Whew. After taking advantage of my last breakfast in the hotel, I headed out, dropped off my suitcase at the flat, then went grocery shopping. It was a little embarrassing at the checkout, actually; I’m certain I’ve had shopping trips in the US that were nearly as large (the total haul was about 7 very large plastic bags) but the Dutch do the typical European thing of shopping often for small quantities so I was apologizing madly to the checker and the people behind me in line.
It was kind of fun before that, though; after two and a half years in Taiwan, I’m pretty sure I was walking around the bread section with my mouth hanging open. It was pretty hard to remind myself that I don’t actually eat that many sandwiches, and that I will be back in a week or so, and keep it to one short loaf of sandwich bread and a baguette of French bread. I did go a little overboard in the huge cheese section, so now I have cheddar, goat cheese, and mozzerella. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any crackers to eat it on, but there’s always the baguette.
I also have ground beef, a couple of small steaks, chicken breasts, shrimp and salmon, a couple of pizzas, a casserole thing with leeks and (I think) ground beef, pasta, lots of produce – I could cook dinners for a week without going out to eat (unlikely!). It feels like riches to me; in Taiwan we had to go to Costco to find much beef, and the chicken tended to be colored a bit oddly (I think that was actually different kinds of chicken, rather than meat gone bad). Unfortunately the Albert Heijn XL is about 1.5 km away and the next nearest market isn’t tons closer, maybe 3/4 km. (Listen at me being spoiled. In the US, I’d consider those very close. But I’m thinking ahead to when I’ll be without a car, doing all my shopping by bike.)
It took me three trips to carry all the groceries up, which gets a bit tedious when you’re on the 29th floor. Remember I lift weights and I’m fairly strong for my size; when I say those were very large bags, I mean they were BIG.
For freewheeling it without a list, I didn’t do too badly; so far all I can think of that I’m missing is flour (all I could find was self-rising, whole wheat, and bread mix), mushrooms, and tuna fish, both of which I just forgot. And I’ve got things like paper and plastic goods, two kinds of laundry detergent (they sell separate stuff here for white, colored, and gentle, don’t ask me why).
I spent the next hour or so finding places for all those and also for most of my clothing. It’s very silly; I feel bad using all the closet space, which is fairly stupid for someone who is living alone. Then again, if I want Ted here as much as possible, I really ought to leave him some room. Of course there’s lots of space right now, since most of my clothing is still on its way here, but if I put long-sleeved T-shirts on one shelf, short-sleeved on a another and tanks on a third, that’s still three shelves used even if each only has about two things on it. Speaking of which, my air freight is apparently arriving in the Netherlands tomorrow, so I’ll have it as soon as it clears customs (could be one day or two weeks). The sea freight will arrive April 28, but that goes through customs too.
After that and eating lunch, I went shopping for other stuff. Thhe apartment isn’t really intended for anyone to live in this long, and it’s a bit light on linens and stuff (though I think the maid service has some out being washed). So I now have things like steak knives, non-terrycloth dishtowels (terry is good for drying skin but never seems to work well on dishes), a network cable long enough to let me roam a bit (or at least sit in a comfy seat) until my Airport wireless hub gets here, a measuring cup, a wine vaccum sealer, and an umbrella. (I had one of those, forgot to put it in the room for the movers, and it was too heavy for my suitcase. ) And … one of these, in red. I went looking for it in the local Bijenkorf (fancy department store) – it wasn’t where I’d planned to start looking but it was more on my way for my initial errands. And lo, they had a sale (Maffe Marathon, no idea what maffe means); and it was marked down by about 35%. Score! The initial price was about what it would cost in the US, so this really was a deal. Now I have to figure out how to use it (well, I can make chili and cook pasta in it; I have to figure out what else it can do). The other good news is that it fits into my little combo oven.
I’m still not done (for one thing, I have a wine bottle sealer and no wine) but I think that’s enough spending for one day.