a Hummer to mount it to, and a big back yard, though. Here, though, my assets included a rack we’d never used, an SUV wth built in rack whose bars are way too close together to support a 27′ boat well and which are too wide to fit the U-bolts that came with the boat rack, and no yard. There is no way a truck with boat on top could get through the snail-spiral entrance to our apartment garage – I probably couldn’t even carry it down – and nowhere really to put it in the garage. However, I did have one other asset: lots of people willing to help.

I panicked a bit and was tempted to let the government deal with it because no other options seemed really feasible, but Ted was very worried about his boat. Fortunately he has one guy in his group who is both very handy and very familiar with our logistics and warehouse facility, and they’d talked about possible boat moving an storage options. Further, I have to meet a few people in my group at our office this weekend, to give them a ride to a group barbeque, so I’d have extra hands to help unload the boat. I talked to one who agred to help, and later asked another about the legalities of driving with something sticking out over both ends of the car. (He googled around a bit, but didn’t find much.)

Just when it was beginning to look somewhat possible, it turned out that when the Taipei city government said to move the boats this week, they meant THIS WEEK, as in before the weekend. Henry found out Tuesday and the boats were originally supposed to be moved Wednesday (apparently they told his school and the school didn’t tell him). The boats hadn’t been moved by the time Henry left the river Wednesday (he told me in subsequent emails), so he thought they’d actually be moved on Friday.

So now I had one day to get the rack assembled and mounted and the boat moved. Also, it’s really not easy to get a boat on a cartop single-handed; when you’re my size it’s not really possible without the risk of a few more scratches.

That’s where the people asset came in. The guy in Ted’s group, R, took me to talk to the logistics people who own the warehouse. The manager suggested a place for the boat had someone in her group email me the proper “Non-Inventory Storage Form”. (Are you counting? That’s six people helping so far.) R spent a lot of effort (and scrounged a few parts), figuring out how to mount the rack on the car (it had come missing a few bolts – apparently the Chinese (China-Chinese, not Taiwan) company I bought it from concentrates their quality control on the actual boats,
which at least is the right priority). He went off and got things ready, then we spent a sweaty hour or so assembling and mounting the rack. I left work early – with my boss’s permission since we don’t have flex-time here (Seven people) – and drove to where the boats were stored by the river, listening for creaks and watching for motion in the rack.

I was pretty nervous by then, knowing that the trickiest bit of driving would be getting from the river to my apartment – narrow roads, lots of turns, rush hour. On the way home, though, I saw one of the most vivid rainbows I’ve ever seen, and about the first one I’ve seen here. When I first saw it, it ended spectacularly right at the Taipei 101 building. That made me feel a lot better – whether you view rainbows from a purely religious viewpoint (a promise from God that everything will be all right) or a purely secular one (a reminder that there are wonders in this world) they are calming.

The rowing coach (I already counted him) met me there and helped put the boat on the rack, clearly as much of a veteran at this as I am. He showed me a way out of the park that didn’t involve crossing three lanes of traffic and making a U-turn, and followed me home to watch the back end of the boat nad keep anyone from getting too close. We got there to find part of the street closed but fortunately not until after my building. I parked on the street in a spot that’s legal after 8. It was only 6 PM but it’s a tiny steet and the building guard (eight) was there to watch. Henry explained the boat thing to him, and then left.

After all that I erged, so I could get up early and not have to do it this morning. I was on the road before 6:30 – not only less traffic but fewer cops. I parked in back of the office, diagonally across a few spots that are usually empty, then worked until people came in. No one in my group had seen either a rowing shell or the warehouse area, so five people came with me to get the warehouse people (who only speak Chinese) to open the door and help carry the boat in. (Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen – fourteen people helping, counting the warehouse guy.) We got the boat in and the rack dismounted, I returned a wrench I’d borrowed from R, and got back to my desk – just in time to wash my hands, get a drink, and go teach a class to some of Ted’s people. (Never marry a manager, they make you work. Remember that this was not my boat.)

I’m sure this was all tiring to read. You can imagine what it was like to live. Now at least it’s all done for a few weeks – after that we’ll load up both boats and take them out to store in the boathouse at Ilan. It’s an hour’s drive away but there’s a boathouse and a real dock so at least we’ll get on the water sometimes. At least there will be two of us for that operation; somehow this stuff always happens when Ted is away.

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. We’re in the midst of a game of Musical Countries. First Ted was in the Netherlands for a week and a half. He got back Wednesday night and we leave tomorrow for the US, where we’ll be spending some time with relatives in DC, then doing some driving through NC and TN. We’ll be there for two weeks, then we get back and a week later I leave for the Netherlands. That trip is planned for three weeks but will probably extend longer. I hope so, because otherwise I leave Eindhoven just as Ted gets there!

Yesterday we got our Taiwanese drivers’ licenses. It went fairly smoothly; someone came to our apartment to pick us up and shepherd us through the process. The biggest delay was because their book of international identifications was apparently out of date and didn’t quite match the Dutch drivers’ licenses we acquired last year. (We couldn’t just pull out our US ones because the Dutch ones were authenticated and translated before we left, just for this purpose.) They had to put our Chinese names on the licenses because the US versions had too many letters to fit, but they had some trouble with Ted’s name. Our HR here didn’t bother to come up with a new translation for it and just kept using the one someone translated when he frst started coming here on business a decade ago. It’s a literal conversion of the syllables to Chinese phonemes; “Ted” comes out “Tai-duh” and with his last name the whole thing is about 7 Chinese characters – the usual is three. So they had to just put part of it on the license. Our helper said it didn’t matter anyway because they just look at the ARC number.

We spent a chunk of today at the bank. I got my account last week, but since Ted was out of the country he didn’t get to open his until today. The bank person made an office visit again, but then we had to go to the bank branch to deposit all that cash they gave me for our November and December paychecks. We also transferred money to our US accounts, took out some US cash, Ted changed his bank card passwords and his internet passwords, and they issued us each yet another password to allow us to transfer money to each other’s accounts. (Actually, we think they allow us to transfer money to anyone else’s account, for instance to pay bills online.) I reckon we each have seven different passwords and strings of characters to do business with that bank: ARC, nickname and password to log on online, transfer password, bankcard password for domestic use and a different one for using it in other countries, and a password for bankbook transactions. All told, we were there for about an hour and a half, even though everyone was very helpful and the person helping us spoke fairly good English.

If anyone needs to reach us while we’re in the US for the next two weeks, our mobile phones should work there.

When I said they handed me our pay in cash …. US$1 = NT$32. Two people’s salary for two months. And the largest bill they have here is NT$1000, which is about $31 US.

I mean, it came in bags like small lunch sacks. Good thing I had a backpack.