Jetlag is a bitch.
Actually, flying for 15 hours straight, then hauling 300 pounds of stuff on to a train, then a metro, then down a street is a bitch. Turns out that 300 meters is a really, REALLY long way to haul everything you own.
Luckily, the many people we asked for directions during this ordeal were very helpful.
Important Lesson #1 of the Netherlands:
The metro kiosks only take coins or "chipped" credit cards.
This was not taken into consideration when we got a bunch of euros at Wells Fargo, and my Master Card isn't chipped, so there was some drama getting on to the train from the airport to Rotterdam. A very nice girl took pity on me and bought our OV-chipcards (the transit pass, which works for all the public transportation) with her credit card.
Important Lesson #2 of the Netherlands:
You will get sores on your shoulders/neck hauling around 300lbs in the form of 4 duffel bags.
This time zone thing is going to be interesting. We're both tired and spacy and it feels like there are a million things to do. The culture shock doesn't help. Hopefully we'll figure everything out and life will get easier. The biggest thing at the moment will be getting the University to tell me what my bank account is so we can get Personal OV-chipcards that don't require going to a kiosk every time we use public transportation (the disposable OV's are good for 1 or 2 hours, which is actually kind of nice given that you have to swap modes of transportation to get anywhere).
For now, we'll take things one day at a time.
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