immigrant-rob

[immigrant-rob]

Long time no see

Spring has finally arrived, after last weeks dump of snow temperatures are rising and I can see grass again. This must have motivated me to update my blog again after 3 months of hibernation... Though lots of updates!

Where do I start... Well, of course with the most important of all. I passed my exam! 6 months of studying lead up to me taking the written exam to jump the first hurdle in becoming a physiotherapist in Canada on March 9th. I knew ethics was a major component, but the exam still was surprisingly ''ethical''. Anyway, can't say more than that or I might go to jail (not allowed to share exam details), however, the exam has prepared me to provide physio in prison in case of such an event. I did not leave the exam with a great feeling, and it left me hanging for 2 weeks before the results came back. This was an opportunity for me to teach Naomi 2 new Dutch phrases; ''Heels over the pond'' and ''On the edge of the board''.

Passing the exam was not only a relief professionally, but also personally as we were going on holiday 4 days later. We spent 6 days in Hong Kong, visiting some of Naomi's relatives and being shown around by her parents as our local guides. For a guy coming from a town with just over 100.000 inhabitants, and the tallest building being a church reaching 109 meters, being amazing by HK architecture is an understatement. Never had I see neighborhoods consisting out of just skyscrapers. Or restaurant flats where the first 10 floors of a skyscraper are all restaurants. There is no meaning to the phrase; ''Even een terrasje pakken'' in this country. But maybe even more impressive was how clean it was. How can one of the worlds most densely populated places on earth be so clean, versus most other places I have been or lived?

But my report on this part of the trip would not be complete if I did not mention the food we ate. HK is known for its incredible gastronomy, and for the foreigners probably an interesting one as well. I tried many new flavors and dishes, and at one dinner had to particularly live up to my name as an adventurous eater. Maybe it was also because this was the first time I met some of Naomi's relatives and I knew I was being judged on what I would eat. To start off was shark fin soup, not too ''scary'' right? Then we had a roast piglet, presented as if it had been squished. Now we get to the exciting part, goose feet. And for dessert, pigeon spit pudding (edible birds nest). When you hear such ingredients you may be shocked, but in all honestly it tastes good, and I can often link such dishes to western dishes that I've had in the past. If you are interested in more details on our food from our trip (or the whole trip in general), check out Naomi's blog. As usual, she has done a way better job than me of blogging.

Other highlights of our trip in HK were a nice outdoor stair master with the cousin Isaiah, who spoke fluent Dutch self taught online; ''Faka met jouw G'' and who smoked us on this hike. The only other time I've seen Naomi that tired was during the last 10k of our Elfstedentocht. He was also so kind to let me try out the new Apple Vision Pro, currently only available in the US and wow... it blew my mind. I am fairly of of date on what tech can do these days, so such an experience was totally unexpected. We also visited 3 different graveyards and seeing the differences between Buddhis and Christian graveyards was interesting. And our trip to the gambling capital of the world, Macau. Where I visited Paris, London and Venice from the hotels in 1 day.

Next destination was 9 days of travelling around Japan, the country where you can be served by robots, but train schedules need to be manually searched in books by the desk clerks. A country that is proud of it's traditions and ways, for a foreigner sometimes confusing but beautiful. First we did 1 day in Osaka. Our hotel was right outside Osaka castle, and much to our surprise it was peak cherry blossom season! Usually it would've been earlier and we had already anticipated that we had missed it. Dinner that day was my first encounter with Wagyu, yummy!

The next day we spent travelling to Onomichi, stopping at Himeji castle which is considered to be Japans most beautiful castle. And beautiful it was indeed, but with beauty comes tourism, and with tourism comes crowdedness (pesky tourists). We were glad to have seen it, but the 1 hours line up and cattle like herding system to see inside were not worth it in my opinion.

Now comes my highlight of the trip! A 75k bike ride over 6 islands connected by massive bridges called Shimanami Kaido. Despite the small drizzle the scenery was stunning and it was a welcome change to the busy cities previously. It was enjoyable to explore the Japanese countryside and fishing villages while getting in some exercise. Naomi's managed to wobble off her bike 5,5k into the ride, which gives her a 100% succes rate of falling off bikes on excursion rides at an average distance of about 8% of the total distance.

Next up was Kyoto, a large but quieter city than what we were used to with many temples to see. We did a stepping stone river crossing which both gave us wet socks (and a good laugh), spent some time on the bank drying our socks and as always while we wait, played a game of Wingspan.

And lastly, 3 days Tokyo! After visiting the most densely populated city in the world, now it was time to visit worlds biggest city with 37 million inhabitants, including the metropolitan area. A cool variety between big modern architecture and narrow old streets filled with food joints, allowing only for seating at the bar due to how narrow they are. We were exposed to a whole new level of arcade gaming, and it reminded me of a popular saying; ''No matter how good you are, there is always an Asian better than you at it''. I've seen some impressive guitar Hero shenanigans during my high school days, but I've never seen a man in suit and tie octo-combo a Japanese KPOP song for 10 minutes straight. I used to think AFL was the peak standard of athleticism, but have my doubts now...

As an experienced Mario Carts driver I was sad to miss out on the Mario Carts driving experience through Tokyo streets due to not having an international drivers license. Unfortunately, they did not accept 7+ years of Wii MC driving experience with some top ranks in the world (but never first, remember, and Asian always beats you). I got to watch professional sumo wrestlers practice at their ''stable''. They even came out after training for some pictures which was really cool. And last but not least, what am I missing in my recap from Tokyo? Exactly, food. I had what was probably my best meal in my entire life! An amazing 13 course dinner with lots of different cuts of meat including wagyu. Who knew tongue could be so tender by the way?!

I have cut myself in the fingers by taking so long to blog. My recap of our holiday was not nearly as complete or detailed as Naomi's. If you are planning a trip to any of these places take a look at hers. She also has all the names.

That's all for now, hopefully I will have some exciting news in the next blog regarding work!

[immigrant-rob]

Ijsklontjesweer

Some of you may have read on the Dutch news that Canada and Northern USA were experiencing an extreme cold front. I was blessed to experience the coldest Calgary has been since 1998 reaching a low of -36.8 C excluding windchill. Because I'm living a hermits life studying for my exam I did not have to go out and face the cold, which made me kind of enjoy such an extreme new experience. Who has never wanted to try the instant freezing of boiling water trick right? What you don't see from this picture is the many failed previous attempts where I did not swing properly, or Naomi was still figuring out her new phones camera settings. Apparently many people get burned doing this because they don't test if the water actually freezes before throwing it in the air. Alas, I did, but after being showered by boiling water the first time because it did not spread evenly I realized there's a technique to throwing. To make sure the water instantly freezes it has to be distributed thinly so the cold air can wrap around the droplets. Unfortunately, a waterfall of boiling water does not instantly freeze as I learned...

Anyway, some other cool/weird things I've noticed in these extreme temperatures are: -rubbing your nose causes icicles to fall on the ground -condensation coming out of the sewage pipes, while driving you see ''smoke'' rising everywhere like small campfires -opening the garage with an internal temperature of -10 C causes a massive cloud of condensation to escape into the -35 C air

Overall, it was a cool experience and didn't bother me too much. The good thing about cold is you can dress for it. I do realize that me being a hermit these days probably played a big role in me enjoying it. Once you have to commute to work in these temperatures the fun quickly will disappear. Luckily for those people we are back to +7 C and clear blue skies. Might grab my shorts from the shelf this weekend.

[immigrant-rob]

The last move

It's been 2 months since the last blog, so time for an update on the highlights. We have moved in and settled into our new rental house provided by a miracle. It is located in the exact neighborhood we had wanted, close to Naomi's family but usually an expensive one to rent. However, the landlord was very generous and made a deal that if we took good care of the property the rent would be lower. After unpacking 104 cardboard boxes and a few weeks of minor repairs around the house we were finally ready to settle in and enjoy. Besides living close to Naomi's family (who love to cook, and guess where most leftovers end up 😏), it is also within walking distance of a huge supermarket (think like Albert Heijn XXXL) and church. I had given up all hope to be able to walk to places from home!

While clearing out the house, Hoydi, Naomi's brother and I did a trip to the dump. Going to the dump always was an exciting day out back when I was young, but this was on a different level. Whereas I'm used to dumping my couch in a container, here they have ''landfills''. Massive pits on the outskirts of the city where 1.2 million people literally can dump their trash. Not sure how I felt about dumping 3 couches into mother nature, but I was assured that the nice neighborhood next to it was built on one of these full landfills and in a few years a new neighborhood would be built on my 3 couches.

A few weeks later we hosted our first guests at our place. Jacqueline, an old university friend of mine and her husband Mark came over. We went on my first snowshoeing hike up to Chester Lake through fresh powder which must feel as outdoorsy as it can get. We witnessed a decent sized avalanche from fairly nearby, and the powder it spewed up blowing through the trees. The next day we spent playing boardgames, where Mark beat me at my home game Everdell after I made a shameful mistake, but redeemed my board gaming career with a surprise Scythe win. Both great games if you're into board games!

A week later Naomi and I took a 1 week breather in Vancouver and Vancouver Island, where my highlight was seeing unhuggable trees. The largest being 9m in circumference! We also revisited Naomi's memories of camping on the island, catching crabs and clam digging on the beach. We caught 19 crabs in total, unfortunately non were big enough to be eaten.

Initially, I thought we were going for the views, but soon it became apparent that Naomi had a different to-do list. Apparently, Vancouver is the place to be to eat Asian food outside of Asia. I should've known that marrying a foodie means travel destinations aren't based on scenes but on food. I'm glad they didn't charge me 2 seats on the flight back after that week... Anyway, the climate reminded me of home. Wet and humid. Ideal for someone whose nose had been clogged for the past 2 months to be able to breathe again, but also reminded me of what I did not like about Dutch weather. The wetness and gray skies. Believe it or not, while writing this the temperature is -31 C here, but it is dry and I will bet a Timbit on a clear blue sky later today, just like the past week. I'll deal with the congested nose.

Last 2 highlights were our Christmas dinner with turkey and ham prepared by Hoydi which I could help carve (and take home many leftovers). Secondly, a beautiful easy hike through Johnstone Canyon to view the frozen waterfalls and its dare devil ice climbers. It's a tourist attraction which always makes for fun viewings of unprepared tourists with no cleats slipping and sliding down the trail. The second part of the hike to the mud pots was very quiet and allowed for some Disney Wonderland like views in the valley.

Studying is going well, I'm still on track with my schedule to finish by the end of January and use February to revise. Looking forward to put the exam behind me and start working!

[immigrant-rob]

The nomad life

Our shipment has arrived, and is waiting to be delivered to our new rental house! Next week Friday we will receive our belongings, and experience what some people have described as an early Christmas. Colleagues of Naomi have said you forget what you have, and in which box stuff has been packed, hence the ''Christmas feeling''. Hopefully this will be the end of ''the nomad life'' for a while, and we can settle down for more than a few months. Just this week I realized that we will have moved 5 times in the span of 9 months, of which the last 2 have been living from a suitcase. While staying here, we've had to move from our previous apartment due to a leakage in the closet. 3 weeks ago we discovered a sack of paint hanging from the wall filled with water about to burst. By the time the plumber arrived, the water had spread behind the wall and under the laminate. Repairs would be noise and take a few days, which allowed us to move to an apartment across from us. A blessing in disguise, as this one is bigger with more light! And a better view of the seemingly daily clear sunrise and sunsets.

In the meantime we've had +15 Celsius again, and 2 days later -7 with snow so the trend continues. Luckily there's hardly any wind, so it does not feel as cold as one would expect. It's a nice breeze of fresh air to waken me up on my walk to the library which has become my second home. 9th of March is D-Day, being the day of my PCE exam (theoretical physio exam) which I need to pass in order to work as a ''more qualified'' resident physio. This is the biggest exam I've ever had to study for, but who am I to expect any sympathy from many of you who have a masters or PhD 🤣. Luckily, football is still there to keep me sane, and get my weekly requirement of running around in. So far we've won 2/2. Bit early to speak of championship contenders but that is definitely the goal. Up the Legion!

Last week we were able to head out into the mountains for a nice change of scenery and some fresh air! It was my first time winter hiking, so it was cool to see a very different scenery on the same hike I had done 2 years ago. Again, a great reminder of the benefits of living near such amazing nature!

[immigrant-rob]

3 weeks later

The past 3 weeks have passed quickly, as one would expect when they are settling in a new country. We hit the ground running as Naomi went straight back to work and I started my online study for the physio exam I am required to take. We currently live in a tiny apartment in down town while we wait for our shipment to arrive and settle our rental contract (very exciting news potentially!). On our first weekend we went winter clothes shopping, because who on earth would have clothes suitable for -40 degree weather conditions. After a lot of good advice from the experts I left with clothes that would puff me up like a penguin, but keep me warm. Pictures below are from the park around the corner and apartment view.

On our second weekend we did the Healy Pass trial which was through the forest, up the valley to a small pass from which we had stunning views over Egypt Lake and the larch trees spread out beneath us. Days like these make me realize how lucky I am to have such nature less than 1.5 hours drive away from me. This was 2 days after the news of that 2 experienced hikers got killed in a bear attack which did make us a bit more alert while hiking.

On Wednesday we visited my first ice hockey game, from now on referred to as ''hockey''. I had to compromise on this change of naming to get Naomi to accept that ''football'' was the proper sport with a round ball, not the eggball they play here. In return hockey is played on ice, while field hockey on a pitch. Anyway, watching my first ever ice hockey game left me with mixed feelings. The first 7 minutes were great, high intensity, body slams, great feats of skill. Everything you hope to see in a good sports game. And then BOOM, lights out, everyone skates to the ''dug out'' and these ice sweepers skate onto the rink to clean up the chaffed ice. But while they do so adverts and minigames are being played in the arena. A very confused Rob was then told this was the ad break, so the tv advertisements could play and generate revenue. And this didn't happen just once, but every 6-7 minutes, for each period of the game... That's a total of 6 interruptions, without the official breaks! You can now understand that this did not fall well with a European who is used to watching a sport 45 min + extra time undisturbed. with a nonsense fluffy dog mascot entering into the crowd shooting T-shirt cannisters from his high pressure gun. It was a cool experience, but the take away message was that American sport events are more led to be ''entertainment'' events where sport comes second.

Lastly, I've already experienced how the weather can swing within a few days. 5 days ago I played my first football match with my new team (VG Legion) in 20 degrees. Within 5 days the weather has swung from that, to a 10cm layer of snow and -10 degrees. Better get used to it, at least I was on time buying warm clothing!

[immigrant-rob]

Moving to the freezer 🍁

Hello from Canada, where the weather is just as bipolar as Katy Perry's Hot 'n Cold song. In the past 3 days I have already seen people with hats, gloves, skirts, shorts, warm winter boots and slippers. Upon arriving it was 5 degrees Celsius and raining. Weather prediction for Friday is highs op 28 degrees. A lot to get used to.

A small side note, I will continue to use the superior metric and centigrade system as the Canadians apparently can't decide on which measurement system they prefer to use. Road distances are measured in kilometers, a door height in feet and inches. All weight is measured in pounds, but driving speed in kilometers per hour. Very confusing.

Last week Monday the movers arrived and cleared the house. This was a bit worrying as we lived in a furnished house, and thus had to make sure they would not take what did not belong to us. We briefly considered telling them to clear the house out, and losing our deposit. After all, our deposit was probably a 10th of the nice furniture in the house and it would solve us a lot of hassle of buying new stuff. Luckily all went well and we believe everything that should've stayed remained. Who knows, maybe in 2 months we will unwrap some surprise gifts from the 23 cubic meters, or is it 812 cubic foot 🤔...

So once the house was raided we got to stay in a hotel we could pick from a list provided by Naomi's work. Obviously, if such an opportunity arises you select the one for the coolest experience. We ended up staying in Hotel des Indes. While Naomi still had to work, I finished up the last jobs in NL and roamed around the old center of The Hague to soak it in one last time. Arguably, the best attribute of our hotel was that it was so close to Laura's work, which allowed me to meet up with her for lunch on multiple occasions.

Then Saturday came, and it was time for departure. It was great seeing Laura, Kevin and Lars come to the airport and wave us off. After some chats and tears, it was finally time to leave. The repatriation came with business class tickets, which is a game changer for long distance travelling in my opinion. Lounge access prior to departure with lots of free food! A seat that allows you the completely recline and stretch out! Proper cutlery 😱😱😱! Never did I think an upgrade would make such a difference. But I remain with both feet on the ground. This experience probably got me my one and only KLM house. Next time back it's back to peasant class.

Upon arrival Naomi's parents picked us up and drove us around to get groceries. A big thank you to them for all their help and starter care packages. Today we have finally settled in to our 40m2 (431 sq ft) apartment where we will stay till our shipment arrives, hopefully within the next 8-10 weeks. Location is superb, right in down town. It's a 10 minute walk away from Naomi's work, and about 20 minutes to the library where I will mostly likely spend my time the coming months preparing for the PCE exam. The picture below is from one of our walks, and reminds me of the beautiful nature this country has to offer. Rockies in the distance!

[immigrant-rob]

South Africa

It's a weird idea that 2 days ago we were still in Kruger watching what one could possibly call the highlight of their trip... 2 lions mating no less than 5 meters away from our car. The laze of the animals rubbed off on me, hence the late update.

The last 6 days of our trip were filled with an action packed first day when we landed at Nelspruit airport, picked up our rental car and drove 250km past the Panorama Route for some beautiful views of Blyde River Canyon. Due to tight planning this was more a hop-out-of-the-car-and-admire-the-view happening. Days like these remind you of how small your own country is. Again, due to tight planning, we ended up driving for about 1.5 hours past sunset, and now I understand why people warned us for that. Pleasant driving turned into Mario-cart like swerving on a pitch black road avoiding the potholes, but we made it.

The following 5 days are easily summarized in; a lot of driving, patiently waiting and soaking in the nature and scenery in awe. Visiting Kruger was my highlight. A completely new experience where the animals roam free and people are ''locked in their cars''. Together with the extra element of trying to spot animals rather than visiting them at an exact spot added to the thrill once you encountered one. We were lucky to spot 4 of the big 5 (lions, leopards, buffaloes and elephants), and many other creatures.

On our way back from Kruger to our flight back to Cape Town we had a slightly stressful encounter at the toll port. The naïve assumption we had was that toll ports must accepted foreign credit cards... right? As we had used our last ZAR to tip the guide on our sunset drive the previous day, which was spectacular, we had 3 different currencies on us but enough for the 4 euro toll fee. The tollkeeper stuck to his point that we had to drive back to the village we had just passed 30 min ago to withdraw money and then return. Luckily, there was a good Samaritan who gave us the missing ZAR and we could continue on our way. If we had not been naïve, we would have been spared the drama, but precious encounters like these we would have missed. A good holiday needs one or two of these!

[immigrant-rob]

The second part of our trip has come to an end after a 5 day road trip on the Garden Route. This route took us through rolling hills with vineyards and white sandy beaches along the southcoast and back over the steep mountainous Swartberg Pass and endless desert driving more inland. Total distance was roughly 1700 km.

On the first day, we set off early to see the marching ducks at a vineyard where they use them as a natural pesticide. My hope was high, and expectation set to see a Donald Duck like fanfare marching from the pond into the lush vineyard. Unfortunately, the info provided online was incorrect, and Donald and his troopers had already had their breakfast. Nevertheless, we got a private tour of the estate, which was still very informative and interesting, even for people like us who only use wine for goulash. Next, we stopped by Laura's friend, where we had milktart and tea, in a gated community that did not exist on Google maps. This was a completely different side to living in SA to the townships we had just passed to get there. We continued our journey on to Hermanus, where we did a coastal walk and spent the afternoon watching the abundant amount of whales play and eat in the bay.

The days after, we spent a long time driving with a few highlights. Laura and I went bungeejumping from the 3rd highest bungee in the world at the Bloukrans bridge. This bridge allows for a freefall of roughly 170 meters. I can't deny my knees were weak, arms were heavy, nearly some vomit on my sweater already when seeing Laura and the other "contestant" being strapped up to jump off the bridge, but once it was my turn felt surprisingly calm. I knew I could not withdraw and live with the knowledge that my sister had more courage (or stupidity, depending on who you ask) than me. If you wonder what it feels like, it's exactly what you imagine. Air moving very fast past you, a gentle deceleration, and then a good 2 minutes of blood rushing to your head while you ungraciously hang upside down to be rescued. They must have a laugh up there wondering why stupid tourists pay for such a thing.

Another highlight was buying my souvenir for this trip, which is an Orlando Pirates football jersey. After watching the film Captain Phillips, I got my inspiration on how to name my Fifa and FPL teams. Can't post the name here, or I'll get demonitized, but the true managers out there know what I'm talking about. Besided that, the shirt looks cool, and I am looking forward to wearing it on the pitch!

The last 2 highlights were the Robberg hiking trail on a beautiful sunny day, with a wee detour to the island. And of course, todays 7 hour drive over the Swartberg pass and over the N1 through a desert. For more interesting facts and details, you can read Naomi's blog (nfornaomi).

Robberg hiking trail

Swartberg pass

Tomorrow, we set off for our last part of this trip, a small road trip, and 5 days in Kruger.

[immigrant-rob]

The countdown to our departure from the swamp to the freezer of the world has started. Last week was my last week of work, and Naomi likes to now tease me saying I'm partially retired... So what do retired people do? Travel. When we were deciding where to go for our last trip on this side of the globe, we initially had planned for it to be in Europe. But after checking flight tickets and times, South Africa seemed like the place to go. Maybe the many friends that have recommended it also played a small role.

We arrived in SA on Thursday eve where we picked up our rental car and drove to our guesthouse.

Day 1 we hiked up Table Mountain via the Platteklip Gorge. Upon reaching the table we first hiked to the smallest and flattest peak I have ever seen. From there on we hiked along the ridge, which presented some stunning views of the city below to the cable cart that took us back down. After our hike we drove into town to visit a neighbourhood called Bo Kaap, where many of the houses are bright and colourful. This represents the event when slaves were allowed to buy their own houses and did not have to rent the standardized white houses they lived in before. When getting out of our car a guy approached us and told us he was our "parking attendant" for which a small donation was welcome. Being the poster boy tourist, tall, blond and white he must've seen his chance for which he was greatly rewarded. Because we didn't have any small change on us, he suggested going to the shop across the road to buy him some food. This turned out to be a months worth of peanut butter and oil totalling 8 euros, for what would end up to be a 30 minute parking session. Amsterdam parking tariff isn't that bad after all. Note to self, always carry small change for tipping. At least when we got back to our car the windows had not been smashed, tires not deflated and we could spread the Dutch love for peanut butter.

Day 2 was rainy and misty, so we decided to do our drive around Cape Peninsula that day. First stop was visiting a penguin colony, where we applied our learnings from the day before and tipped the parking attendant the appropriate amount. We continued our journey to Cape of Good Hope, where the rain stopped... and it started to pour. Unfortunately, visibility wasn't great, and the name "good hope" turned out to be false advertising as it only got worse. When leaving the park we ran into a wild zebra, which caught us all by surprise. Didn't zebras only live on the savanna far away from civilization? I was definitely not expecting to see one out here, but a comforting surprise to a day where the pouring had turned into hosing from the sky. On with the drive, we stopped at a local coffee shop in Scarborough where we ate the most delicious sweet potato wedges ever. That fries shop in Sydney Australia has been beaten and we proceeded on our coastal drive up north again. Halfway along we stopped for a hike up Chapmans Peak. Unsurprisingly, the peak was also covered in clouds, so we did half the hike and waited for the bay to clear up while hiding under a bush. Once it cleared up, the view was lovely.

On day 3 we got up at 5am to hike up Lion's Head to see the sunrise over Cape Town. Halfway up the view was clear and the city beautifully lit by all its lights. At the top the clouds rolled in again preventing us from a clear view of the city, but the sunrise was pretty nevertheless. We headed to the botanical gardens where we saw the most special plants so far only seen on National Geographics. We had lunch at the local foodmarket where I had a 500 gram serving of beef ribs from the braai. Lekker! In the eve we made good use of Brandon and Michaela's, our SA friends, Spurs giftcard to endulge ourself over a hearty meal. For me this time a 500 gram T-bone steak. Equally delightful was that we got to watch Arsenal beat Man Utd. 3-1 to send the reds to the right side of the table.

Coming up will be our 5 day roadtrip over the Garden Route, followed by 5 days in Kruger nation park where we DO expect to see zebras. Not too busy packing for our move yet. That will come after this trip.