Red light district

Found. Most of the girls probably will turn you off. The thumb of rule is you pay EUR20 for 15min. So you would either have to be a minute-man and finish the deal in 15min or bring loads of money. And there are also plenty of LIVE p**no shows lOL

Also found chinatown and a cheap bike place. Still haven't got a bike yet (it was sold out at the cheap place). Start working in 2 days....

I AMsterdam

I've arrived.

Had done all what I have to do at the expat center and viewed appartments (all in 1st day). Decided on the apartment I wanted and in process of signing contract etc.

Have gone to 2 museums so far- probably have to go back- Van Gogh museum and Amsterdam Historical museum. Museum card sells for EUR45, for a year I can visit any museum in Amsterdam for free, which is a very good deal.

Started taking tram and subway. System is a bit different but manageable. Talking about this I found people are being very nice to me. One lady showed me how to read the public transportation map (too lazy to figure out all of it myself...). But there were at least 5 people asked me about directions to places...maybe I didn't look lost enough for them. Never used a map for the first couple of days and managed to find ways to places wanted to go, as well as home- I think I'm pretty amazing ...

Still haven't found chinatown and redlight district yet, still don't have a bike- these are goals for tomorrow. Also wanted to visit royal palace tomorrow. Was there today, but palace was closed.

Nothing exciting about food here- just like new york- you can find any cuisine you like here in amsterdam

Funny thing is 40% of amsterdam is like New York  and another 30% is like China (especially stores like G star, vero moda, jack jones) - so Amsterdam looks/feels familiar to me either from the New York side or China side.

Overall- Like Amsterdam, it just rains too much (and another funny thing, locals here don't use umbrella unless it gets really really bad- only found that I was the only one using umbrella on the street....)

Goodbyes 1

Today is last night in DE. Had a happy hour to say bye to the clients. Drinks shots made me have a headache and apparently entertained everyone when i was buzzed LOL. fire alarm at the hotel at 3:06am (never had one for my entire 2 years staying here), went from 16th to the lobby and someone told us it was the false alarm and walked 16th floor right back. who's gonna fall asleep right away after 3am exercising..... what a night~~

Prep 3- Leaving Date

Leaving on Sept 22. & arriving on Sept 23 (6am), and then go to the bank with relocation people, and expat center at 11am, and apartment hunting at 2pm, should be very exciting 1st day in amsterdam. OMG have so much left to do, but did book my flight~

Prep 2

end of august already. relocation feels a little true now. contacted relocation shipping company. the lady is really nice and asked me whole bunch of quick questions about the things i'm taking to NL. only then i realized i was not ready at all LOL. she told me to provide her a list of all things i'm taking (i have 500 lbs for air shipment and a container for sea shipment). I told her since i'm moving from delaware back to NYC first, i'm compiling all things in one corner of my room. also told her i would send her pictures of all things i'm taking, she laughed so hard. she said she's never taken inventory by pictures LOL. she said she needed to assess for how much packing material the movers would bring on the day of appointment. afterwards, i still compiled a list of things, hopefully she won't laugh that i'm bring 32 pairs of shoes and 4 closets worth of clothes with me LOL. i don't think i have much anything else (i'm bringing my pressurized cooker tho....) seems like i need to buy all the other things i needed during labor day weekend, so that movers can come, pack my stuff and ship them on the 17th ....
also just realized today my passport doesn't have many blank pages left, need to send it in for additional pages.....so much to do for the labor day weekend, need to go to the doctors too to do all my check ups before leaving, a little stressed, just a little....
client was asking me when my happy hour would be in delaware, had no idea senior manager is doing a happy hour for me lOL
was also checking flight ticket now....always heard people going to india saying that they are transferring in amsterdam, then how come i can't find a damn direct flight from jfk to ams....
feels real now... me leaving...people... I DON'T LIKE PACKING~~~~~

Misc

Was talking to SC, a tax manager that I coordinate with. Was telling him, going forward another person from my team will be dealing with him for tax issues as i'm leaving for amsterdam. SC said stay out of those coffee shops and red light district. Thought he was joking- ish, cuz a lot of people have told me to have fun but stay out of trouble :), so i said, well, that's kinda hard for me todo, because i'm chinese and i'll be around chinatown all the time (to do my nails, hair, get food etc), and red light district is right next to c-town. He said, seriously, be careful, red light district has its getto part (i'm sure, it's red light district after all). and he continued saying that he lived in Europe (london) for half year, and travelled more than 15 countries and never had any problems except amsterdam. I said what happened. He said he had a knife pulled against him. got scared now~ hopefully i'm lucky enough to be back in one piece :) or, hopefully people in the robbery industry in amsterdam have rules like - don't harm chinese girls...

Preparation 1

Ah started preparing for relocation. Do not have a checklist of what needs to be done, because I feel when it is time, everything will be sorted out and relocation will be smooth (haha hopefully this is not merely wishful thinking). Maybe I'll have a checklist in a little.

Visa- my firm has a relocation agent to help out with visa. It seems easy- I send relocation agent all the required documents (copies of), and relocation agent will forward these copies of important documents to expat center (Amsterdam has this expat center for knowledge workers from US (?) so that visa for this group will be suuuuper fast, hopefully). Expat center will book an appointment for me (the date will be after I am actually in Amsterdam) to go in in person and show them the originals of these docs. My understanding is that at the end of this process, they will give me a stamp in my passport (?) saying that I can live and work in NL. Not sure though. After this, I think I'll be able get my residency card (?). Lots of question marks, but that's pretty much the status of life at this point of time LOL.

Shopping- TC kindly brought up that I'll need rain gears, so... I try to shop things in this category, but always get side tracked by other wonderful things- I've bought all random things- napkins, smiley face washcloth holder, fancy candle holders (expecting romantic nights in NL (?)), kitchen knives, a soup spoon, a plant cup (plan to pant a tulip in a big cup...dont know how that would work)....you got the idea- all random things. Rain gears? Yea, still need to buy. TC also said I should bring some good smell detergent with me~ in terms of clothes, just doing my regular shopping- don't think i need more suits, thanks to the lehman brothers engagement haha

Car- contacted NL office for an automatic transmission car. Please NL office!!! Work your magic~

That's pretty much how much I've gone through... trying to figure out bank situation- do I need to bring loads of cash with me when i go (if you are a thief, please ignore this paragraph and don't follow me arround in NL)?? I think only after I start working, I'll have a direct deposit account with a required bank (?), but before that I plan to find my own appartment which requires 3 months rent (security deposit etc)...