This morning Joost (You-st) picked us up at 9 am to take us to the local municipal authorities of Amstelveen to register our marriage. It seems like a similar measure to the states making sure that people who come to the states and get married aren't just getting married so they can stay.
They are making sure that I didn't just marry Matt because he got a job in Amsterdam and I wanted to move there. Joost said it was good that we just had our ten year anniversary, because after the ten year mark, they don't monitor the marriage or do more background checks. Matt said that this is his secret plan, stay married for ten years so I can move here on his job offer... foo on you, Dutch! hehe... The interview started off very formal, and only in Dutch. Then, apparently after establishing that we did indeed have all of our proper documentation, English came back. We talked about home, and things we miss, things we don't. Of course, that led to discussion of Mexican restaurants and my fear that Holland would be a salsa free zone. The municipal worker also has a soft spot for Mexican spice, so he not only described two excellent (in his opinion) Mexican restaurants in Amsterdam, one of which will deliver to Amstelveen, but also printed us maps from their web page! Now that's service!We were supposed to apply for a guest parking permit at the same location so that friends can park in our buildings lot, but I forgot entirely, and I didn't make the connection that earlier when Joost asked us if we had a car, that was why. Then we stopped off at a bank about a 4 minute walk from our apartment, and applied for a Dutch bank account so that I can get groceries without having to count pennies. Many restaurants only accept bank cards here also, so it will just make life easier. We have to wait for our actual cards to show up in the mail in the next few days though.
On a funny note, one of the big banks here is called "Rabobank". Which to Matt and I, seemed a very
unpropitious choice of name for a bank. When we mentioned this to Joost, he had a good laugh and said he'd never looked at it from the perspective of an English speaking person, and it's certainly not a suggestion to rob a bank. He also told us about a nice museum out in the country where the rich people used to build their outhouses in the Netherlands golden era. When we laughed, he realized what his direct translation sounded like to us, and quickly said they built their country estates there. With very nice bathrooms on the inside. When the banker helping us get started said all of the account information we'd need would be found in our map, and we looked uncertain, Joost told us that means folder. A cart (think cartographer) is a map, not what you push groceries around in.It was nice to see more of our town riding along today. The offices weren't very far away, but being car-less, we only see the bus routes, and however far we wonder walking. The municipal worker told us we should look into tandem bikes, which are supposedly quite popular for getting around as couples here. I haven't seen one yet, but as it is, we only have the one bike downstairs in the storage unit, and for the two of us to bike 10 minutes to the nice older part of Amstelveen (as opposed to a 15 minute bus ride) we're still going to have to get a second one. I need to do a safety check on the one downstairs, for the brakes and the light, which I might not have given any thought to except that the speaker last Sunday tied bicycle upkeep to blood guilt. Only in the Netherlands...
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