Busy busy...

I'm getting ready to hit the road to spend New Years Eve (and the rest of the weekend) in Amsterdam. Assuming I survive (don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'll be good), I hope to post about my Christmas in Luxembourg when I return on Sunday.

Update - Play

In the two weekends after I received my things, I went to 5 Christmas Markets (Luxembourg; Trier, Germany; Strasbourg, France; Freiburg, Germany; and Colmar, France). These Christmas Markets have a ton of booths selling various wares and of course plenty of food (sausages, potato galettes, waffles, crepes, chocolate covered [fill in the blank], beignets, roasted nuts, etc., etc.) and drink (mostly gluhwein, with the occasional hot chocolate).

The first weekend of December, I hit up the local markets - Luxembourg on Saturday and Trier on Sunday. A few pictures from Trier, where I also toured the Porta Nigra - an old Roman city gate:

Also spent some time in a museum in Trier. This is part of what I guess is supposed to be a great painting, but I couldn't get over the fact that this dude was in the most unnatural position. Just look at that crazy left hand.

The following weekend, I had planned to meet a former client in Strasbourg, France. Turns out the Christmas Market in Strasbourg is one of the most popular in the area. As such, there were no rooms available by the time we got around to looking for accommodations. We still wanted to meet up so we booked a hotel about 80km Southeast of Strasbourg in Freiburg, Germany, and drove up to Strasbourg on Saturday afternoon. The Market was really impressive and spanned basically the whole city center, but it was really cold and extremely crowded, which made it a bit more difficult to enjoy.

Sunday morning we spent walking around the much smaller Market in Freiburg before we parted ways. I then headed to another Market in Colmar, France, which was about 30-45 minutes off the route back home. Colmar's Market was larger than Freiburg, but still much smaller than Strasbourg. But it was a quaint little town and the buildings/decorations were very nice. I walked around for a couple hours, ate some more fattening food, and then jumped back on the highway back to Lux.

Finally, I spent this past weekend at home in Luxembourg. We had quite a bit of snow, which was nice. Unfortunately, it came with ridiculously cold weather. Saturday was in the neighborhood of -10C while Sunday warmed up to -5C (14F and 23F, respectively). I also confirmed on Sunday (and tonight) that I cannot drive in the ice and snow. On Sunday it took 8-9 attempts to make it up a fairly steep/long slope (at least it seems steep/long when you can't drive up it) when leaving the sport center that is located next to the forest trails I have been running lately. Tonight, I almost slid into a car on the way home and then almost rode the driveway right into the wall as I tried to drive down the slope to enter the garage. I miss Dallas where everything shuts down when there is the least threat of snow/ice.

This is the trail/lake where I've been running (taken on Saturday - before another 3-4 inches of snow were added Sunday):

Update - Work

I just realized it's been 3 weeks since my last post, so I thought I would give a quick update.

Work has been getting increasingly busier, which I suppose is a good thing. It has certainly filled up my weekdays as I've been working at the office a little later than I would prefer. One downside to working on projects with U.S. offices is the time change and the need to have late conference calls due to the time differences.

But even at work, we find time to play. Almost every Friday ends in a "drink" in the break room. One person in the group is usually responsible for providing the refreshments and, in addition to stocking the fridge with beer, there is usually wine and/or some kind of alcohol from the host's home country (which for some reason, always seems to be very strong). In the last three weeks, we've also had a Monday drink for a departing co-worker, a Tuesday drink to celebrate one partner's newborn baby, and a Thursday group dinner/bowling/billiards outing. Pretty much any excuse to get the team together.

For the holiday season, PwC also hosts a "Christmas Market" for employees, alumni, and clients. This basically consists of a bunch of big tents outside of out offices with booths serving all kinds of different food for lunch and dinner on a Thursday and Friday. The Christmas Market culminates with a staff/guest dinner/party on Friday night with music/dancing in addition to all the food. I decided to give all Texans a bad name by breaking out my cowboy hat after I had a couple glasses of gluhwein (hot wine with spices) - sorry guys. Here I am wearing the hat with a co-worker and his wife.

I got a lot of sideways looks all night, but it was fun to pass the hat around and get pictures of people:

Yea for Stuff!

Movers arrived a little before 10:30 this morning and had everything unloaded by about noon. Considering how long it took to load the crates in Dallas, I was pretty happy to have them gone in an hour and a half. I signed all the paperwork saying everything was here, though I probably won't know if I'm missing anything for weeks (or months). A few pieces were a little worse for wear, but so was I after traveling 5000+ miles - and I wasn't on a truck/boat for six weeks.

Now comes the fun part - unpacking and finding places to put/hide everything. For now, most of it is hanging out in the 2nd bedroom.

Ah, a bed. Thought I might celebrate its arrival by sleeping on the couch tonight. Notice the aerobed - rolled up and in its bag - peeking out from the corner of the room, feeling quite inferior (and rightfully so).

The living room is a bit more cozy than in the before pictures, but I now need to find a place for the IKEA rocking chair (also peeking out from the back of the picture).

Temporary storage room. I hope no one is planning on visiting terribly soon.

The "Feast"

I finally had my full-on Thanksgiving dinner Sunday night - only 3 days late. I have to say that it turned out pretty darn well considering the fact that I usually sit and watch TV on Thanksgiving morning while Mom and Josh slave away in the kitchen. Or for the past 2 years, I've been running the Turkey Trot in Dallas and showing up in Arlington just in time to eat. I don't know if it was really good or not (it received favorable reviews, but people are friendly over here and I'm not sure I know anyone well enough yet for them to be brutally honest with me), but it pretty much tasted like home.

I actually only made 4 dishes (including the turkey), but what are seemingly simple recipes become somewhat more complicated when you throw in the metric system and an unfamiliar kitchen.

First and foremost, there was the turkey. I found a 3.2kg (~7lbs) bird at Auchan (the "Super Wal-Mart" of Luxembourg). I decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to try to do it right so I went through the trouble of preparing a brine and soaking the turkey overnight. Except for the fact that I bought pureed vegetable soup instead of broth, this was a fairly simple process (my hostess had some bouillon cubes for me to use). I was bit nervous about the cooking process as I had no meat thermometer to know when the meat was officially "done." I didn't want to cook it too long and completely dry it out, but I also didn't want to repeat the great turkey debacle of 2005. That being the tailgate fried turkey that was completely burned on the outside with 2-3 inches of questionably editable cooked meat and lots of obviously undercooked meat. So I cooked the bird to the upper end of the scale for a turkey its size and hoped for the best. Not sure if it was the brine, the assortment of things I stuffed into the cavity, the white wine in the roasting pan, or some combination of the three, but the turkey was a tasty treat.

I forgot to get an after photo, but here he is prior to and in the oven. Unfortunately, in addition to having no rack for the roasting pan, I also had no string or skewers to hold the little guy together. Oh well.

My only two side items were a sweet potato souffle and green bean casserole. Again, these are relatively simple dishes, but some things can't be purchased here (or at least I can't find some things). One of those is French's Fried Onions, so I was left to the task of making my own. I thought I saw something a one point in my searching about baking these, but when I couldn't find that recipe again and decided the oven was taking too long, they ended up being half baked and half pan fried. They weren't quite like the original, but good enough.

Here are the dishes in the preparation phase and in the oven (didn't get a shot with the fried onions on the casserole).

As we sat down, I thought it probably would have been nice to throw a salad together and maybe have some bread as well. Maybe next time. Here is the table - my kitchen hostess and I were joined by one of my co-workers and his wife.

The above was all well and good, but as many people know, the place where I really excel is with dessert. I decided to go with pecan pie rather than pumpkin because, well, I like it better (and I've never actually made a pumpkin pie). And anything that has bourbon (or in this case Jack Daniels) and chocolate in the recipe has to be good. As much chocolate as they have around here, I was not able to find any chocolate chips, so my pie included a lovingly hand-cut chocolate bar. And as tempted as I was to add a little extra Jack to the mix, I have learned that lesson before with the Drunken Pie of 2003 (at yet another Thanksgiving tailgate). I made the pie on Saturday night and I have to say it was the hardest thing to prepare since it had more ingredients than anything else and it was my first foray into the world of grams and milliliters. It was tough not to taste-test while it was still warm out of the oven, but it did not disappoint on Sunday.

Here it is, and yes, that is a springform pan. There were no pie plates in the house and this was the best option available.

Turkey Day

I know it's hard to believe, but Thanksgiving isn't quite as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the U.S. First of all, I had to work today. And I have to work tomorrow. Second, there is no "American" football on television (not that I have a television on which to watch said football). And finally, there is no feast of turkey and trimmings (in fact, it is nearly impossible to find a turkey here, at least this time of year). As such, my Thanksgiving lunch today consisted of pre-packaged turkey lunchmeat (I didn't even have bread to make a sandwich) and paprika-flavored tortilla chips. Mmmmm.

I didn't think dinner was going to be much better until I was invited over to the apartment of my Bostonian friends. And while it was a world better than my lunch, it was still not the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Again, it is hard to find a turkey around here, so they had cooked some turkey cutlets with cranberry sauce, roasted new potatoes, a zucchini/onion/walnut concoction (that was actually very good), and cornbread. I was able to contribute a bottle of Luxembourg Pinot Noir to round out the meal and dessert was roasted apples with ice cream. Not too bad, though I am going to do my best to put together a little more complete/traditional meal at some point this weekend (at a borrowed kitchen as I won't have my kitchen supplies until my goods arrive on Monday). Considering my cooking skills (or lack thereof), it could be an interesting experiment.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to list a few things that I am thankful for this year:

1. A family who supported my decision to move overseas, whether they really liked the idea or not.

2. U.S. friends and co-workers who also supported my move and have continued to check up on me as I have transitioned to my new situation.

3. New friends and co-workers who have taken me under their wing, introduced me to people in Luxembourg, shown me around town, invited me out for dinners and drinks and generally ensured that my experience here is a good one.

4. PricewaterhouseCoopers for giving me the opportunity to have a pretty kick-ass life experience.

5. My health (and the health of my family/friends).

6. Military personnel (and their families) for all the sacrifices they make for millions of strangers.

And finally, I will be really thankful when the movers arrive on Monday with a truck full of stuff, much of which has very little value to anyone else, but which seems more and more valuable to me every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

French Training

It was a long week for me in Spa. I feel like I made a lot of progress on my French, but I still have a long way to go if I ever want to have real conversations that don't involve me saying "pouvez vous repeter?" (can you repeat?) after every sentence. I have a limited vocabulary and grammatical rules are quite difficult, but as one of the professors always said, "petit a petit" (little by little). Now that I'm back in Lux, it's time to 1) keep studying all the materials they provided me with, and 2) enlist my French-speaking co-workers to join me for lunch so they can be beaten down by my broken French and correct me until I get it right.

I do have one entertaining story from the week that unfortunately sounds very familiar and made me realize that, regardless of the progress I was making, I could not speak French in a stressful situation.

After all of the classes and evening activities (the last of which included drinking beer and watching the France-Ireland futbol match until 11:30ish - it was not a "school-sponsored" event so we might have been speaking English, too) wrapped up on Wednesday night, I ended up back in my hotel room, checking e-mail and surfing the internet. At 1am, I decided go out to my car for something (sound familiar yet?). Knowing full well that the door to the room did not lock without the key, and assuming the sliding glass door at the entrance to the hotel never locked, I left the room with only my car key. As you can imagine, when I tried to re-enter the hotel, I found that the sliding glass door was not always unlocked. (Note: The key in question was a real metal key - not a plastic key-card - so I would never have expected it to open the sliding glass door. It, of course, did.)

Luckily, there was a phone next to the door, but the man on the other end apparently couldn't hear me when I spoke. After I called back 3-4 times to play the "how loud can I scream into the phone" game, he stopped answering. This made me nervous, as I was afraid that he simply turned off his ringer and went back to sleep. As I was beginning to resign myself to the fact that I would be sleeping in my car for a few hours, the man drove up in his truck.

As I mentioned, I still have a hard time speaking French under pressure and the fact that it was after 1am definitely didn't help. Nor did the fact that the guy was not happy to be there and was frustrated that someone called from the phone and then didn't say anything. I got out a few words (not necessary the correct ones, but I seemed to get the point across) and explained that my key was in my room, I didn't know the door would lock, and I actually was talking into the phone, but it didn't work.

If nothing else, this provided an entertaining story for me to tell my private lesson teacher (in French, mind you) on Thursday. She was quite entertained and had me role-play with her so I could learn the things I could/should have said. It was a lot easier with a clear head and a cordial counter-party.

Jerry Don Self - '78-'99 The heart remembers

I won't attempt to add anything to this:

http://ryananddayna.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/ten-years/

Thank you, Dayna.

Yikes

I just arrived at CERAN, outside of Spa, Belgium, for my weeklong French immersion program. Can't say I'm necessarily looking forward to this, even though one of my goals for this secondment was to learn French.

My head already hurts in anticipation of hearing/speaking/thinking only French starting at 1900 (t minus 53 minutes and counting) and ending Friday evening.

Pressure

This announcement was buried in a firm-wide e-mail earlier this week. It seems that people here read firm-wide e-mails much closer than I ever did in Dallas. I didn't even know this was included until I had people mention it to me.

In case you can't read it, it says:

Adam Hankins, American, Senior Manager (TPS ITS)

Adam has more than seven years of professional experience with PwC USA and is a Certified Public Accountant. Having developed extensive professional experience within the US Outbound Solutions team of Dallas, he was responsible for consulting with US multinational clients regarding their worldwide operations, namely in connection with global restructuring projects. Adam will be in Luxembourg for an 18-month international assignment.

My Mother's Son and Lessons Learned

If there is one character flaw that I inherited from my mother, it is what I like to call "temporary forgetfulness." It basically means that we can walk out of the house to go somewhere and then suddenly realize we left something inside. I can occasionally make it all the way to my car, or even start driving down the street before I remember whatever it was that I forgot. But more often than not, it clicks immediately when the door shuts behind me and, while this can be extremely annoying, it's not usually that big of a deal. Usually. However, when your apartment has a self-locking door and the seemingly trivial thing you left inside is the key to said door, it becomes a very big deal. And so the story goes...

One Thursday evening after work, at around 7:30, a young man arrives back at his apartment. Out of sheer habit, our protagonist empties the contents of his pockets - money clip, keys, cell phone, coins, receipts - onto the nearest flat surface (in this case an ironing board) and then removes his jewelry - watch, ring, necklace - and adds them to the pile. He has recently moved into a new apartment with all tile floors so he also removes the dress shoes that echo through the rooms and likely disturb his downstairs neighbors. It's at this point that our young man remembers the gym bag that he took to work and left in the trunk of his car. Knowing that he would eventually need the contact lens case and glasses that were in the bag (and thinking he might even go for a run this evening), he decided to retrieve the bag before he changed down to his "lounging around the house" clothes. Instead of putting his dress shoes back on, he simply wedged a pair of sandals onto his still-socked feet, grabbed his car key and cell phone, and walked out the door. Click.

The first thought triggered by the clicking of the door was oh, sh*t. He looked in his hands. Car key? Check. Cell phone? Check. Apartment key? Negative. Pockets? Empty. Door? Locked. Spare keys? Also inside (ironically enough, they had just been removed from his car when he arrived home this evening as the keys to the postbox were attached and he decided to check the mail on his way upstairs).

F***!

Now what? Think, think, think... Windows? Balcony door? I only live on the 1st floor (note: 1st floor in Europe = 1st floor above ground level). Could I somehow climb up and "break in?" Does the balcony door even have an exterior handle? Damn it. There's no way.

Fortunately, our young man is addicted to his Blackberry or the situation could have been much more dire. He bites the bullet and calls his relocation consultant, admits his stupidity and asks for advice. She is kind enough not to laugh and says the landlord has an extra set of keys. She is still at work and says she will get his phone number for the young man to call him. Then everyone remember that the landlord doesn't speak English. The young man's French is bad, but his Luxembourgish is non-existent so the consultant offers to make the call.

After thirty minutes of sitting in the hallway, playing games on his Blackberry and trying to decide what he could possibly say that the landlord would understand, the landlord arrives. Using hand signals and not understanding anything the other was saying, this odd couple has a very confusing exchange about the door and then about the sink that the landlord repaired earlier in the week. Though he smiled the whole time and seemed nice enough, one can only imagine exactly what the landlord was saying about the stupid American in dress clothes, socks and sandals.

Needless to say, I returned the spare keys to my car and I take a diligent inventory of my pockets before I leave the apartment now. I'm also considering making additional copies of the apartment keys to give to friends/co-workers or to hide/bury in various locations around the neighborhood.

Let's just hope I'm a quick learner and it only takes one time to learn this lesson.

New Address

In my 2 afternoons of house hunting, I had the opportunity to see 10 (or so) apartments in different parts of the city. Obviously, I was looking for the best apartment I could find within my budget, but I also enjoyed thinking about some of the addresses I could have. For instance, I was really hoping the place on rue Neil Armstrong was nice, or maybe the one on rue du Dr. Joseph Peffer. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live on rue Dr. Peffer? It makes me thirsty just thinking about it. Rue du 9 Mai 1944 would have been pretty easy, too, although I have no idea what happened on that date. The other street names weren’t quite so interesting, but they were still, at worst, only moderately difficult to pronounce (and spell):

rue de Gasperich

route de Thionville

rue Ernest Beres

rue Edouard Grenier

rue Pierre Federspiel

So where did I end up? Unfortunately, not at any of these addresses. No, the best apartment I saw (peach colored walls and all) was on none other than…drum roll please…am Weischbaendchen. No, I’m not joking. I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

Truth be told, after having to write it down a few times (with the aid of a cheat sheet), I have gotten pretty comfortable spelling it. And though I’m still not sure I really know how to pronounce it, I think it is either “vice-band-chin” or “vie-shh-band-chin.” Either way, it’s home now.

So for those that are interested, my full address is:

3, am Weischbaendchen

L-5842, Hesperange

Luxembourg

Roadtrip #1

I got the keys to my apartment Friday afternoon and took my first cross-border trip Saturday - all the way across the Belgian border to IKEA. I only brought three pieces of luggage with me on the plane and learned recently that my furniture would not hit the dock in the Netherlands until 20 November. I don't really know how long it will take the truck to get to Luxembourg, but I'm hoping the drivers don't stop off in Amsterdam for hashish and space cakes. In any event, I have a very empty apartment and will have to check out of the hotel on Tuesday. Which leads me to IKEA and cheap furniture (and finally some pictures)...

Here is my temporary living room furniture:
1. A nice little rocking chair that (other than my "bed") is currently the only place to set my arse until my shipment arrives at the end of the month. I may have to rethink this and invest in another chair of some sort or perhaps some patio furniture on the off chance that I actually have any guests over any time soon.
2. A floor lamp. Interestingly enough, it is a rare apartment ("flat") in Luxembourg that comes with light fixtures installed. I'm not much of an interior decorator and am not looking forward to shopping for and buying fixtures, so having good overhead lights in the near term looks bleak. Luckily, the entryway, bathroom, and one of the bedrooms have "naked" lightbulbs attached to the exposed wiring so I can make due until I find the time and energy do something else. However, the living and dining rooms have no such bulbs so this lamp is going to come in pretty handy.
3. Finally, the centerpiece of the collection - an adjustable-height, combination coffee table, dining table, and ottoman. Can you believe they gave it to me free with the purchase of the chair? Outstanding.


Next comes the bedroom furniture:

Something else that is hard to find in Luxembourg (and much of Europe, I suppose) is a flat with a single closet, much less one in each room. I don't know how much the early cabinet-makers paid the architects, but they must have earned it back a million times over. Just imagine how many wardrobes/armoires have been produced and sold over all those years.

In any event, my indecision got the better of me again and instead of buying a proper wardrobe, I settled on this...whatever you call it ("clothes hanger thingy" or "open air clothing display unit" are all I've come up with so far)...as a temporary fix to the problem of where to hang my clothes. It was a heck of a lot cheaper and the box fit in my car so I didn't have to worry about how I was going to get it home.

The other side of the bedroom:

It's sure to be more comfortable when it's full of air, but I decided not to test my luck today. As it was purchased in the U.S., the pump is designed to plug into an American outlet and, unlike some other things (e.g., computer power cords, Blackberry chargers), it doesn't have the built-in power converter which would allow it to be plugged in using a simple adapter. As such, I think it wise to hold out and buy a converter before I fry the pump and am forced to sleep on the tile.

This is kind of fun, too:

This is one side of my main bathroom (there is also a half-bath, or "WC"). And yes, those are the hookups for the washing machine. It is actually quite rare to have a washer/dryer inside your actual apartment here (most places have a common laundry room in the basement where each apartment has its own set of hookups), so I guess I'm lucky? In any event, the dryer is probably going to sit in the extra bedroom for the time being - it is self-condensing so it needs no vent and can be plugged into any outlet - but my washing machine is going to sit right in front my toilet. Talk about multi-tasking...

Finally, a few pictures of the views from my apartment. The first two pictures are looking North out my bedroom window (the second bedroom is right next door followed by the kitchen and then the living room/balcony, all of which have basically the same view). The last is looking East out of the window in the dining room (the side of the balcony also looks East).

Something to talk about

Today was my first day on the job and, for the most part, things went rather smoothly. The ITS group secretaries are fantastic and they helped me get set up with my computer, blackberry, access card, office, etc. My particular secretary told me that I needed to talk slower at first so she could understand me and she also said that I needed to learn French (and that she would help me). She was very kind on both points and I actually do plan to take her up on her offer to help with my French.

The first real snag didn't come until the end of the day (a little after 8pm - mostly because I was trying to take care of some administrative issues that required calls to the U.S.). My secretary had brought me the keys to my car (an Audi A6) in the afternoon and told me the car should be parked on level -1 in the garage, but she admittedly didn't know exactly where it would be. Seemed easy enough until I went down to the garage and looked around for the car. I didn't initially see it on level -1, but thought it must just be on level -2. Nope. I walked around level -2 again, then -1 again, and still could not find the car. At this point I was trying to figure out who I could call (not that I know anyone's work phone numbers, much less their cell/home phone numbers) and thinking how ridiculous it would be (and how pissed off I would be) to ride the bus home tonight and back to work in the morning when I had keys to a car that was somewhere in or around the office. So I walked outside and starting searching in the surface lots in front of the building. Still nothing. More frustration. Then I realized there was another small lot on the side of the building, and of course, the car was right there.

But that turned out to easiest issue to solve. I jumped in the car and started it up. I've never even been in an Audi, much less driven one, but I wasn't concerned. I know how to drive. I know how to drive a stick shift. Nothing to it. I decided not to worry about learning the radio functions right off the bat, but knew it would be wise to learn how to reverse before it was needed (the car was backed in to the parking space, so I didn't need it at first). This turned out to be harder than I expected. The gear shift indicated it was all the way to the left and up, but I just couldn't find it. My Nissan had a collar that had to be lifted to shift into reverse, but this car didn't have that. I looked everywhere and thought I tried everything, but still couldn't find it. I pulled out the owner's manual. I searched and searched, but it didn't talk about manual transmissions at all - only automatic gearboxes. I even tried to google it on my blackberry to no avail. Again, I had no idea who I could call in Luxembourg and thought it would be even more ridiculous to take the bus just because I didn't know how to put the car in reverse. Finally, I called Dad and asked him to search online and see if he could find anything. When he had no success, I finally had the brilliant idea to call an Audi dealership in the U.S. (obviously, all the dealerships and the leasing company in Lux would be closed). Dad gave me the number of a dealership in Plano and I'm sure I made a salesman's day when I told him that I was stuck in Europe and didn't know how to shift my Audi into reverse. The solution? Push down on the stick shift before trying to put in reverse. Easy. I thanked my new savior and took off for home.

Moral of the story...if you're in the market for an Audi, I recommend Boardwalk Audi of Plano.

Hanging out

Things have been going pretty smoothly so far, which is not terribly fun to write about...

I am going to be working with some great people. A few of them took me out on the town Thursday and Friday nights, and one of them also put me in contact with another American (from Kansas City), who invited me over for dinner Saturday and took me out to see a British/American cover band. I took the "hop on, hop off" Luxembourg bus tour Saturday and Sunday and met up a Boston-native (also just starting with PwC-Lux, but on the audit side) to watch the Patriots game that was played in London Sunday night. Otherwise, I have either slept or wandered around the city during my down time.

A "peachy" apartment

I spent the last two afternoons searching for available apartments and narrowed the list down to three, all of which have their warts and none of which are perfect. But since I have exhausted my PwC-provided time with the relocation company, and since I understand that good apartments go quickly, I think I should probably take what is available. The best of the bunch - given price, location, and other factors - seems to be a relatively new construction building in Fentange, which is a bit South of town but has a direct route to the office. The biggest knock on this place is the wall color - every wall in the apartment is covered in peach paint. Definitely not ideal, but, as I said, there were no "perfect" apartments and, for the price, location, size and layout, this seemed to be the best option. We'll see if I think the same tomorrow and whether I decide to pull the trigger, but it seems very likely that I will call it home (and either paint it or live with the peachiness).

After having dinner/drinks with some co-workers tonight (Thursday), I feel that I should probably confirm whether I am allowed to have a grill at my chosen apartment. I also question whether I should continue to look on my own and see if I can find a better/cheaper place. But, as I start work Monday, I will probably just make a decision and run with it so I don't have the stress of finding an apartment hanging over my head as I go to work.

Other than apartment-hunting, I haven't done a whole lot while I've been in town. I have made two trips to the U.S. Embassy in an attempt to register myself in Luxembourg. On Wednesday, I found that they are only open on Thursdays for Consular appointments. When I went back on Thursday, I found that the only way to register was online and there was really nothing else to do at the Embassy itself. I guess the two trips were a bit of a waste of time, but at least I now know exactly where the Embassy is as well as the best way to get there by bus. I also opened a bank account this morning (Thursday) and spent some time wandering around the City Centre yesterday (Wednesday) before we went house hunting.

Admin seems to rule the day right now. Hopefully more exciting ventures await.

Flying "home" from...home

Made it safely to Luxembourg on Tuesday and, despite flying economy class, was able to sleep for the majority of the 9+ hour flight to Frankfurt. I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that I had only about 16 combined hours of sleep in the four days leading up to the flight. It also didn't hurt that I could stretch out my legs in an emergency row seat and had no one sitting next to me.

My flight consisted of 1) a mediocre/bad "chicken" evening meal; 2) a long nap; 3) watching The Hangover; and 4) a bad/terrible breakfast. After all that, and a few minutes of reading, it was time to land in Frankfurt.

I had a three hour layover in Frankfurt and, except that I almost slept through all of the announcements for my flight, there were no issues with the quick (25 minute) flight to Luxembourg. My relocation assistant, Beverley, was waiting for me at the airport and since the customs agent decided he didn't want to search through all of my luggage, we were soon off to my temporary accommodations at the Hotel A to Z (or the ALZ Inn, depending on which sign you read).

Beverley and I quickly planned out Wednesday's house-hunt by sorting through the potential apartments she had identified. As she was unsure of what I was looking for with respect to size, price, etc., we were forced to eliminate many of the candidates and decided it would be best to spread our time out over two days rather than one so she could do a bit more focused research on Wednesday morning. Once that was settled, she took me to the local grocery store to buy a few provisions for my kitchenette and left me to spend the rest of the afternoon/evening as I pleased - which turned out to be cooking dinner, reading "to do" lists and searching for apartments online.

Most of my worldly goods are currently in crates - headed for either Luxembourg or storage. The movers packed me up yesterday (all day - seriously - from 9:30am to 6:15pm) and my flight leaves around 4pm on Monday. Why do I feel like I have more than 2 days worth of things to do between now and then?

Best laid plans

So much for receiving my birth certificate with apostille today. The Secretary of State hasn't even received it from the Bureau of Vital Statistics yet. They think it should arrive today, but probably not before the UPS man makes his pick-up. Not what I was promised, but what do you expect from your friendly government workers...

The road goes on forever

We (i.e., PwC-Lux) think we determined the problem with my work permit application - a supposed lack of proper certification for my birth certificate, criminal record and university transcript. We actually can't confirm this as the person in charge of my file at the Luxembourg "Ministrie des Affaires Etrangeres et de L'immigration" is on "holiday" until next Tuesday (gotta love Europe) and the person that PwC-Lux spoke with could only confirm what was written in the file - that the application was incomplete and missing the aforementioned documents. This notwithstanding the fact that they were definitely included in my original transmission.

In an effort to comply with what seem to be new rules that (we think) may require an apostille (legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents) to be included with those documents, I made a quick road trip to Austin to obtain apostilles for my original documents. Easy, right? Try again. Of the 3 documents, only the notarized letter from the Dallas Police Department could be apostilled in its current form. My transcript was not notarized by Texas A&M University, so it could not be apostilled. The fix for that was easy enough - trek down to the UPS store, make a copy of the transcript, provide a signed statement that the copy was a true and correct copy of the original, have said statement notarized and return to the Secretary of State for an apostille for the notary of the statement on the photocopy of the original transcript. Whew.

Now for the dirty part. Though I got to Texas as soon as I could, I was actually born in Kansas City, MO. To my chagrine, the Secretary of the State of Texas cannot provide an apostille for a document that was produced/signed outside of the great State of Texas (i.e., a birth certificate issued in Missouri). That's right, the birth certicate has to be apostilled in Jefferson City, MO. After many phone calls were placed to the Missouri Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Missouri Secretary of State, and 2 different courier services, I discovered that 1) a new birth record would be required before the Secretary of State could provide an apostille (my existing version is too old); 2) an unrelated 3rd party (i.e., courier/legal representative) could not obtain my birth record directly from the Bureau of Vital Statistics; but 3) the Bureau of Vital Statistics could produce the birth certificate and courier it to the Secretary of State along with a "next day air" envelope, at which point the Secretary of State could provide an apostille and mail the document back to me. I was assured that the Bureau could send out the birth certificate today and that the Secretary of State could provide same day service on the apostille. Given mail pick-up times, this probably means the document will be mailed out tomorrow and be in my hands Friday. I'm crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath...

If all goes well, I will have the revised application completed and mailed by the end of the week and the Luxembourg Ministry will have everything they need early next week, at the same time or before my file reviewer returns from his holiday.

While I still think I will be stuck in limbo for 1-2 weeks (maybe more), I think progress is being made. At least on my end.

What a day.

Wishful Thinking

My excitement last week turned out to be premature as the letter I received Thursday was not my work permit. I was informed by PwC-Lux this morning that it was a letter requesting additional information from me. They are going to talk to the Ministry and let me know exactly what I need to do to move forward.

For now it's back to the waiting game...and taking more French classes.

It's on now.

Thursday, September 17, 2009:

1. Wake up

2. Go to work

3. Go to client meeting

4. Go to French lesson

5. Show up late to concert at Poor David's Pub (Autumn Boukadakis, Bobby Duncan, Greg Whitfield)

6. Go home

7. Check mail

8. Find Luxembourg work permit

9. Freak out a little.

Yep, it's real and it feels very strange. My move to Luxembourg was all very nebulous until tonight - until this one piece of paper (that I can't even read) put into motion a sequence of events that ends with my walking off a plane in Luxembourg, alone and barely speaking the common language of the country. Am I excited? Yes. I can't wait to get over there, test my limits, travel around Europe, learn a hell of a lot about myself and my work, etc, etc, etc. Am I nervous? Hell yes. How could I not be?