Thanks to a properly-legalized form, a short taxi ride, and one HELL of a Fed-Ex bill, Mrs. Shannon Kosman and I are now, once again, legally married in the eyes of God, the Dutch Government, and our Facebook statuses.
Just got back from our second stop on the Immigration Train, this time to get registered as residents and get our BSN numbers (think Social Insurance or Social Security numbers).
In an interesting turn of events, due to an improperly-legalized form, it turns out that according to the Dutch government, Shannie and I aren’t legally married. Once the form gets filled out properly our marriage can be properly recognized in the Netherlands, but until that time, we’re registered as two single adults living at the same address.
So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go pick up chicks.
It’s been a full last couple of days on this side of the ocean. Where to begin…
First things first, we looked at 2 more apartments here, right in the same area of town (Jordaan) that we’re temporarily staying in. Both of these places are just a matter of a few blocks from our temp apartment. As per usual, kitchens!
Apartment 8
Pros:
Cons:
Chances: we adored this place. We would have put an offer on it right then and there, but we knew we had one more place to go see. Unless the last place was going to blow us away, this was the one we wanted. As it turns out…
Apartment 9
Pros:
Cons:
Chances: we told the broker showing us the apartment right then and there that we wanted it, hands down. As mentioned, he wasn’t sure if cats were allowed or not, so we’re waiting with bated breath to get the final word. This, out of all the places we’ve seen, is clearly the one that we want most of all. If, by some ill-fated stroke of luck the cats aren’t allowed, we already know that Apartment #8 is fine with them, so we’ll take that one. We’re supposed to hear back today, but it’s just after 5pm local time, so who knows. Might be tomorrow.
What else, what else, what else…
Oh yeah, immigration. We had to go to the Immigration Center this morning to get, I dunno, some sticker in our passports or something that says… oh, who am I kidding. I don’t understand immigration law at all. Stickers, stamps, a stack of paperwork I couldn’t see over, a slightly panicky phone call to the office when the agent we spoke to (mistakenly) said I wasn’t allowed to start work for another 4-6 weeks, and other arcane processes that were way over my pay grade all culminated in one less page in my passport for international customs stamps.
Did I mention the cab ride? The Immigration Center is in Den Haag, about 55km from Amsterdam.
It was about 1 hour each way. We were inside the office for maybe MAYBE 15 minutes, if even. Thank goodness the cab fare was paid for, it would have been about €115 (close to $190 CDN) each way. Yowch. Richard, our driver, was fantastic. Gave us all sorts of good info about Amsterdam, Holland, windmills, house construction, bike locks, and we got to listen to Madonna and Sinead O’Connor. What’s not to like about that?
And, um… banks. We have Dutch bank accounts now (currently empty). Converting our savings from Canadian dollars to Euros is going to be a little painful. Meh, it’s only money.
UPDATE: just before finishing this post, the realtor called. The cats are a deal-killer on the apartment we really wanted, so #8 it is. Good thing we love the little furballs. #8 is by no means a booby prize, as we loved the heck out of it, too. #8 is also much closer to the best cheese shop in the universe (that we’ve found so far).