Projects & Progress

I develop my dutch language skills, complete my first task for a client and look forward to tomorrow...
Today I have been in Amsterdam for exactly two weeks and I feel like that is a good occasion to stop and take a look at how everything is progressing for me. Before I came, I had a lot of expectations, even though I was not aware of all of them. Let's take a look, shall we?
It will take some time to get settled: It didn't. I expected that I would need to go through a lot of cumbersome bureaucracy, such as getting a social security number, setting up a bank account, getting a dutch mobile telephone subscription and a lot of other unanticipated things. It turned out to be extremely easy and I fixed everything on the first day. I bought a prepaid sim-card and an OV-card, which allows me to travel easily with public transport and that was it. I won't need any other registration, because it is a short stay and my wage is so low I can get it as an allowance instead of a wage.
I will be travelling mainly by bike: You know I do. Turned out just like I expected it, only I didn't expect there would be different 'rules' for how to drive your bike (see last post). The Netherlands is the second-safest country in the world to drive a bike in after all... Right after Denmark that is.
I will do great at work: Work in progress. So far I have been given mainly easy tasks and a lot of learning tasks and meetings. But today I did my first real piece of work! That is, I wrote a draft topic guide for an online community, which was sent for approval by the client. It might be a small task, but it is an important part of a big project, so I feel really glad to have contributed. Also, it seems like it was noticed that I did a good job with it.
I will not have time to learn the language: Wrong. I have plenty of time, because I don't really have a life outside of work yet. I am spending about an hour and a half every day reading, or practicing dutch. I am making progress fast with the reading, but my confidence in speech is horrible. In three months, I will be speaking dutch at basic conversation level.
I will feel good in a multicultural metropolis: True. However, it is quite frustrating that I have not yet learned any stereotypes. This is not to be understood as shallowness of interest in other's personalities on my part, but I need tools to process the information that appearance gives. The result is, that I am not always able to recognize native dutch people and separate them from tourists. It is horribly inconvenient when asking for directions!
I will have to be active to get friends outside of work: True. This turned out to be a greater challenge than expected. I have no friends outside Winkle yet, but don't worry I will get there too. I have plans for tomorrow...