The first few days have gone well -- I arrived on Friday afternoon in Luxembourg on a propeller plane from Frankfurt, Germany. LuxAir has four new prop planes, I must say they are quite an improvement from the last prop plane I flew from Evansville to Memphis a few years ago. It was cloudy and gray when I arrived, which little did I know was announcing the absolute downpour that would occur all day Saturday. I have been assured by many people here that Saturday's weather was an anomaly and while it does rain a decent amount, it is rare for it to pour. Good news, I guess. I was picked up at the airport by Juli, another senior manager I will be working with at ArcelorMittal (my client), as I told my mom and a few other girls, she was wearing a Burberry raincoat and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag, and from then I knew we'd get along just fine. She dropped me at my hotel and returned a few hours later with her husband (Rob), her mother (Grandma Mary), and her two kids (Chad and Katie, ages 6 and 4, respectively) to take me to dinner at a little bar called "Maybe Nut Bobs" or "Maybe Not Bob's" or something like that. They serve primarily good pub fare -- potato skins and nachos, cheeseburgers and BLTs. A perfect first meal in a foreign land. I pretty much crashed after dinner and slept until 1:30 PM Saturday -- and I wasn't really missing much because of the rain!
Saturday afternoon, Juli and Rob and the kids picked me up to take me to Belle Etoile, a huge shopping mall with a grocery store and all sorts of shops. I got a prepaid mobile phone so I'd have a phone number here while organizing apartments and other stuff...and so I could call home. I have to tell you after three years of being constantly attached to my BlackBerry, it was an odd feeling to have no emails buzzing, no text messages, and no phone calls, nor anyway to send any of those items. I did manage to work the wireless connection at the hotel, but it is very spotty and only works at certain times of day (hence, no blogs from me yet!). We went to dinner where I spent a good amount of time reading "What do you want to do when you grow up?" to my new best friend, Katie (the 4-year-old), in various Sesame Street voices. I was scolded numerous times for not doing the proper voices of Rosita and Zoe, and my explanations that those two didn't live on Sesame Street when I was younger didn't seem to soothe Katie. I did okay with Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird, though.
Sunday arrived and I woke up at 1:30 PM again. So much for a productive day! By the time I watched a little CNN International and watched what Ike was up to, it was time for Juli and Rob to pick me up again and head this time to the home of Bill and Colleen for a barbecue. Bill is one of the other senior managers on ArcelorMittal. Bill and Colleen have three kids, Seamus (8), Abby (6), and David (2). Abby quickly attached herself to my leg and demanded that I join them on the giant trampoline. I managed to stave her off for about an hour, but succumbed after two beers. By this time, one of the partners on ArcelorMittal and his wife (Eddy and Monique -- they are Dutch) had arrived and Eddy was intently watching my drinking intake and supplying me with more beer and champagne (they had a bottle to toast my arrival) and kept refilling my glass. It seemed safer to head for the trampoline than to keep drinking! It was a very nice afternoon and evening, I think I will be in good hands here other than I need to work on my tolerance if I am going to keep up!
That brings us to Monday -- I managed to pull myself out of bed at a more-respectable 8:00 am to meet Jeannot (zhuh-no), a very nice man from the relocation agency who drove me around town all of yesterday to see flats. I looked at nine, narrowed it down to three, and with the help of Andy and Juli, finally decided on one in Beggen, which is about 4km north of the city centre. Jeannot claims that is "very far" for a Luxembourger, but is actually closer to the city than Andy and I lived to downtown Cincinnati, so I think we'll be just fine. Most people commute from similar or farther distances. It's 116 square meters -- if someone could please convert that to feet, I would be quite appreciative. I think you multiply by 9, so I'm guessing just over 1,000 square feet. That feels about right. It has two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and is a duplex -- which means it has two floors. It's ultra modern and has one of those spiral staircases right in the middle of it. I have always wanted a spiral staircase, so I was pretty pumped about it. It's new construction, has one parking spot in the garage (and Andy and I will take turns, I'm not going to make him park outside all the time!), and has a dedicated laundry in the cellar (that means we have our own washer and dryer -- or we will when we buy it -- but that all the washer and dryers in the building are in the same room -- this is how all the apartments in Luxembourg are situated so that if a leak happens, it is contained). Another thing about Luxembourg apartments -- they are all tiled. Meaning you have tile on the kitchen floor, the bathroom floor, the bedroom floor, the living room floor. Quite strange, I think it must be a deal they have with the rug companies. We'll be on the 4th and 5th floors of a 5 story building, so nobody will be above us. We have a corner unit with a terrace that wraps around it with nice views of the surrounding forest. I'll post pictures later when I get the keys. Oh, and it has ZERO light fixtures. That is something renters supply in Luxembourg, so I will be making a very fast trip to the IKEA in Arlon, Belgium (about a 15 minute drive) to get us some lights.
Today I stopped by the Deloitte office in the morning to meet with Marga, one of our HR contacts to go over a few administrative matters and now I'm back to the hotel. My hotel is about two-minute drive from the office, I took a taxi on the way there as I don't receive my car until Friday and everyone had assured me it was much too far to walk. Bah! The cab ride was SIX EURO. Good grief, even New York is cheaper! The backpacker in me just couldn't stomach paying it again, so I walked back to the hotel -- for less than 20 minutes. Not something I would want to do every day in heels, but it was fine. I know, I know -- I'll spend hundreds on a purse, but not six euro on a taxi, but really -- it was quite a silly distance. I'm going to head into the city centre to explore a little on my own in a bit, I'm going to take the bus assuming someone at the front desk can tell me how much it is. Nobody knows -- Luxembourg is like anywhere else in the US, they drive EVERYWHERE! Andy and I have vowed to not become like them and to take advantage of our legs as much as possible.
A few tidbits I've picked up so far:
- They really do hate the Germans (Jeannot told me so when he showed me the German cemetery yesterday -- he says, "See, it is very small. We don't like the Germans, but we loved the Americans which is why your cemetery is so vast."
- On that point, there are very few true Luxembourgers -- only 8% of people working in the city are from here, the rest are from France, Belgium, and Germany, all within an easy commute of here.
- There are at LEAST two McDonald's! Four or five Pizza Huts, includine one that is within walking distance of our new flat.
- There is no such thing as central heat (and no A/C, for that matter) -- everything, even our brand-new apartment, has radiators.
- The German TV stations are totally normal during the day, switch to porn as soon as it gets dark. Not that I watch it, but it's hard to miss as they are the two channels in between CNN International and InterSport, the only two English-speaking channels on my TV.
- The fact that they speak Luxembourgish only at home is a lie -- they speak it everywhere!
Well, that's all for now -- I'll try and do better at posting now that the first few days are under my belt. And everyone be sure to give a shout out for Andy -- his last day in the Cincinnati office was yesterday!! For those of you who didn't know, he is spending a few more days in the Midwest seeing family and wrapping things up, so he'll join me here on Friday, the 26th. Hope this finds you all well and happy -- and free of major tree branches from Ike! I also hope you have power!
Love,
Lesley
2 comments:
Yo Lesley -
Glad you're keeping a blog about all your adventures in Lux. Curious to read how it goes. Don't cause too much trouble....let's try to keep at least one US ally intact while you're in Europe. We are all counting on you. Good luck!
-Mark P.
Try not to fall down the spiral staircase or slip on the tile floor. I would like to go ahead and reserve the guest room...not sure when, exactly. Maybe in the summer.
Sounds awesome so far!
Post a Comment