If during the first couple of days in our new apartment I was bored, waiting for R. to come home after work (12pm or later that is), browsing the Internet, freezing and hugging the radiator (-11°C, brrr!).. now I have plenty of things whirlwinding through my mind. I was getting a little nervous after seeing our clothes in bags for a week. They still are there, but what I realized is that I don’t have “just to wait until we have money enough to buy a new wardrobe”.. I can also do things, not only buy things. So I went to the second-hand store, we went back today..and came back with a (almost) new dresser! We didn’t spend much money at all and now I’ve plenty of ideas. Win-win!
When I’ll be working I won’t have enough time to do these things..and I’ll be working pretty soon. Also, R. and I won’t see each other much because he work evenings and I work early mornings and afternoons. I work from Monday to Friday. He works from Tuesday to Sunday. Therefore I hang this sheet of paper on the door, to leave notes, together with a calendar I sketched yesterday night.
At the moment I’m tearing off the pink wallpaper and sanding the dresser. I’m looking forward to paint it!
Days are flying by. I don’t know if it’s just the Dutch “drukdrukdruk” (busybusybusy) mind-set or it’s that starting a whole new chapter means having to organize many things. Every day we do so many things that at the end of the day I’m always like “how did the day start? What did I do exactly today?”.
Anyway. There is some huge big happy news here.
Number one. We found an appartment we really like. I’ts small, but it has two rooms. We have to share the bathroom, but we have our own kitchen. It isn’t cheap, but neither too expensive. We still have to get through some formalities, but we are really hoping this will all work out. Keep your fingers crossed!
Number two. The newest news. Today I had a job interview. I was really nervous because there was an accident on the highway, so I almost arrived late. I didn’t, eventually, but still I was a bit unsettled. I wasn’t really sure about how it went, but then they called me to say I am exactly the person they are looking for and that I got the job!!! I am so happy! Most of all because I will work using the languages I know on a daily basis, and of course also because I will earn the money I need to pay the rent. Yippie!!
I will take the rest of the day to enjoy a glass of wine, eat dinner with friends and browse some blogs.
It was a rainy day. I told him it would have been different. No rocks as in the Mediterranean, no blue water as if in the Indian Ocean. However, the short afternoon on the beach was nice. Extremely windy, cold, but it was a way to clear our minds.
Many things are happening all together; we are hunting for many things, but we are also having the time of our lives. Everything is slowly becoming clearer. Sometimes I start a day stressed about the obstacles, but then the phone rings and the day is sunny and happy again. I am discovering the power of jumping into the day, without being too afraid of what I will say or how I will fight my shyness. The new rule for me is: do it and you will see what happens. If you don’t do it, you will never know. An old rule, but also an effective one.
First of all I want to thank the people who directly or indireclty commented on my last post: you are all so kind and I appreciate your words very much, thanks!
Moving on to moving!
I will share with you guys the steps, struggles and successes of our
move to the Netherlands.
Yesterday I translated my CV, which had also to be updated with a couple of collaborations, jobs and also courses I did and attended. It was pretty awesome that this year was also quiet productive after all.
Dutch won’t be much of a problem for me, as it will be for Roberto. At the moment I am teaching him half an hour/an hour a day depending on how late he comes home. The difficult part is keeping all the words in mind and I can tell you Dutch is a hard language to learn. I’m sure it will be a bit easier and effective when he’ll be there and will have no other choice than trying.
In these four years he naturally acquired the knowledge of many basic words and he understands a lot when I talk with my family, but talking himself is a whole other aspect.
After having translated the CV I looked for an apartment. Roberto and I want to live in Leiden, a beautiful small city with many university students and lovely people. I love the atmosphere, the look of the city and the sound of the bells of the city hall is wonderful. I was born in the Netherlands, as you may know, but never lived there and never even went to the city I was born in after my birth. In fact, when people ask me from which part of Holland I come I tend to tell them I come from Leiden.
The prices are pretty high, considering that we both have some savings, but not for much time, and that we will both have to look for a job quickly to earn our living. The househunting is still a bit general, because we will move around the beginning of the year, and all the offers are for now, so I have to wait to look more properly.
Then I started looking for a job, just for fun for the moment, but I really liked that I found some nice opportunities involving language skills. That is what I am pointing at.Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
.. I was 12, and I was at the airport in Amsterdam waiting for the flight back home. In the music store at the airport I saw this cd, I had heard the first single of this singer on the radio once or twice and I kind of liked it, but most of all I liked Avril Lavigne’s backbone and her style.
I begged my mum to buy the cd, it was the first cd I wanted for myself. At first she refused, then rethought about it and decided she would spend the last money she had for that trip on that cd. It was a great decision.
I started listening to the cd over and over again, and she became my idol. I loved that she was so young, that she wasn’t girly and posh. I learnt all the lyrics by heart, in my incomprehensible English. I wanted her straight hair , her character (I was soooo shy) and her style.
The second cd came out and I loved it even more than the first. I must have been about 14. I knew everything about her, really.
I didn’t like the third cd that much, it was ca. 2007 and I was 17, I started to listen to other music, more rock from the 80s after meeting Roberto and more rock in general. Anyway, there was this concert of Avril in Rome in July 2007, and I wanted to go anyway, to see if I would have liked her live (I had seen some videos in which she didn’t exactly sing in tune), so my friend and I went all the way to Rome and back for the concert, and I came back being very satisfied and happy to have seen her. I loved her concert.
Still, I continued listening to other music. I stopped following her as I did before, maybe it just because I had grown and my taste had changed and continued changing.
This year her cd “Goodbye Lullabye” came out. I liked it, I have listened to it over and over again. I’m not that fond of her music anymore, but I really like the songs and in some way they just give me energy, or make me feel that I can be a teenager whenever I want. I can start jumping and dancing listening to her most energic songs and start feeling melancholic listening to the ballads.
Some months ago I heard she would have come to Turin, so I asked my friend to come with me. Also Roberto agreed to come (unfortunately he couldn’t take a day off, so I asked another friend of ours to ocme with me, it was great anyway and I was really happy she was there).
Thursday was the day of her concert. We were surrounded by parents with their children of about 12-13, and I went back to that age all over again. It’s funny that there was a great variety of people.
I am really really happy that I decided to go, the concert was great, she sung beautifully all her songs and the music was so good.
That being said, I’m back home for a weekend with Roberto. He will be away working overnights for whole weeks again, I am not happy about that, as we will see each other only on weekends and he will be tired as hell. However, I’m going to spend these two days trying not to think about it.
Turin. A street lamp in Piazza Castello and the view of the Alpes from Piazza Castello through via Garibaldi.
I headed to the city and I’m staying for two days at my friend’s.
Turin is a beautiful city. I chose to study there after seeing the number of green spaces, parks and beautiful streets. People always say Turin must be foggy every day of the year, but it’s not. I have seen more beautiful sunny days than foggy ones.Maybe I’m just very lucky.
I hope you are having a nice day, I’ll be back on Saturday.
On Saturday Roberto and I drove to Turin to pick up the last things I left in my apartment and leave it. forever.
There are not many things I will miss, but among the few I will miss:
The empty bottles of wine on the fridge. With all their dates and the names of who drunk them with us.
The frogs. My roommate and I love frogs, and our apartment was full of them, everywhere. And with everywhere I mean cups, puppets, toothbrush holder, pens, blankets, oh I could go on for hours.
My bed. It was the most comfortable bed, even if not the most beautiful.
One particular mug. I loved its colour, but it was not mine. Sad.
The market and my favorite fruit and vegetables stall.
Turin. A beautiful city.
Now, on the other hand, what I won’t miss:
Being alone most of the time / Life with my (almost never there) roommate.
The neigbours quarreling and yelling every single day.
The bars of the windows.
The nice parties my other neighbours threw. I loved the music, they played piano, sung etc but they always happened to be the night before an exam.
Freezing in the winter.
Studying day and night.
Some problems of these past two years, that I hope I left once and for all closing that door.
I did not feel much sadness and I was happy to come back to the nature. I know Turin will always be one of my favorite cities and I have lots of photos of the beautiful city to show you later on. But life is much better for me.
This weekend was what I really needed. I mean, there are lots of things that went wrong, but another few things that couldn’t go better, so I think I will focus on this second part.
Yesterday Roberto and I drove to Vigevano for the concert of Jack Johnson. One of my favorite singers since only a year.
Kaki King, one of the most talented guitarists I have ever heard playing, introduced the concert. She played a couple of songs and I was asotnished and amazed. Roberto had just seen the film “August Rush” a few weeks ago, and I heard she played the songs of the film; I thought it was not possible to play like this, really. First of all, if you haven’t seen the movie, I highly suggest to watch it. Secondly, if you have never heard of Kaki King, listen to her songs. Finally, sit down and relax listening to some music by Jack Johnson. He’s an amazing artist, and I think he’s such a nice guy in real life too, his family is always with him, he loves his wife, his children and I think he has found the key to enjoy life. And he has an amazing band.
I could write pages on this music, but what can express it better than the music itself?