Oma's Pages #34

Oma’s Pages #34

Okay so back to my story....

Another issue we had was that we had to get a Visa.... This was not a credit card. It was a card that gives us permission to live in this country for a year. We walked to the Grote Markt in the City Center and signed ourselves into the Groningen City at the Stadhuis.

This is the Grote Markt from the top of the Martini Toren. The Stadhuis is behind the Toren so you can see the Grote Markt but not the Stadhuis.

It was so cold when we walked to the City that my feet were so numb I could not feel them for at least an hour after we got home. I told Robert I had to have a pair of boots and the next time we went to town I wanted to drive there. We had to take some extra paperwork into the Stadhuis so when we drove I saw this man and his son and their sled. They were in the park near where we live. I felt sorry for them. There were other fathers and children who were being pulled or pulling sleds. The reason I felt sorry for them is that there are no hills in Holland to sleigh ride down. So the only thing they know is just a little pull here and there. But since they don’t know anything else then they were happy with what they had.

Notice how old fashioned the sleds look here. 

We then took that paper to the Rabobank near our apartment at the Paddepoel Mall and asked them to process an account for us so we could handle the JoVo money. They told us that we had to have our visa card but they would open a temporary account until we could come back in 60 days or less with the number that would be stamped on our visa to live in the country.

Later when we met with the other Senior Couples they were all talking about how they could get bank accounts going. Opa said they could just go down to their City and blah blah blah all the details of what we had just done. We were the newest couple. They all looked at us and said, “Oh you can’t do it that way.”  

Opa said, “Well, nobody told us you cannot do that so that is what we did and now we have a bank account and we are signed in with the City.”

It took the other Seniors months to process what only took us one day to do. I guess we were very lucky to have angels working for us because nobody else had such an easy time to do that as we did.

These Senior couples became our best friends. From left to right: Sister Anderson; Sister Beckstrand; Elder Beckstrand is hiding behind his wife; Elder Anderson; Opa; Sister Pankratz; Elder Pankratz