army duffle bags are the best things ever made

the packing has begun as we hit 10 days until departure.  i set up a staging area downstairs that i have named 'the amsterdam table'.   

i went around collecting medications to bring.  i am not really a 'medicine' person so i was surprised that i could fill a gallon zip lock bag with things like aleve and decongestants.  i also used it as a time to purge a lot of expired meds.  in case i need to give the kids something for a fever, i would rather not give them stuff that expired in 06...  i had bronchitis a year ago and went through 3 huge bottles of cough medicine so i know what i have in that department is fresh.  

a few weeks ago we started thinking about how we were going to get everything over to the netherlands.  we had grand visions of shipping some stuff over so it would be there before we arrived.  however, since we didn't get it done before we went to mexico that never happened.  we bought 3 army duffle bags to augment our luggage collection and they are proving to be very useful.  once i laundered them to get the dessert storm dust off of them they look brand new!  and man, do they hold a lot of stuff!  luckily with mike's united 1k status we are allowed 3 bags/person up to 70lbs each for free.   and while we certainly will not be checking 12 bags we will be carrying more luggage than we have ever taken before.   in fact, i need to figure out how to get us from the airport to our new place.  there is no way we can manage the luggage (and the children who will have had to sleep a full night's sleep on the plane) while taking the very convenient train into central station and then a metro or tram to the house.   must investigate this further.

joys, part 2

i failed to tell the whole story in my previous post. i gave a glimpse of what looking for a place entailed but let me paint a more colorful picture.

part of the frustration of finding a place was the vast number of email i had to sort through. each craig's list posting i replied to had to get copied from whatever email client C'sL opened and put into my gmail account. early on i forgot to copy the exact subject line, which gave detailed specifics about the listing so i could tell them apart. i had many emails with the subject line 'your apartment'.

once i ventured out of C'sL into xpat sites it didn't get much better. some places were independent agent sites - these were the easiest to manage. but some were compilation sites - gathering apartment listings from multiple agents. one day i was excited having found, what i thought, the perfect place for us. the site forwarded my request to the agent that listed it only to tell me they only do 6 months leases, not 3 like i was looking for. but the site i got it from would not allow me to see which agent it was going to so i continued to email this agent time and time again with new inquiries about different places. i am sure she was really tired of getting email from me repeatedly asking her for apartments...

i found a very promising houseboat listing which i eagerly awaited a reply for. it was on a reputable looking agent website. unfortunately they wanted a renter 'directly' which i finally figured out meant immediately in january. this one really bummed me out - it seemed perfect - 1 bedroom with a convertible second, great location, fully furnished, a piano, within budget, and with a little boat for canal cruising. after the negative response i continued my daily search secretly pining away for my houseboat, or watervilla, as the agent described it.

more time passed. more emails going nowhere. more frustration and obvious scams.

as december came to an end i started to get really worried. we talked about changing homebase locations or spending some time in amsterdam and then switching to rome for even more short term (and more expensive) places.

i got the nerve to contact the agent again about the houseboat to see if she had rented it 'directly' and she said it was still available! i offered to rent it for the month of january even though we would not be occupying it until february - i chalked it up to paying an agent fee which it looked like i woudl have to pay anyway by getting a helpful agent.

we quickly came to terms and rented the place for a 4 month term. the landlord bundled in the utilities and 2 beds for the kids in the guest area as well as adding a washing machine. we signed the lease and sent off a check via international wire transfer (i did follow up with local US references on the agent just to be sure it was legit).

so, as of several weeks ago we were proud tenants of a houseboat on the keizersgracht canal.

and, just to come full circle, i originally found the houseboat listing on craig's list...

the joys of craig's list

let me recount the story of finding our rental place in amsterdam for all of you who didn't get to experience that first-hand.  oh, what a joyful time that was - scouring in internet for site unseen places to house my family.   i thought about it all day and sometimes all night.  at times waking up after a very short sleep with the images of craig's list postings in my head.

call me naive but i figured 'hey, how hard can it be to find a suitable and affordable short term rental in a fabulous location on another continent?'.   i mean is it too much to ask for an affordable 2 bedroom apartment NOT on the 4,5, or 6th floor located on a nice canal street?  that is fully furnished and includes utilities?  that will accept a 3 month lease from people they will  never have met before?   you can start to see where i am going with this, right?

i began with craig's list where they had a huge section of short term rentals and sublets in english.   sweet.  i started responding to only the most promising listings.  since it was early december and i didnt need a place until february i was being a little picky.  'oh, that place is up 4 rickety flights of stairs?  i think i will pass' was uttered a few times.  'hmmm, this is canal adjacent, but  not really on a canal street.  yes, you can see the canal from the bedroom window but i think i will pass' may have been said.

about a week went by and i started to figure the whole thing out.  see, on craig's list you have to wade through many, and i  mean many, fake listings.  i got pretty good at feeling the listing out to see if it was legit or not.  at first i had a few exchanges with people only to drop them after i realized they were all the same.  

but seriously, how stupid are these craig's list scammers?  they are all the same.  

'I have a two bedroom apartment for rent in Amsterdam.It's a fully furnished apartment and it's going to be available for a while because i work for "INSERT NAME OF CHARITY HERE" and just got transferred to West Africa.I'm presently there and my apartment is up for rent.
 
I'm looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of the apartment as I'm not after the money for the rent but i want the apartment to be clean and my belongings well taken care of. I have the keys here in Africa and will send them to you DHL express upon signing an agreement'
 

first of all, DHL is out of business, so try picking a carrier that actually delivers these days.  and who doesn't care about the rent money?  and do we really have that many people doing charity work in Africa??  another popular one is:

'I am renting out my mother's apartment for her.  She is currently in London seeking medical treatment.'

great, just what i want.   to live in your sick mother's apartment.. 

other popular parts of the scam listings is a series of questions they want you to answer.  I cannot tell you how many times I was sent this same list of questions. 

* What is your full name?
* What city do you reside currently?
* Why do you seek another apartment?
* What is your occupation?
* Are you fully employed?
* What is your estimated monthly rent budget?
* How many bedrooms do you seek?
* How many people will be living in the flat?
* When do you intend to move in?
* What area do you intend to live in?
* How long will you stay in the flat?
* Are you keeping any pets?

* What is your religion?

* Are you born-again?

putting aside the bizarre religion questions, this list is just ridiculous.  why would you care how many bedrooms i am loooking for?  either you have a 2 bedroom apartment available or you don't. I am surprised they don't ask you for your social security number and mother's maiden name.  

after i found craig's list not so helpful i ventured out into the world of websites designed for xpats.  the first thing you learn there is that you cannot afford a single one of them.  obviously they are all employer paid but for those prices i might as well stay in a 5 star hotel every night and have my sheets changed daily.

12 days until departure!

so the official countdown has started and we are at T minus 12 days.  let's review what has been done before the blog creation.

location - we waffled a little bit on our homebase location.  somewhere in germany made the most sense as it is the most centrally located and hubby's trips to germany would be frequent.  but let's face it, the food in germany sucks monkey balls.  germany was henceforth stricken from our list. there is also much business in london to be had but it is too bloody expensive.  barcelona was also on our short list but it's too far south from the rest of europe, making travel difficult.  when we combined what was important for business (central location, relatively reasonable cost of living, convenient to a major airport) with what was personally important (culturally stimulating and entertaining) we converged on amsterdam.   you might say 'but haven't you been to amstedam before?  on several occasions?  wouldn't it be better to explore and immerse youself in a different culture?'  to that i say 'shut your pie hole, we are going to amsterdam'

another reason for picking amsterdam was that we could get by on english while studying dutch on the side.  i have always wanted to spend an extended period of time in a county where i could really immerse myself in the language out of total  necessity but i kind of chickened out.  the kids and i will learn some dutch but will able to thrive from day one on english.

once we decided on amsterdam it was up to me to find a place to live.  more on that later.

taking the plunge into blogdom

i have procrastinated enough and finally started up the blog i have been threatening of.  i cannot guarantee it will be as witty and well written as others {yes, i am talking about you DH} but i will give it the old college try - and by that i mean half-assed and riddled with errors due to laziness. 

let's immediately get over the fact that i write strictly in lowercase letters and frequently omit proper punctuation, although i do know it.  you will also note that i misuse commas or leave them out entirely when needed.   please suppress the urge to point out my mistakes.

but back to the point of the blog - the hubby and i are packing up the family and going to europe for almost 3 months.  we are saying goodbye to the rest of our midwestern winter (february and march are very bleak here and april is nothing but a thawing mess) and heading for the milder climate of amsterdam.  but alas, the trip is not for pleasure but for business.  not mine of course because who would send me to stay at home with my children in a foreign country?  i could have titled this blog 'husband to see wife and family on weekends - european edition!'.  

ohh, that segues nicely into talking about the actual blog title.  you might ask 'what the hell does the blog title mean?'.   well, part of my procrastination in making this blog was my inability to come up with a clever name.  i figured our airport codes worked as well as any other.  the irony is that we are not actually flying out of madison (MSN) airport but scooting down to o'hare (ORD) instead.  more of that can be found in the upcoming 'tedious minutiae'  section of the blog.