relocated

Here I am at 5:45, faffing around online instead of trying to sleep. It’s not jetlag, it’s that leaving the laptop next to the bed is a bad idea for me – too attractive a nuisance.

I don’t know, yesterday felt sort of empty in spots. I arrived at 6:45 in Schiphol, took the train to Eindhoven (with company even – a couple other guys from my office in Taiwan who were coming here for meetings), showered, went to work, picked up papers I’ll need to apply for my residence permit and the suitcase I’d left there, and had two of the planned three meetings (one was sort of folded into the other two). Then I had an hour and a half to fool around, before meeting the realtor to go to the new flat.

As I remembered, it’s a touch less nice than our old place here or our one in Taiwan, but still perfectly fine – less cushy sofas, less fancy flooring and cabinetry, but nothing bad or unacceptable. There are a couple of lights that don’t work but those will be fixed (not sure why they weren’t already – one may be an electrical issue). The view is fantastic and it’s got more small-stuff storage (i.e. bookshelves, closet, chests of drawers) than our previous Dutch flat, though less large-stuff storage (the storage room in the basement has a lot of stuff belonging to the owner). Still, the only things I need to put there are two bikes, my sleeping bag, flying stuff, and inflatable mattress, and there’s room for those. It may have only wired internet (the realtor wasn’t sure), but I packed a wireless hub in my airfreight shipment, which could in theory be here by Friday. I’m in hopes that it will be a lot quieter than our old Taiwan apartment, which had noisy kids next door, noisy traffic, fireworks and construction outside, and no soundproofing to speak of. (We never complained about the kids, because they weren’t unreasonably noisy; the problem was with the apartment construction, not the neighbors.)

I took a somewhat shaky video of it with my iPod:

I stayed in the hotel for this one night. Today, I should try to get a bit more sleep, then enjoy my last hotel breakfast, check out, take my suitcase to the apartment, then hit the big supermarket (relatively speaking – it’s nearly the size of a US supermarket) and buy pretty much one of everything. I gave up on a shopping list when I realized those are really more to tell you what not to buy, and in this case I really do need to buy just everything except the things I never want or use, which won’t be tempting anyway. Then I can wander around and buy non-supermarket stuff, probably beginning with a wheeled shopping cart to make the rest of it easier. Or possibly beginning with an umbrella, if the weather requires it.