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).