first impressions

The Flight:

My flight from Boston to Amsterdam was, miraculously, only 6 hours long. I expected much longer of course, and had a plan to take advantage of the free wine and beer clause in order to make it through.

Of course, 6 hours is no longer than my flight to San Francisco but I just couldn’t shake my previous idea, which is why I downed three giant wines. Like, fate tried to intervene when I was in the bathroom when they did the 3^rd run through, but my enabling old man seat mate urged me to press my flight attendant call button and continue my wine drinking. We were on the same page until I promptly fell, probably drooling, asleep, and he had three more whiskeys. Impressive.

Then I was awoken by the flight attendant slamming breakfast on my tray table and I was greeted with a BAAANNGG headache. Wine, why do you do this to me???

The Apartment:

Landed, did immigration, got my bags, and was soon on my way to the APT. Had no idea how to call dutch numbers therefore I called the wrong person about 700 times at 7 in the morning. My Bad? Finally got a hold of “Jan,” which I of course assumed was a woman named Jan, short for Janet, but was of course a very nice dutch man named Jan, like, Yan. Oops.

My apartment is above a “Hempshopper,” obviously!! Hahaha. Also it’s wicked dark here in the morning?? Which is NOT going to bode well for me waking up as anyone who has ever tried to wake me up will know.

THE STAIRCASE in my apartment is terrifying!!!! Straight up, tiny, spiral staircase. I have, literally, been crawling up it. That’s going to be interesting.

Also my key looks like it opens a treasure chest.

Our apartment is two floors. My bed and bathroom on the bottom, middle floor living room and nice little kitchen, which goes up to a loft with a nice double bed where Dani will be sleeping. We also have another little loft with two beds. VISITORS??? The flight is only 6 hours, don’t drink that much.

The Grocery Store

So, I’m starving and in a city I’ve never been to. No idea what to do. I finally got brave enough (I’m a baby) to go to the grocery store flanked with my ipod and hiding behind glasses. Figured this trip would be easy enough.

WRONG!! SO WRONG!! I can’t read A THING!!! Figured mac and cheese would be safe?? But there was literally, only one box of mac and cheese in the whole place. Meanwhile, everyone here is tall, skinny, and in a beanie. I now understand the skinny part because the size of the things they sell here are teeny. I get why Americans are so fat now, but like………….CAN YOU SUPERSIZE THIS PLEASE?

So yah, there are also a lot of containers of different color mush?????? I don’t know what to do with that really.

I got crackers, bread, cheese, milk that I hoped was skim, and eggs. I will get more adventurous later, I hope. We’ll see.

I got home and translated. It was skim. Phew.

Oh and wine. They have lots of wine, thank god. Hard to mess that one up.

There are more stories to tell which I will slowly unravel, like, my first experience in a ‘wet room,’ ughhhhh. My friends are finally arriving today which is good because I was so lost with what to do with myself that I’ve basically been a little hermit in here. In my defense, I had unpacking to do and had to force myself to bed to adjust to the time difference, but, I can’t help but feel like the people waiting for the tram outside have started an urban legend about me similar to the hunchback of notre dame.

The random American girl that moved in and has only come out once. I hear she survives on only wine and cheese. I hear she is afraid of the wet room. I hear she almost actually died when Netflix wouldn’t work.

Half of that is true.

Anyways, I’ll keep you updated I hope!

xo tay