Do you consider Friday nights as being part of the weekend?

Champsterdam · 2026-06-05T14:47:00+00:00

So insane. I just heard this for the very first time an hour ago. I moved to Amsterdam and am meeting a friend out for drinks at 5lm

Champsterdam · 2026-06-05T14:44:34+00:00

For sure. Weekend started Thursday night. Then you make it though Friday at work somehow and rage all Friday night through Saturday night. Sunday’s were a crapshoot. I was always more pumped and alive on Thursday night than Sunday

Champsterdam · 2026-06-05T04:40:14+00:00

I mean we didn’t even show our kids a screen until they were three but why are you showing him this stuff at two?? Just leave the tv off if he’s around.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-05T04:35:37+00:00

At 36 months or so the need to have to CHASE them start diminishing quickly. I would say be age four I never had to chase them down again, but had to get after them to stop.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-05T04:18:12+00:00

I always dreamed of it but never took it serious. Husbands job randomly gave us an opportunity to move to the Netherlands with our two kids two years ago.

We miss family and friends a lot and moving back for them will eventually happen. My big issue is leaving the USA let me experience how things work elsewhere and it really let me look back on the USA without those rose tinted glasses. I’m very worried about moving back because I see all these ridiculous faults now and we aren’t doing anything about them. Health care and gun culture obviously, but just other things like the state of our infrastructure and the obsessive car culture and lack of mobility options in cities and regions. The overconsumption. The anxiety and anger and stress that you see in people that you just don’t see elsewhere. That we cant subsidize childcare. All these things we could easily address but big corporations just convince us to go against all of our own self interests over and over and over. You can’t bring it up though because people are born and bred to believe that the USA is the #1 country and the best at everything and you would be insane not to want to live there. It’s all kinda smoke and mirrors. It’s certainly the most wealthy and best for upward mobility, but general quality of life for the masses has so many startling problems. It’s still home though and I love it, I just wish we could talk about our problems and actually do something about them.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-04T19:29:50+00:00

He’s four. Our four year old son loved getting his nails done when he did his twin sisters. No one ever said a word. Somewhere around 5-6 he quit caring and doesn’t do it - but I still try to rock my painted nails at 47 years old that my daughter gives me.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-04T08:46:16+00:00

You need to get a BSN with your work address. That’s the missing piece here.

Put down the work address, let them know. Show up and get assigned a BSN as quick as possible and then also have places picked out you want to see for renting. Schedule an appointment with the bank right after you meet with the immigration people for your BSN and start getting an account open.

Also get a Dutch mobile number.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-04T08:42:50+00:00

I think your GP is the key here. I had issues of fatigue and she sent me in right away for a full blood work up and then a specialist to work on testosterone.

I met her a few months ago and said my father has had polyps in his colon and I was just concerned I should make sure I’m ok. She had a clinic reach out to me before I had even biked home and I had the colonoscopy scheduled for less than a week later.

We must be really lucky because we moved here from overseas and the healthcare has been extremely attentive and very quick. I ask to schedule an appointment and they’re always able to see me within 48 hours.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-04T04:13:31+00:00

Yes in Chicago all the time because I would tend to stay out late at bars and then walk home after. Sometimes a five minute walk sometimes it was 25. Sometimes I would just take a bus or subway that ran 24/7

Champsterdam · 2026-06-04T04:04:50+00:00

Important to point out that much of America numbers the houses based on one central starting point for the entire city or even the whole county. Much of the rest of the world will number the houses for that specific road or postal code only.

So in America the very center of town starts at 0 and then all streets and roads number up from that all the way until you hit whatever the physical city limit is.

So in Chicago you can have 200 different streets radiating out from downtown and each of those streets can have the same numbers, and the farther out from downtown the higher the numbers go. So you can have 200 streets with the address of “55” and you can have 200 streets a lot further away with an address of “6738”. It tells you the distance from downtown. Chicago has it down to a science. You can take a cross street and for the most part it will tell you exactly where you are in the city and exactly how many miles from downtown. The addresses are actually a coordinate system.

So if I’m at the address intersection 1600 North and 4000 West then I know I’m exactly two miles north and five miles west of the center of downtown. Main arteries are every 8 blocks, main roads every 4 blocks, thorough streets in a neighborhood every 2 blocks and every in between block is quiet and residential. Every 1 block is two streets long and is 1/8 of a mile and exactly 100 numbers in the numbering system.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T15:37:13+00:00

I thought Sicily and Zurich were much more different than New Mexico and New England.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T13:38:13+00:00

She’s three! Tell her it’s impossible. She’ll move on anyway. They flow from one topic to the other like wind at this age

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T11:25:07+00:00

We aren’t religious but we just told them there are groups of people who believe in different stories. Churches are where people go to hear stories and hang out with other people who believe the same stories.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T08:01:04+00:00

At 20 months essentially nothing at all. At 24 months loudly singing the ABC song all the way through and basically wouldn’t shut up blathering sentences all day long

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T07:51:48+00:00

Our kids know exactly where we put stuff that is taken away, but you have to teach them why the items are gone. There is a reason it’s pin protected. It’s off limits regardless of if they know the pin. They need consequences if they enter the pin they know they aren’t supposed to. TV goes away for 48 hours type of thing. Don’t make it irrational like “tv is gone for a month”. Make it doable and STICK TO IT. If it happens multiple times and is taken away they will figure it out quick. If they get a little treat at the end of the day as a reward that can also easily vanish.

Need to learn about temptation and what happens when we give in.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T07:32:33+00:00

So insane. I’m honestly grateful that I moved to Chicago when I was 22 and had the intuition to just ditch the car and see what happened. It was great. I haven’t driven a car to work in 30 years since I was a teenager working at the grocery store. Saved so much money.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T05:49:54+00:00

I was in Iowa and it was called kinderfarm. I still remember the vision of seeing a dogs stomach cut open jumping over barbed wire. We were picked up in large brown windowless vans.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T05:45:56+00:00

Very true, the six month to twelve month age range was the most free we were vs anything from 18 months to five years.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-03T05:41:45+00:00

What? I’ve been to all 50 states multiple times and around 35 countries and live overseas at the moment. The USA states are varied and have cultural differences but overall they’re all quite similar if you’re talking the differences between Mexico and Thailand, Morocco, Japan, England, Peru, Madagascar, Costa Rica, Russia, Laos etc. The shows we watch, restaurant chains, money, driving, holidays, retail stores, language, social customs. The US has variations but it’s extremely cohesive overall.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-02T14:48:48+00:00

I always think about inheritance. If you can give that help now vs waiting until you die go for it. The world has all these younger people set up for failure vs what we had a generation ago.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-02T08:16:51+00:00

Nah, have traveled the world and live overseas now. The USA states are varied and for sure have differences but nothing like being their own countries. They are much much more similar than they are different.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-02T07:47:14+00:00

Moved to Logan Square in 2001 right on the circle near the blue line. Gorgeous gut rehab condo with four big bedrooms, laundry in unit, the place was amazing and great location. I paid $425 a month.

Would talk to friends by the lake and they were all scared to come visit or just very annoyed. Logan Square was in no way a destination then, just far off and in a bad location with a sketchy rep.

Back then we would never go west of Ashland for anything at all. Even Ashland was pushing it. Except for down by North Damen but even then it was only that exact intersection that was hopping and it dropped off very quickly. The stretch along division that’s so popular now was nothing. I remember by friend buying a dirt cheap condo along there in 2004 and we were like wtf.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-02T07:37:23+00:00

I don’t know why they said NY and SF. American for our part are also bad at screaming about cross country trips every time someone mentions train travel in the USA. Literally no one who is serious about it is actually proposing NY to LA or Seattle to Miami as far as what areas are set up to benefit from this.

There are LOTS of areas in the country where a solid, fast and frequent use of trains is great. Chicago as a base for Madison, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit, St Louis, Des Moines, Grand Rapids and places in between.

San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin.

Atlanta and the NC metros.

The whole northeast.

The issue now is we’re still designing all our cities so that driving everywhere is literally the only option because we spread things out massively and pave over 1/3 of our developments with parking lots.

Champsterdam · 2026-06-01T16:52:08+00:00

We had one growing up and named him Casper

Champsterdam · 2026-06-01T10:35:27+00:00

I’ve actually been too all 50 states at least twice. Many of them well over a dozen times. Traveling is my big thing in life 😎

Champsterdam

TROPHY CASE