Buying stuff, unpacking stuff

I'm ever so proud of us. Yesterday, we made a decision on which bed to buy, as well as a dining room table and chairs. Taking into account that we are no quick decision makers, this is quite and accomplishment :-) Of course, we were amazed (not really, we knew what to expect) by how long it'll be before we have the items in the house. They are able to deliver the table week 41, the bed in week 43 .... And we were told that that is fast, because normally it takes about 12 weeks! Even to buy a comforter, there's a delivery time of three to four weeks. I guess this is because of the wide array of materials and designs one can choose from and perhaps the high quality of the items, but it's a huge difference with the delivery times in Taiwan. They normally appologized if someting took more than a few days to be delivered.

Sometimes I wonder if that is why the Dutch are so good at planning; we have to think ahead, otherwise we would not be able to get anything done or delivered on time. The same thing for road construction. In Taiwan, they fix a road in a few days, a week at the most. But they (have to) fix them very often. Not seldom because they seem to forget something. Here, road construction usually takes at least several months. Now the chicken and egg question. Are Taiwanese fast at road construction becuase they have to do it so often or do they have to do it so often because they do it (too) fast? The other way: are Dutch slow at road construction because we plan too much or do we have to plan well because the work takes so long? You tell me :-)

Monday, we started moving the furniture into the living and dining room areas. We managed to to move all the cupboards in and even our big and heavy bookcase. That last one took a bit of thinking about how to do it, but we managed to do it without major injuries to ourselves or the book case! Yesterday, I spent the whole day unpacking boxes. I did about ten, with probably close to a hundred still to go. We'll be living between boxes for quite a while I think.
First lunch in our new home

For Emma and Janne it must have felt like Sinterklaas (or Christmas, if you want); we let them unpack the boxes which had 'toys' written on them. This resulted in a big chaos of paper, boxes and toys, but they had so much fun doing it, that it was definitely worth it! It'll be nice to be able to put many of their toys in their bedrooms and have the living room look a little bit less like a day care centre.
Feels like Christmas ...

Meanwhile, Pieter still has to work several hours a day, which he mostly does early in the morning or late at night. He is busy hanging lamps, installing networks, bringing away trash items etc. Thanks to his hard work yesterday, we already have internet access in the new house, as well as a working telephone (don't know the number yet). It means I will be able to work on my pictures as soon as we have moved. I'm almost eight months behind with all my photo albums, so I know what I'll be doing for the next six months or so ...

Well, I hear Emma waking up, so I'd better stop for now. Next post with some pics of the moving.