Plodding along.

Slowly starting to get our relocation ducks in a row.  Finding that the relocation lady in Austria is well,  how shall I put this?  Leaps and bounds better than the knobs,  er....people that we're dealing with here.

I'm just saying.

I realise it's perhaps a challenge to get us all sorted out and everything,  but when we heard back that we were somehow supposed to stick around until the Monday,  I just knew there were a couple knives missing from the drawer....


I'll let you read what we received a while back.....

 

Household goods will be removed on October 29^th; so cleaning could be done on October 30^th in the morning and move out in the afternoon. But it is more likely that cleaning will take longer than just a few hours in the morning; so then check out will need to take place after the weekend; say November 2^nd. "the relocation company here in the Netherlands"  (I removed the name to protect the stupid)   and real estate agents do not work in the weekend. (sic)


Now I realise that I mentioned this just two entries ago,  and I don't mean to be repetitive here,  but the part about real estate agents not working weekends?  Huh?  How you gonna sell anything?
Didn't have any problems in Austria.  We met with our relocation lady and the real estate agent on Saturday morning.  Signed the lease,  took a look around,  some measurements were made,  notes were taken.   It was all good.

Aparently,  the Dutch don't do that.



And just who are they hiring to do the cleaning?   We're not really pigs y'know?  Shouldn't take a day and a half to wipe down a few shelves in the kitchen,  do the wash rooms and give the place a once over with a vacuum cleaner. 


On the plus side,  they have been somewhat responsive to the schedule that I've more or less shoved down their throats up to this point,  and have offered to help out with sending back the modem and TV receivers to KPN.   This is good.  I'm not too clued in as to where these things should go.  I'm going to be sorting through the papers to see what I can find,  but it's a tad confusing.

The updated planned departure is more likely to be some time Friday afternoon.

Here's why:

The car that we've ordered for Austria is gonna take a while.  Second verse,  just like the first.  You order a car and wait.  Probably won't get it until around Christmas.


OK then.

It's going to look pretty much like this one.  Couldn't find a decent image out there on the net,  but you get the idea....

If you click that link (not the pic,  the pic is pretty small),  it's a review of the car,  and the reviewer does seem to be quite enthusiastic.  I hadn't seen that one up to this point.  I just might have to read it.

So what that means is,  we'd have to rent something for all of November and December?  Doesn't seem to be too cost effective.  Not only that,  but that means muggins here will be doing all the driving since,  getting an automatic up to this point in the rental department has been pretty much a no-go situation in Austria.

I do find this a bit odd,  since we did get an automatic when we first came over to The Netherlands.

Probably some sort of bait and switch.....


So here's the cunning plan:


 We're driving down.

Gabe must have already spoken to somebody and got the green light to take the car there for a couple months,  and we'll either take a "business trip" back up to Bonn (they do have an office there...huge too)  or simply have the darned thing shipped back to Hengelo.  I mean,  it was shipped from Belgium or wherever it was made,  so it shouldn't be that much of a challenge.

I plugged Vienna into the GPS earlier today when I was out to pick out our patio furniture and it's just a little more than 1000 km.   It was telling me that I'd get there tonight just after 8:30 if I continued on.  It was around 11:00 a.m. at the time.
We'll stop over in say,  Munich or where ever.

Did that before on the way to Slovenia.


Here's a slightly better image of the car.........

It won't have the sun roof though,  since when you order a car in Yurp,  you have to order everything,  which is a bit of a drag,  since having an automatic eats up a couple thousand Euros, and there was a budget....
Seems that the company that cannot be named had imposed a new "car policy" on all the divisions,  and the response from one of the marketing dudes was,  "we're going to lose some people over that one".  Seems company cars are a real status symbol over here.  Like that's a news flash.




So the other little nit picky thing that I figured I'd better get sorted out was,  having the bikes serviced.
Last chance,  so to speak,  and if I didn't do it here,  it wasn't happening.  As it was I missed the first service interval after a month,  but with the dough we laid out for the things, I figure it's worth the time and effort to do it right.
Mine is presently in the shop and I'll ride the Ma'am's there tomorrow morning and do a switcheroo.    Then I'll go back with the car and pick up that one after five tomorrow.

Almost forgot to mention......driving down to Austria in a little over a week means having to deal with one more thing.  I've already made an appointment for Friday morning to have the snow tires put on the car.  Apparently it's already snowed a fair amount in parts of Austria..


Swell.