A funny thing happened...

Well, we have officially been here for 2 weeks today and are doing much better and finding our way around the city.  We've both now got a full week of work under our belts and are starting to get into a more "normal" routine.

We've discovered that St. Patty's Day isn't quite the huge deal in Amsterdam as it is back in the States.  There were of course, many people dressed up and celebrating the day, but nothing like the magnitude of celebration back home, where EVERYONE wears green regardless of heritage.  We did go out for a few drinks and something to eat with Jen Lyons and her boyfriend Jim (Dan's colleague from Grand Rapids), and that was nice to be able to have visitors from home!

We had quite the experience yesterday with our chipcards for the metro and tram.  Before we met up with Jen and Jim, we went to Centraal Station to reload our chipcards, just as we did the weekend before.  It was a fairly nice day out, so we decided to walk to Rembrandt Square where we were meeting Jen and Jim.  It was not until we were leaving to get on the tram to return home that we discovered that for some reason or another, our cards were not working.  We could not figure out why or how this happened, as we both had just reloaded them with a sufficient amount of money.  We asked someone at the metro station where we go to head home, and they suggested we go back to Centraal Station and find out what happened.  Off we headed and then had to re-explain everything.  One of the GVB officers didn't believe Abby but let her through the gates anyways, making sure to tell her to buy a ticket.  We finally found out that we needed to go to the GVB Information office across the street and as luck would have it, they close early on the weekends and we missed the time by just about 1 hour.  Finally we just decided to buy 24-hour chipcards and we are going into the GVB Information office this afternoon to find out what happened.

Just when we thought the evening could not get any more strange, we were on the metro heading back home when a woman we assumed was a GVB officer came and started scanning tickets.  Luckily our 24-hour ones were read, so that was no issue.  There was a man that was with her but kind of stayed off to the side - it is very hard to explain.  We were both very confused as to what was going on, as both of these people were in plain clothes and then both simply started talking with random people on the metro.  A few stops later, both of them got off and that was that.  We both just looked at each other and said, "Did that really just happen??"  It was the strangest thing.  We made up stories about what could possibly have been going on, such as they were undercover police or running a scam or something like that, so that was definitely amusing!

We hope all is well back home and that everyone is healthy and happy!  We are looking at coming home from June 9th until probably the 23rd for Abby's cousin Jill's wedding and are definitely looking forward to seeing a lot of family and friends while home.

As usual, thanks to everyone for your support!

Starting to get settled in...

Well, we have been here for a few days now and are feeling more familiar with the area (one of us is better at navigating than the other...but I'm sure you all know which of us that is!).  On Monday we met with our HR department to sign a few papers and then headed over to the immigration lawyer's office to sign even more papers for IND (this is where we had to go to complete our VISA paperwork).  Later that afternoon we had another appointment set up at the actual IND office, which was about an hour's train ride away, towards The Hague.  Needless to say, we were quite exhausted by the end of the day!


On Tuesday we ventured into the city again to walk around a bit.  We found a fantastic burger place called the Burger Bar and it was DELICIOUS!  We were able to figure out what routes on the Metro and Tram we needed to take to get to work and then finally went back to our temporary lodging.


We both started work on Wednesday and it went well!  We are in different offices, so we never see each other during the day at work like we did on breaks and lunch back home.  Naturally, we both had issues with getting our rights/computer profiles transferred, but hopefully by tomorrow we will both have our work emails working.  


Jen Lyons from Dan's team back home will be here this coming Monday for training and we just found out today that Jen Warner from Abby's team back home will be here at the beginning of next month for training and are VERY excited to have some friends from home come to visit!  When Jen Warner comes, we may be planning a weekend trip to Paris, which will be a lot of fun.


That's all for now.  Thanks again to all for your support, prayers and encouragement; we really appreciate it!

We made it!

After a long flight (those airplane seats sure aren't made for sleeping in!), we arrived at Schipol Amsterdam airport about 30 minutes before our scheduled arrival time this morning.  We got to our temporary housing without any problems and then took a quick catnap.  We didn't want to sleep too much or else we wouldn't be able to fall asleep tonight and with the time difference, we definitely want to get on a normal sleeping schedule as soon as possible.  


Once we felt a little more refreshed, we decided to try the tram/metro and found our way into the Amsterdam City Center where we walked around quite a bit trying to familiarize ourselves with the tram schedule and the layout of the city.  We also wanted to find the Booking.com office that we will be going to tomorrow to do some more paperwork.  We were able to accomplish this so we should have no problems getting there tomorrow morning on time.  


To sum up, we are VERY tired from the trip but thankful that we made it safely and are starting to get a bit more familiar with the area.


Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers and well-wishes!  We love you!

Well folks, this is it - our last few hours in the States!  The past few days have been full of packing up our lives here and making sure we remembered everything we need.  It's been a bit stressful but we did it!  We are meeting up with both of our families at the airport in just over an hour to say our final farewells.  This moment has seemed so far away for so long, and now that it's here, it's a bit surreal. 

We want to thank everyone for your support and encouragement.  We have tried to see and talk to everyone we could over the past few days.  We know there are some friends and family that we didn't get the chance to see or talk to, and we are very sorry for that.  We will be back home in Michigan for about 2 weeks in the middle of June, so hopefully we can catch up with many of you that we didn't get to see before we left!  Again,thanks for the amazing show of love, support, encouragement and prayers that you all have sent our way. 

We look forward to sharing our journeys and travels with you!