Two's-days in Amsterdam

From Tourist to Local: Reflecting on Growth with a New Resident Card

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I’ll go first…

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As my ardent fans undoubtedly recall, I hadn’t gotten my residence card because mine was sent to Amsterdam rather than to The Hague along with William’s. We had already planned to make a trip up to fill prescriptions…and I had naively hoped I might be able to kill two birds with one stone; however, fate offered no BOGO and demanded I use one rock per bird.

Dutch efficiency is not, apparently, multi-disciplinary.

Despite moving to The Netherlands in January, we’ve only spent about an hour in Amsterdam and a tense one at that: navigating through customs and into the hired car that whisked us and the increasingly vocal cats off to our temporary apartment in Rotterdam. We considered rentals in the nation’s official capital during our search, but we were more taken with the unofficial one.

Heck, if it’s good enough for the king and queen…

Most stories of the American health care involve long waits, high costs, and lots of frustration. We’re not living dangerously abroad and we do have healthcare coverage here (listen to

Kaila Krayewski

people!); however, it’s amazing the difference in cost. When I worked for US-based companies, the degree to which they covered the premiums for your insurance was a selling point whereas our full year of “anywhere but the US” global coverage cost us a fraction of what we used to pay…and includes vision and dental.

Being two men, we also saved by declining maternity coverage—sorry, breeders.

My mother was a physician, as was my aunt, so I grew up in close proximity to hospitals. One whiff of that horrible acrid foam or the rustle of the “not quite butcher nor parchment” paper, and I’m right back in the hallways of her practice. It wasn’t all bad: I had plenty of free scrubs and I’m sure I was the only sixth grader who had a triangular highlighter with a different color on each corner…and an ad for vaginal cream in the middle.

Now, finding a proper GP and all the admin that accompanies moving to a new place still absolutely applies when moving abroad; however, as expats, there are also a number of providers who cater specifically to our needs while “living between.” Instead of waiting months, William, miracle worker that he is, made us appointments for the same day barely a week in advance.

I’d thought this might be something we could do closer to home, but the appointment system automatically updated new patients to the Amsterdam office…so it seemed like the only solution. Much like the reasons that took us to Delft and Gouda, this felt like a pretty decent excuse to wander around the city where we spent a delightful vacation only a couple years before.

Cut to our setting an alarm (only the third time since moving abroad) to make an early train to arrive in Amsterdam in time for ten AM appointments. The “Nederlandse Spoorwegen” (Dutch Rail) app shows routes with little icons of people with a color scale by the routes.

Avoid the red trains if you like sitting anywhere but outside the bathroom.

I love being able to use public transportation. A train ticket to Amsterdam costs about 15€ which is the same cost for parking a car for a day in the center of The Hague—to say nothing of the fuel, taxes, and hassle of actually being behind the wheel and driving between the two cities. That said, it baffles me the number of Dutch people who consider it perfectly acceptable to put their phones on speaker and carry on a FaceTime conversation at full volume in a crowded train car.

Sorry about your date, oblivious girl; may I introduce you to my friend, headphones?

I’ve never arrived at Amsterdam Centraal before, and it was so fun to see the sights we memorialized in a Christmas ornament or that pop up on the favorite photos widget of my iPhone home screen. William was navigating while I tried to keep my delight to myself because I remembered the streets and knew where we were headed: right back near the area where we stayed on our first trip!

Up a narrow, fake plant-encrusted metal staircase at the back of an oversized apotheek, we found a tiny waiting room. Expecting the smell of disinfectant, scores of worn Highlights magazines, and a surly nurse with a clipboard asking us to repeat the same information we’d provided online, I was surprised to discover that this doctor flies solo. He saw us together for the shortest, most productive visit of my whole life: he looked at our prescription bottles and asked us a couple of unrelated questions—turns out he grew up in Den Haag—and proceeded to write out our authorizations on small sheets of pink note paper.

Used to the closely guarded American prescription pads I remember from my mom’s desk, I was skeptical no matter how many official-looking stamps he used.

Expecting to endure a wait for pills to be put into a freshly labeled bottle, we planned to get some lunch before returning to pick everything up. Oh, the ways our American perceptions mislead us! The two women running the pharmacy counter read the pink slips (mercifully used to that particular doctor’s terrible handwriting) and produced the expected pills from the warren of white shelves right then and there.

Altogether, the entire experience took no more than fifteen minutes and cost us less €100 each, including a three month supply. In theory, we will be reimbursed for (at least some of) that cost…though that is something I’m leaving to William, given my recently traumatic experiences with American customer service.

A week after picking up our pills, it was time to collect my residence card and I was back on a train to Amsterdam for the second Tuesday in a row. Despite the amount of things we have done side by side through this process, I was flying solo since, as it happened, the delivery window for our long-awaited dining room furniture spanned the exact timeframe needed to make the train ride and arrive at the IND for my appointment.

Two stones, two birds.

Intentionally boarding the train’s silent car, I passed the ride ignoring the voice in my head that wanted me to doubt my errand would be successful. “What if I get there and they just laugh? Surely, I’ll be reduced to tears in the middle of Immigration Services.” As easy as it would have been to listen—or even believe those statements held some measure of truth—I told my brain to shove it and turned up the volume on my playlist.

Stepping off the metro south of the city center, the station felt oddly familiar until it clicked: William and I had been to Leylaan before!

On the last day of our Amsterdam vacation, we challenged ourselves to use public transport rather than a taxi to the airport. That trip happened to be include my birthday so I’d indulged in all the delights in which a tourist might dabble. As we left the hotel, I made the ill-advised choice to smoke my last reefer from The Bulldog. Little did we know, we were also beginning to incubate COVID (let’s be honest, I probably got that from The Bulldog as well), which made for a rather sweaty and frustrating attempt at navigating the transit network.

It also put a permanent damper on the youthful delight of getting high and attempting to do adult things…like get to the airport in a foreign country.

On my second visit to Leylaan, I wasn’t panicked, sweating, coming down with a respiratory virus or high. I wasn’t a tourist, and I wasn’t there to sightsee. By now, I also know how the transportation system works and have a proper transit card, instead of furiously buying single trip tickets from the vending machines. In fact, I’d already made the switch between the intercity train and local metro without incident back at Sloterdijk!

Stepping away from the memories of dragging suitcases and dripping with flop sweat, I noticed a deck of cards had been scattered to the wind when I almost stepped on the five of diamonds. Believing in signs, I wondered at its possible significance, this day of all others. According to The Source Cards, the card suggests that “your game in life is to innovate what matters most. Yours are the instincts to refresh and revitalize what is truly valuable in life.”

Letting the cards fall where they may…

I may be evolving and finding new ways of thinking, but don’t worry, I’m not entirely reformed from my former control freaky self. Considering the IND was across the street from the station, I was frightfully early—though I had planned ahead in hopes of avoiding a perspiration-inducing rush. Twice at the same station would be excessive…

Knowing better than to present myself a full forty minutes before my appointed time, I detoured for a delicious doner kebab in the nearby plein. Fortified by garlic sauce and my favorite Cherry Bouquet frisdrank, I made my way to the IND where I will brag and say that I greeted the security guard in Dutch: “Goeiedag! Ik ben te vroeg voor mijn afspraak, maar is er een WC?”

This is rather common Dutch bathroom signage, and I love it.

Playing the ping-pong game of looking at the screen each time a new number came up, the voice in my head was silent by the time the chime rang for me. Rounding the corner to baile 7, I saw my card sitting there on the desk! It was real! And the woman proceeded to let me take it! I didn’t even have to validate my identity with my fingerprints, presumably because I still have the mustache from my photo…

I floated all the way back to Den Haag, not even minding the cancelled train that left me wandering the bowels of Schiphol’s transport level for an extra quarter of an hour. By then, William was texting me updates on the arrival and assembly of our dining room furniture. Every few minutes, I reread the pamphlet accompanying the piece of plastic that confirms I am allowed to be here until December of 2026.

The arrival of our new table is a fitting accompaniment to retrieving my residence card since my very first Expat file stemmed from the sadness I felt letting go of the dining set from our home in Minnesota. We’d shared that table with friends and family on countless occasions, making some wonderful memories around it. Seeing it walk through the door brought home the prospect that we were leaving behind a future of more of those same good times.

For the first month living in The Hague we’ve eaten on the couch, eagerly awaiting “week eleven” when our delivery was expected. Having never heard of this way of marking time, it is another thing about European culture that just makes good sense: the dates may change from year to year, but one through fifty-two (sometimes fifty-three) does not. For the astute readers, it was actually week twelve before the delivery occurred, owing to our fourth chair taking its sweet time arriving at the pre-shipment depot.

I may never know which one it was, and plan to love them all equally.

Stepping off the train to see a video of everything assembled and in place, I detoured to T.K. Maxx, hoping someone might ask to see an ID so I could use something other than my US Passport. I spent a few minutes picking out a runner and decorative bowl to serve as centerpiece because our little cat, Bear, always curled up in the one we used to have and, frankly, the new table wouldn’t feel like home without one.

Guillermo, Bear, and Bianca del Rio.

Arriving home, William and I celebrated the culmination of our move: we’re now card-carrying residents with a fully furnished apartment! Of course, the road ahead is still uncertain and we have plenty more work to do to establish ourselves here, but, for now, we have a place to share our meals facing one another instead of the television. #smallvictories

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