Week 1

(This blog post is in English, in sympathy with my poor monolingual friends across the channel: everyone in the Netherlands pwn you at language skills.)

First week: hectic.

The first day was devoted to learning to love Dutch public transport, as I got an electronic card (like tkort in Trondheim, or the Oyster card in London) valid on ALL kinds of public transport in ALL the country, and used it to buy a ridiculously cheap train ticket for the train to Leiden (The slow local train, as opposed to the intercity. It did 140 km/h most of the time...) and get the bus to Noordwijk. By the time I arrived at Pension de Driesprong, the B&B, my suitcase was getting heavier and heavier and I was getting sweatier and sweatier. Rob and Birgit at Driesprong are really nice people (who of course both speak English, German and French as well as Dutch) and Rob carried the suitcase up to the third floor while asking me what I was doing in Noordwijk, when would I like breakfast, would I like an egg, I should take bus 90 or 95 to get to ESTEC and good luck with the house hunting.

Noordwijk used to be a beach resort for fashionable rich people in the 1800's (today it appears to be a beach resort for slightly less fashionable tourists) because of its spectacular beach. It's 14 km long, full of large old hotels and seriously beautiful. The day I arrived it was 26 degrees, windy and sunny, with kitesurfers, dogs, children and German tourists everywhere.

On Monday I went to ESTEC for the first time since the job interview to meet the other Young Graduate Trainees at the Relocation Office, to find somewhere to live. Most of the day was spent walking, walking, walking from one apartment to another, in beautiful warm weather which the Italians thought was chilly, and I thought was bordering on too hot.

The city centre of Leiden is extremely idyllic (probably a nightmare of a city in which to drive anything larger than a Mini), but I ended up choosing an apartment which is "outside the water" as they say, in other words, not in the centre, but outside the main ring of canals. It is on the other hand much newer or larger than anything you'd get for the same price in the centre. And most importantly - it has a dish washer!

The apartment is on the edge of Nieuwe Leiden (New Leiden), where they're building more houses. Apparently the expansion there isn't regulated by rules for how houses need to look, like they seem to be in the historical centre. This means that there are some seriously funky architect houses there. It doesn't look quite finished yet, since there's still construction, but I think it'll be really nice once it's done. And the streets are called things like Hertzstraat, Amperestraat, Joulestraat, Pasteurstraat, Jenningstraat and Ohmstraat <3

Tuesday we got some more information on living in the Netherlands, useful advice like "buy a cheap bike and an expensive lock".

Wednesday was my first day "at work", and I spent it mostly being bombarded with information. After the first round of information overload I was introduced to Slawomir whose job I'm taking over in a month (I'm hugely relieved that there's an overlap!). He introduced me to the Education office, or those who weren't on holiday anyway, and gave me a short tour of the ESA test facilities where they subject satellites to various beatings to make sure they can handle a rocket launch. Photography is (obviously) not allowed, but you can see better pictures than I'd be able to take anyway, on the website. I didn't get to see the audio room (see "Large European Acoustic Facility" on the right side of the webpage), where they blast sound to simulate the shockwave of takeoff, but Slawomir explained what it was like, and showed me a picture of the huge horns that make the sound. There was nothing in the picture for scale, so I asked how big they were. "Oh, you could easily stand inside them. But if you did when they started the test you'd... die."

I've spent most of my time at work either running around to get things sorted (getting a staff badge, getting the relocation office's help ordering an internet line in Dutch) or reading up on what I'm going to be doing (or creating epic paper jams in the printer, but apparently that wasn't my fault). The first time I actually did something productive was the last few hours of Friday afternoon.

On Saturday I hauled my suitcase (I got it back down the stairs all on my own!) with all my things to Leiden and "moved in". After I had been out to buy some stuff I needed I went straight to Amsterdam, to catch as much as possible of the Pride Parade. In Amsterdam it's held in the canals, not the streets, of course. They estimate about half a million people come to see it every year, and I estimate that they were all drunk and/or high. But in a very friendly and cheerful way.

The Pride Festival in Amsterdam is not just visited by gays, it seems like the whole city joins in, and everyone is just really happy (or high). The people closest to me while I was watching the parade appeared to be a straight married couple in their sixties wearing bright pink shirts who were waving at all the boats and dancing. I think the boat in the picture might belong to a gym of some sort, or a sports store, and the slogan means "All of the Netherlands on the move for respect and diversity". There were boats from the Parliament, the city council of Amsterdam, the University of Utrecht, KLM (aka gayLM, who provided a dancing safety demonstration), the police and Mensa!

Today I've been doing as little as possible, except to test out my washing machine and dryer, so that I can look presentable next week as well. I need the rest of my clothes... But what I need most right now is to go to bed, so I can get up early tomorrow to watch Curiosity landing on Mars live :)