This week, we didn't have an out-of-town adventure. We spent Friday night with friends at a beer festival in our neighborhood, and Saturday we walked through Las Ramblas, a street festival. On Sunday, we headed to Rotterdam to watch some national beach volleyball teams but didn't get to stick around long because the tickets were sold out, despite an almost empty arena...strange.
Since we don't have much for our adventure, we figured we would share some of the things that we have encountered as different over here. Different doesn't mean wrong in any way, just different. We are LOVING living here, but it definitely takes some getting used to and sometimes some adjustments of our attitudes and perspectives.
1. Driving/Cars: Adjusting to being a driver here certainly has its challenges. Interstate driving (or Expressways or Motorways as they are called here) is pretty much the same as the U.S., but you better get out of the left lane as quickly as you possibly can if you aren't passing. Speed limits are enforced almost exclusively by cameras, but some people either know exactly where the cameras are or just don't care, because they fly around over 100 MPH regularly. And if you happen to be in there way in the left lane, they are NOT happy. City driving is another story entirely, and it is far more challenging when coming from the U.S. The truly difficult shift in perspective is that automobiles do NOT have priority to bikes, trams, buses, or pedestrians in most cases. There are, where possible, specially designated areas for all of these types of transportation modes to stay separated, but with twisty old cobblestone streets, there just isn't always space. That means at any moment, another type of moving object can shoot out at you from a side street at full speed, and it is fully your responsibility to react in order to prevent death or serious injury. Also, as parking is quite limited in the city, delivery and work vans will make their own parking spaces wherever they please. This adds the additional challenge of having to quite frequently drive in the opposite lane or a lane designated for bikes, trams, people, or really anything but cars. Compound all this with the fact that the street signs are in another language and even the visual ones often don't make any sense (just take a guess a what that signs below means...). In short, as a driver in the city, it constantly feels like you may accidentally murder or maim someone at any second. It can be quite stressful. On another transportation related note, there are some fancy schmancy cars here and people are NOT afraid to drive them. Example: We were driving down the road and heard the rumble of what sounds like a Harley roaring up behind us, but no, it was a beautiful Ferrari, down shifting with a roar and a note of sadness. It literally sounded pained to be going a normal car speed. Later that day, we added 2 Teslas, a few Porsches, tons of Jaguars and a Maserati to the list.
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| Our first guess: Yield to cars? Correct answer: Traffic queues likely |
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| Our first guess: ONLY tractors motorbikes and bikes allowed. Correct Answer: NO Access for Tractors, Motorbikes bikes (anything that can't go over 25km/h) |
2. Cell Phone Service: Living in Europe means you can be in a different country in the blink of an eye, especially where we live, The Netherlands border is about 25 miles away. The sometimes frustrating part of this is that your phone IMMEDIATELY stops working without crazy international charges. We didn't realize how reliant we were on Google and GoogleMaps for information about cities and directions until our phones gave up on us a few times. We are slowly learning we have to have our plan well thought out, and we sometimes have to rely solely on our car's GPS system. This sounds easy enough but our car (Saskia the Volvo) has a mind of her own and decides to tell you "turn right" when she really meant "turn left" and visa versa on a regular basis (but she is always quite polite when leading you to a head-on collision).
3. The grocery store: Molly's favorite haunt in Antwerp... or so you would think since she is there at least 3 times a week. But with living in Europe comes a small fridge and walking rather than driving to the grocery. Also, they just don't sell things in as large of quantities as the US. We really don't think it would be possible to stock our fridge for a week unless we ate out most of the time!
4. A.C.: Only the rich and famous have air conditioning in their houses. This is not a big problem as the summer highs so far have been an average of 70 F, but in the last week it has started heating up. Having the windows open does the trick, but as there are no screens on the windows, it also means the mosquitoes take over. After a few nights of almost smacking each other numerous times in the night while trying to fight of the bugs, we found the holy grail! It is like a Glade Plug In that wards off bugs! We love it and have gotten no bug bites since, its glorious.
5. Coffee: Europeans take their coffee seriously, and we are pretty sure it is one of the major food groups. Lunch always ends with a cup of coffee, even though you may have just gotten done with your morning coffee break an hour before. Then, your first meeting after work can't start without a fresh cup of Joe. And they don't hurry and drink like the US, you sit down and fully enjoy your coffee. It took us two weeks to find a suitable travel mug for Tyler to take to work with him because everyone sits at home and enjoys their coffee before driving to work.
Some Pictures from the week:
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| Beer Fest with friends |
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| More Beer fest fun |
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| Las Ramblas band |
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| This is a motorcycle with a side car containing a wheelchair... safe |
