Adventures in Irish & Dutch Laundry

Laundry.  It's a love hate relationship.  

We love the scent and crispness of a freshly cleaned load .

We hate separating lights & darks, and figuring out the difference between delicates & permanent press

We love it when it's warm right out the dryer or straight off the sun kissed clothesline. 

We hate folding, no we really hate folding.

We also hate it when it does this....

Adventures in Irish Laundry: Take #1

My first adventures in laundry began in college, where I learned that wool sweaters are powerless against dryers.  Once I was married, I assumed the role of launderer, not sure how exactly, just happened.  Naturally I carried my laundry responsibilities with me as my wife and I set out on our expat adventures, first in Ireland, now in the Netherlands.  

It's a simple process really.  Add clothes, add water, add soap and let the machine work it's magic.  Then take out clothes and but into the other machine to dry and boom, done.  But you see that second part about putting the clothes into another machine, well, that wasn't an option in our home in Ireland.  My wife and I assumed the property had one of those washer/dryer combo units, which apparently exist.  It wasn't until our walk through of the property that we realized the only function that this machine in OUR KITCHEN was to wash, not dry.

I loved my wife's question to the relocation agent.  "Well, how do we dry clothes in a place where it rains all the time?"  She then explained the "hot press" concept to us.  There was a closet or press, upstairs where the hot water pipes ran.  This was your hot press, and this is how you dried clothes.  Worked like a charm if you didn't need your jeans for about a week.    So I had to resort to stringing our clothes up on the line outside.  But you know that Irish weather.

Eventually I got the hang of things in Ireland.  Who knew that door jams and light fixtures made for great locations to hang drying clothes.  But the one thing I just could never get right was the washer.  Well, as a cousin of mine said, in response to this pic.  "Just grab a mop. 2 problems solved!"

"Just grab a mop. 2 problems solved!"

Flash forward to present day life in the Netherlands. The first question I asked before moving: " Does the apartment have a dryer?"  Well, it certainly does, BUT, I'm now faced with a whole new set of challenges, Dutch instructions.  Not only on the bottles of detergent but also on the machines (so I thought).  

So can you picture this? Me is a confined laundry room where the door closes behind you staring blankly at a washer & dryer.  I then grab a bottle of detergent and take out my iPhone. With the help of Google Translate I discover the purple label is for colors and the green is for active wear?
I don't know, I've just been using the purple bottle and crossing my fingers.  White technically is a color right?

Then I come to the challenge of actually using these machines.

Uh.........Goggle, little help?  So I try to translate "VAR PUUVILLA" from Dutch to English and I get, "VAR PUUVILLA." Son of a......  I try it again, maybe I missed spelled it.  Same thing "VAR PUUVILLA."  Then I think, this is Dutch right?  WRONG!  Turns out the machines speak Finnish.  At least that's the language Google detected.  So here's an English speaking American, living in a Dutch speaking country doing laundry with machines that speak Finnish.  What a world.  

Okay, I've figured out the Dutch detergent and the Finnish instructions but the one thing I simply CANNOT figure out is why it takes SO long to both wash and dry a load?  Yeah, that screen reads 1 HOUR and 25 minutes. 

Today, after 50 minutes in the dryer my clothes were still damp.  At this point I was ready to mail them to Ireland to dry.  But I could tell something was wrong.  I would set the timer then the dryer would shut off after a minute.  So,  I look closer at the screen then say to myself out loud "What the hell is 'BAC PLEIN'?"  GOOOOOGLE, HELP!  So I turn to my iPhone, translate "BAC PLEIN" from Finnish into English and get "BAC PLEIN" Son of a......  Alright Google, you tell me what language this is; it detected French.  So "BAC PLEIN" means "TANK FULL."  Oh, that clears things up.  WHERE THE HELL IS THE TANK!!  Luckily the owner of the apartment was around this afternoon and I inquired about the problem.  Turns out there is a tray that fills up with water and needs to be emptied.  I did not know that.  Alright, so I think I am finally prepared to do a load of laundry here in the Netherlands with my Finnish washer and my French dryer.  Am I right?  I shouldn't expect anymore surprises right?  That Irish hot press is looking really good right now.

Do you have any expat laundry stories to share?    Please tell me I'm not alone.  Thanks!

RESIDENT PERMITS & ATM CARDS & PRINGLES.

Vicki and I had a lunch date at the City Hotel in Oss today to celebrate successfully reapplying for our resident permits and the arrival of our bank ATM cards (again.)

So we’re in an apartment that doesn’t have a mailbox?!?  But, we’re able to forward our mail to the City Hotel, which owns and operates our apartment.  We opened the account during our first week, Jan 17th to be exact.  It was odd that we still had not received the cards.  So earlier this week I got in touch with the bank to discover that the cards were mailed to the City Hotel, according to plan.  Well?  Turns out, whoever got the mail that day called the bank and said that there were no guests by that name at the hotel and therefore destroyed the cards.  Great! At least that’s the story the bank gives.

When I learned of the destruction of our cards and our hopes of using the debit card lane of the Albert Heijn (grocery store) I marched to the City Hotel to find out what happened.  I was ensured there that it was noted to hold our mail upon receipt.  Now who do we believe? Long story longer, I had to go to the bank and order another round of cards, which were successfully delivered today.

Oh, and the resident permit has its own share of frustrations.  I mentioned that we had to reapply, since our first visit was unsuccessful.  We were told given the length of our stay we did not need to register.  Not entirely true.  There’s a bunch of legal and bureaucratic hoops here so I won’t bore you with these details.  Fingers crossed we’ll be approved this time and we can get on with our lives.

Best part of today?  The Paprika Pringles that accompanied my sandwich from the City Hotel.  Cheers to the weekend! (31 January 2013)

FIRST CULTURE SHOCK MOMENT

You learn about culture shock, and you read about culture shock but nothing truly prepares you for when you experience culture shock for the first time in a new country. 

On our first day in the Netherlands my wife and I had planned to take the train from Oss to Den Hague to spend the night.  However, there is no ticket window at our station, only self serve ticket machines that DO NOT take VISA or Mastercard, just euro coins, NOT bills.  In order for us to go from Oss to Den Hauge it would have cost us €37.20 and it ALL had to be in coins. So we collected enough change to at least get us to the next big station (Den Bosch) “with a human” at a ticket window.  Then we could purchase the rest of our fare for our journey.

(VISA & Mastercard NOT accepted at these ticket machines)

So, we figured out our plan, got our tickets to Den Bosh and we were ready. The train arrived minutes after we completed our purchase and we jumped aboard. We were feeling good, really good, that was until the train stopped.  Suddenly announcements were being made (in Dutch) but we didn’t panic yet.  It had snowed early that day so we figured it was just a delay because of the storm.  We began moving again but then came to another stop.  This went on a few more times until we came to a complete dead stop for almost an hour.  During the whole time announcements were being made (still al in Dutch) but no one was really panicking so we just went with the flow.  

We finally got the scoop from a travel companion who interpreted the annoucement for us.  Apparently there was a defective train ahead of us and they needed to remove it from the track.  As a result, our train after sitting for an hour had to go back to the station that we just left. We would all need to exit and wait for another train to come. We were headed right back to where we started.  Oh, FUDGE. They said another train would be at that station shortly so we could begin our journey again.

After returning to Oss Station, my wife and I and all of our other fellow distraught passengers boarded the new train and we were off (again.)  This is where the culture shock began to set in.  I was fine with the train stoppage, and not being able to understand the announcements earlier, because I figured based on other reactions we’d eventually get on our way.  But it was the post experience that affected me.  All of the other passengers were sitting and talking, some joking (deducted by their laughing), others (I guess) grumbling about the situation.  I felt myself being on the outside looking in during this period.  It was strange since this scenario would have been something I would have loved to have been participating in if something like that happened on the R6 Septa train  back home.    

These types of situations seem to bring people together for a least a few short minutes. No lie, I was watching two passengers joking and at the one point the girl offered the man a bit of her orange snack. I felt like I was in one of those feel good Coke commercials where everyone was sharing sodas and singing with polar bears.  But alas, no Coke for me, not even a lousy orange.  I wanted so much to listen and to contribute to what was going on around but couldn’t because it felt strange with the language barrier and the fact that I was a bit intimated by a train full of disgruntled Dutch passengers.

This was the first, and most likely not the last culture shock moment.  But in a way I’m grateful for the whole adventure not only just so I could blog about it but I think I needed the experience to help me break out of my comfort zone. 

Sfeer Selector?

WHAT THE WHAT?  On our train ride from Rijswijk back to Oss via Breda, Vicki and I noticed a colorful sign on the platform announcing “Sfeer Selector” with an arrow.  The arrow was pointing below to an assortment of buttons.  Naturally, the 12 year old in me wanted to push all of the buttons to see what would happen but unfortunately our train arrived before I had the chance.  So I snapped a quick pic to find out the story behind this display.  

Earlier that day Vicki and I had activated data plans for our phones so the internets were ours for the googling.  I stumbled upon this blog that shed some “light” (get it? you will in a sec) on the mysterious buttons. 

Apparently, after you make a selection the station illuminates with a series of lights to help offset your mood by transforming the boring platform into a more pleasant atmosphere.  It’s cool I guess.  I just wish I got a chance to press a button.  

(Photo Credit: http://vivianvankraaij.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/sfeer-selector/ )

“PRO TIP: If you’re going to ride the train in the Netherlands, be sure to have enough Euro change.”

—	DannyZ upon finding out that the ride back from Rijswijk to Oss for two people would have cost over  €34; and it needed to be all in change since the machine did NOT take VISA.

Want to Move to the Netherlands? This Wizard May Help.

Who would have thunk it; a liberal country would require SOOOO much paperwork.  If you’re interested in moving to the Netherlands, be sure to do your home work and triple check that all your I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed.  We had an outside company help us through my wife’s company and we still have/had some hiccups along the way.  Fingers crossed everything gets approved. 

Thiinking of moving to the Netherlands, use this helpful tool first.   IND Residence Wizard