De Nederlands

Hoi to all who have been missing my presence in the world of bloggers...!

I have been pretty busy and lazy at the same time (yes,..busy and lazy are NOT opposite words in my world…it happens to me ALL THE TIME!)

There is so much to write that this will end up being a very confusing post. It’s difficult to arrange and organize my thoughts right now. I shall try..

It’s yet to sink in that I have finally for the first time stepped on a ‘foreign land’.

Its so unreal here (here=Amstelveen).

Warning: All NRIs/phoren returned peoples please do not make fun of this post as my true emotions and lack of international travel may pour out in large volumes!

To begin with:

It is 8:10 PM here and there is still sunlight streaming from the blinds of the living room. It was quite freaky on the first day, as amidst unpacking and shifting we did not realize it was so late..CK and I were quite amused at this and we looked at each other like kids stepping into chocolate farm or something.

Well..we have been doing that a lot since we landed on the Paris airport (which is looking at things/objects/people in a complete jaw-dropped-retarded sort of way!)

Actually, a little before that when I saw the Eiffel Tower from the window of the airplane for the first time…we were just short of clapping our hands (I think CK did clap and I pouted that she had a better view as she was on the window seat!)

And since then, it hasn’t stopped. The Amsterdam airport and the taxi ride to Amstelveen. They take the words organized and fully automated very seriously here.

After a lot of cribbing about the apartment, we only realized that it was a super-naturally good one and the owner took ‘fully-furnished’ to another level. There were towels on a rack in the bathroom neatly folded for two people and therefore in different colors. All sheets, quilts have back-ups and even the towels in the kitchen and the table cover for the dining table! The cleaning agents for the dish-washer, washing, cleaning, bathrooms, floors are all in place. You name it and they have a cleaning agent for it. This obviously reminded me of my monika-like-psycho-cleaner friend SC.

SC, this is truly a PARADISE for you!! You could have lolled in cleaning agents here! Also, the kitchen is WHITE so you would have spent your weekends very satisfied and happy cleaning this beautiful place to your heart’s content.

(SC, before you attack me in the form of email, please know that both CK and I thought of you much before seeing the cleaning agents…. for example, when we saw cheese.)

Today was the first day at the office which began with losing the way to office because we in our jet-lagged state of mind thought ‘aah-haan…this is simple’. And then just after walking a few steps all directions looked familiar and we kept on going in all directions thinking ‘this looks familiar’ and then after a few seonds ‘or DOES IT?’ This went on for some 30 minutes till we actually found the right way.

To top it all, I, the greatest bad-decision maker of the century, decided to carry 3-inch heels for walking 2 km to work everyday. For people who know me well would also know that anything above 1.5 inch of heels gives me vertigo and also makes me look retarded when I walk. ‘Was I on drugs when I bought these??’ is what I was thinking all the time I was wearing them. WHAT was I thinking? WHAT? I was just short of tearing the ligament of my ankle as I must have half-twisted my foot zillion times in 30 minutes. BAD choice of shoes…really bad…the other closed shoe I have bites my toe and 2 other choices are sneakers which shout ‘we are new and definitely not office-wear’ and another pair of Reeboks which shout ‘please throw us now, we are really old and rotten’. So, I am pretty much dead or else will be bankrupt from buying a pair of new leather shoes from ‘phoren country’!

The total jaw-dropped-retarded looking moments also came when we went to the local grocery store. I was quite speechless seeing the variety and CK and I quite shamelessly showed each other the things we had never known existed in the world of groceries like yoghurt cereal and 100 types of pastas and 1200 types of bread spreads. We also stood at the bakery counter and drooled wide-eyed for some time at the range of such good-looking confectionery that it can make your mouth water at any given point of time. Thank God, I am not rich or else I would have returned unrecognizably fat!

I will keep updating this blog with my day-to-day miseries and also the gleeful moments such as above.


Till next time..!