Shipping from the Netherlands Isn't So Great Either

I think I almost implied something yesterday but it was not intentional. In fact, I have to write this to say it definitely is not the case. I was talking about shipping from the US being painful. Well its not much better when it comes from the country I live in. One of the reasons for this is that the main shipping company, TNT, is mostly incompetent. Yesterday I ordered something from Coolblue.nl. They say that if you order by 10 or 10:30 PM, you will get it the next morning. They get the package to TNT by about 11 that night and its up to TNT to go the rest of the way. After all, that is the main function of TNT. But in my case, they will do that maybe 60-70% of the time. The rest of the time, they don't. Whats their excuse?

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How to get an OK translation AND learn from it!!!

Being a native English speaker in

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Time to Copy Hanselman (or Why It Sucks To Build A PC in Amsterdam)

About a month or two ago, Scott Hanselman talked about wanting to build a new developer rig. He worked with Jeff Atwood to come up with a list of components to solve all his needs. My needs are a bit different but the requirements in a PC are fairly similar and I am getting a bit tired of working with my old box (a 2.4 GHz P4) or loading personal projects on my

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Why I hate flying alliance partners

The promise is great. Earn your miles on one airline and reap the rewards regardless of the carrier. So when I fly 50,000 or 100,000 miles on United, I should get the benefits on Lufthansa, and the other Star Alliance partners as well. But it doesn't always work out that way. I flew today from Sydney to Los Angeles on United and got bumped up to Business. But the rest of the flight back to Amsterdam was on Lufthansa. I was told on the phone that I couldn't reserve a Emergency Exit row until I got to the airport. United has this rule too, unless you are Premier Exec or better. But Lufthansa said it was for all passengers. When I got to the airport I was told those seats are given to Star Alliance Gold members (which I am) and have been gone for a while. So I was stuck in cattle class for 10 hours. Then in Frankfurt the Nazi Lounge guards denied me access to the Senator Lounge. I could prove that I was Premier Exec and that I was flying International on Lufthansa, but I was told that this was a Lufthansa Lounge and that I could try the United lounge several terminals away.

Yeah, I know, some of you are going to tell me that you don't go to the lounges and its ok. But when you spend 30+ hours on a plane, spending a few in a lounge before your next flight makes things a bit more bearable. You get to unwind a bit, stretch out, let down your guard, charge the laptop, etc. It makes a big difference.

The next day I was on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Dubai and I mentioned the incident to one of my seatmates. his reaction? Ugh....Lufthansa...very bad....no go....

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Visited Countries Getting Redder

Every now and then I like to check out the Visited Countries page to see how much of the world I have covered. Here are my current results.

Wow! Now I still have to hit Africa and most of southern South America....and China....oh, India, and most of SE Asia....oh and all those places in the MidEast where my head might not stay attached to the rest of my body....OK, there is a lot to see still.... Go to the site to make your own.

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Still snowing...

Wow, its been over a week and it has snowed every day since….not all day every day, but each morning I have woken up with a fresh bed of snow on the ground…

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The Dutch Customs Scam

It turns out there is a secret toll you need to pay when you move to the Netherlands. This is a toll they never tell you about until you get the bill. The toll that I am referring to is how much the Customs people are going to charge you in bogus VAT charges. Customs will go through your stuff to verify that you are only shipping household goods and are not shipping stuff to be resold: fair enough. Everything I sent was stuff that had been used in my apartment in San Francisco for several months at least and I wanted to continue using in my apartment in Amsterdam. My mistake though was to keep the original boxes for any valuable electronics.

I have a unit from Sonos for distributing music around my apartment. I had gotten so used to having them in SF that the last three months in my pad without them has been difficult. But the movers notified me a few weeks ago that Customs found the box and would be charging me over 100 Euros for VAT (That’s the European abbreviation for tax for you Yanks out there). The fact that I had them for several months didn't really matter. If I had a receipt for them I could avoid having to pay, but how many of you move to a new location with 3 suitcases of everything you need for 3 months, and carry all of your receipts for everything you own in those bags too???

I guess it could have been worse. They could have charged me for the LCD monitors I have had for a year, or the slide scanner I have had for 4 years, or all the books or CDs I shipped. I guess I wouldn't have minded if they just called it a Customs Search Fee and charged everyone a flat rate of 100 Euros. My problem is that this is because according to them I bought these units then shipped them with a mover to simply avoid paying VAT in the first place. Ugh.

So I guess the moral of the story is, if you are moving to the Netherlands or maybe to Europe in general, throw away the original boxes for all electronics and let the movers pack everything in their own boxes.

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Privium in a word: Awesome!!!

This morning I got to Schipol earlier than I had planned…well…actually all of the delays I expected from it being my first experience with public transport around Amsterdam didn’t occur, so I got there on time: 2 hours before my flight. I knew I had wanted to sign up for Privium a few weeks back, so I stopped by the office to fill out the application. Thirty minutes, one form, 110 Euros, and an iris scan later and I walked out of their Schipol office ready to go. Privium allows you to skip all lines at the airport: security screening on the way in, customs on the way out, closer parking, and business class check in. So now it was time to try it out for the first time.

There were a dozen or so people waiting to go through security, but I skipped them and went to the Privium line: no wait. Slide my card in, wait a few seconds, walk over to the iris scanner, look at the mirror, and the gate magically opens. The attendant on the other side then guided me to a x-ray machine and pulled me to the front of the line: no wait. I just went through what should have taken 10 minutes or more in two. Next week when I come midday I am looking forward to seeing the monstrous line I will be able to skip.

Now skipping a long line at the beginning of your trip is nice, but the last thing you want to do at the end of a long day is sit and wait in another long queue waiting for the customs officials to view your passport and ask those questions. You just want to get out of the airport as quickly as possible. Tonight after coming in from London, the line for customs was huge. But I sailed right past it.

Just like I mentioned a few weeks back, if you travel through Schipol at least 3 or 4 times a year this is totally worth it. I am expecting to be going through these lines a couple dozen times so it just gets better and better each time.

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Bookstores in Amsterdam

In every city I have ever lived in, visiting good bookstores has always been important. And thus, finding good bookstores is always an important first step. In the Seattle area, I always loved visiting Elliot Bay Book Company, down the street from my first apartment there, as well as the Borders in Redmond Towne Square for one of the better computer sections in town. In San Francisco I visited the Books Inc in my neighborhood on Chestnut, and occasionally checking the B&N in near Fisherman’s Wharf for something more mainstream. In my first stay in the Bay Area, I loved Stacey’s in Palo Alto and on Stevens Creek

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Dinner in Amsterdam

Dinner in Amsterdam…well…dinner in the Netherlands…and possibly dinner in Europe in general, is different from dinner in the US. Actually what I am thinking about is dinner out. You go to any nice restaurant in the US and you will get a good meal, service will be quick, and when you are done you get the check. You leave and someone else comes in to take your table for their turn. Of course, that is assuming that you go to a restaurant with good food and service, but thats not my point. Here in Amsterdam almost everything is the same, except at a much slower pace. And that last part doesn’t happen because there aren’t enough hours in the evening to allow for a second sitting.

Last night I met up with a bunch from Expatica at Uyt on Runststraat at Prinsengracht. I got there a little late…fashionably late? Well maybe just late…reservations were for 8 and I got there at about 9. They were just getting a second round of bread and had recently placed their orders. I got an order in pretty quickly after I arrived and about 10 minutes later everyone’s first course came out, including mine: Carpaccio with parmesan cheese and a few other things that the WorldLingo site translation can’t figure out. Sometime around 9:45 the main course came out. I had the roast of lamb in a rich sauce with mashed potatoes. Apparently one of the things this place is known for is the quality of their meats, and this dish was stunning. Around 10:45 or 11:00 the desserts came out: Pear pie with white chocolate ice cream. Then coffee and after-dinner drinks. Of course, throughout the night we went through three bottles of wine and a beer or two.

We finally got out of there approaching midnight. Its not just because we were a large group (7), but that just seems to be the way meals out work here. You are given time to allow the food to digest, for conversations to flow, and just to enjoy. There is no rush. But then when I have eaten out alone, the service speeds up to accomodate the lack of conversation. Overall it turns the process of going out to eat into a much grander experience. And how much do you have to pay for such an experience? Not a lot. For the three course meal we all ate, along with 3 bottles of wine, beer, coffee, and after-dinner drinks, the shared cost between 7 came out to about 45 euros each after tip. Not a bad deal. A similar restaurant in Seattle or San Francisco with similar style of service would probably have set each person back about 75–80 dollars. Not something I will do every night, but a fun experience.

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