Amsterdam Day 7: Actual Commute to Work

We are going to go with a vlog today. Enjoy!

Amsterdam Day 6: First Day of Work

I woke up today at 7am ready to go to work in the new office. I had a long commute by bike planned this morning so I wanted to have plenty of time in case I went the wrong direction. I left for work at 740am and after 5 grueling minutes I arrived at 745am. It took me another minute to lock up the bike and another to walk into the office. I think I could get used to this commute after my 30 minute drive into Atlanta. 

Most of the team was in place today so I took them all out for lunch. I thought it was hilarious that all 6 of us walked out together, unlocked our bikes, and rode the 5 minutes to the Chinese restaurant together. What a fun team activity to take a bike ride together. 

At about 5:30pm, I was ready for the long commute back home. After picking up the family, we went for a ride out to Jannica's and Ryan's new school. We wanted to figure out the best path with the least traffic for the girls to get to and from school. With Bev on her own bike, it took 12 minutes.  It should be less without Bev. Very doable for the girls on there own, although I am scared about Ryan doing it on her own without Jannica when Jannica has extra-curricular activities. We shall see how that works out in the future. 

We ordered pizza from a local Italian place called Domino's and went to go pick up the pizza. Here is the pic that describes how the delivery works.

Amsterdam Day 5 - Church

Today we woke up early to go to church. As far as we could tell, we had 2 options to get there. 1) take public transportation - about 1 hour away or 2) ride our bikes. We decided to do both. If we drove it, it would only take us about 20 minutes as it is only 12 kilometers away (you figure out how far that is in miles), but alas, we have no car, yet. So Jaimee took off with Cam and Bev and braved figuring out public transportation. Jannica, Ryan, Charlie and I took off on our bikes. Google maps estimated 34 minutes for the ride, but that must not be at the speed of a 9 year old. It ended up taking about an hour, but we still beat Jaimee by about 10 minutes. 

The ride to church takes us through a little bit of beautiful countryside and a beautiful little town on the Amstel river. There are cows, sheep, and horses along the way. There are few fences separating us from the livestock. They use little canals to keep the livestock on the property with little bridges with fences on them for the people to cross. I don't see how it really works to keep the cows in but then I'm not a cow (although Jaimee would argue that point). Further down the road are little farms, farmhouses, and windmills dotting the country side. It is an amazingly beautiful ride. And the best part is that it is all flat. 

Church goes from 10am to 1pm. We will have to describe church later as it is a true international affair with translation into English and Spanish. There were not a lot of people in attendance this week as all the Dutch take off 3 or 4 weeks at this time of year for vacation, or Holiday as the Brits say. After church, the young women get together for 30 minutes and chat over "Mormom Coffee". Jannica says that it is really gross and she is going to bring hot chocolate next week. It was a good time to chat and get to know each other. She was able to get the phone numbers from the other three girls that are her age so that she will have some friends here. 

The ride home from church was equally fun but with a bit more sun. My poor head got a sunburn from the ride. And poor little Charlie fell asleep on the way home. He had the hardest time getting comfortable leaning back and then laying his head on my back. But the bumps in the ride kept getting in the way of a good sleep. 

And by the way, we beat Jaimee home by about 15 minutes. I'm not sure if this public transport/biking only lifestyle is going to last long. I love how fit I feel, but this might be a bit excessive. I see a car, but only one, in our near future. 

Amsterdam Day 4: Cameron

We rode our bikes to the park today. We played in the water. They had a fountain. It made me feel good. I rode home cold and wet. 

We went climbing with a new friend. I hung upside down on this. This was great. 

We went for a long bike ride in the evening. But I don't want to talk about it. Because it wasn't fun. My legs were hurting. Because we went for a long ride. 

Amsterdam Day 3 - Ryan

There is an outdoor market on Tuesdays and Fridays. I love it. It makes me so happy. We bought dried mango slices. About 300gm of it. And two things of bread.

I rode side-saddle with my mom on Jac's bike. She rode and I held onto her. I can do it with one hand. It was fun. 

I got a bike today. It is blue and gray. It has gears 1, 2, and 3, triggers and hand breaks and peddle breaks. I love it. 

Love you all. 

Love,

RYAN

Amsterdam Day 2 - Jannica

My thoughts on moving to Amsterdam first two days

The first day for me was not really the best. I thought that it was the longest day in my life (I have some pretty long days too). When we got home I thought well... This is my new home... I had to get everything out of my suitcases from my summer break at my moms house, then I went outside on our upper porch and found a good place to sit. When I sat down I started thinking of everything at my old house and how it would be so great to just not deal with moving and stay there. I started thinking about my friends and how I was doing at school. I just started to bawl. I was just wishing that I could go back home. After a while I got over it and decided I need to stop grieving and just make the best out of living here. It isn't very easy to do that but so far I think I have tried my best to give this place a chance. I just dealt with it and I helped my dad build my wardrobe from my room. We went out to eat at McDonalds which of course was gross but that wasn't the bad thing about it. My family was so tired that we just started getting on each other's nerves. When we got home I wrote in my journal then I just went to bed. 

The next day was a lot better. We all had gotten a lot more sleep. Once everybody was awake we went on a team and my dad and I got bikes. After we got bikes ordered we had a while till they were done so we went to go get some food. 

After we got food we went out to the daily flea market. We just walked through and looked at things. Once we were done with that we went to the Rijk's museum and looked out on the park to see a portrait of Van Gough made with flowers made by the people from his hometown. 

We didn't go inside the museum because we had more planned for the day. After that we split up. My dad and I went to go get our bikes and the others went back home to chill out. The bike ride was a long way back to our house. We finally got home. A while after we got home the guys from our air shipment was taking things into our house. When they left we started unpacking. After we unpacked a little I put things into my wardrobe and I haven't finished that yet. Hopefully by the end of this week it will all be done. So overall I think that this move has been an interesting experience. 

Day 1: Our Adventure Living in Amsterdam

We arrived at the Amsterdam airport after a 10 hour flight from Salt Lake City. The kids slept a good 4 or 5 hours, which you know is going to make for a wonderful day. We excitedly exited the plane to pick up our bags. We had to get three baggage carts to carry the 19 bags, 3 car seats, and 3 pillows. Our plan was to go get a plethora of Ubers in order to take all our luggage.  Jaimee piled into the first one with the three little kids leaving me with Jannica and Ryan, and what felt like 30 bags. Our Uber pulled up not quite knowing what was about to hit him. But he was a good sport and helped pile in all the bags. It turns out that he had been my driver a month ago when Jannica and I came on a business/pleasure trip, business for me, vacation for her.

Once home we staring unloading all the bags, unpacking, and putting all the IKEA furniture together. At this point we hadn't eaten much and we hadn't slept much. We yelled at each other a bit, and whined a lot. At one point, Jannica was even bawling on the rooftop patio because life sucked so much. We went and got some food at a local Dutch restaurant, McDonalds and our spirits were slightly lifted. We finished up the rest of the IKEA furniture and hung out around the house. By the evening, everyone was feeling much better and more importantly the place felt like home.
And just so you know how tired we were, Charlie fell asleep on the hardwood floor next to me while I was pounding away putting the kitchen table together.

We are tired, ornery, and a bit disorganized, but we are happy.