Exodus to Amsterdam Göteborg

Just a quick update to say that we’re likely going to be pretty silent updates-wise over the next couple of weeks. We’re successfully moved into the new apartment, all of our stuff is set up, the cats are going insane with sensory overload, and we’re probably 2 weeks out from getting internet access set up there.

I’ll occasionally be checking in while I’m at work, but if you wonder where we’ve gone, there you go.

Pictures of the apartment to come… eventually.

Uncategorized apartment, cats, living in sin, radio silence, shhhhh

Yep! That’s right. Shannie wandered for a total of 22 kms yesterday! Crazy? Why yes, yes I am.

I went to see Anne Frank’s statue which is on Merwedeplein. I know some of you have already found faster routes to accomplish said task but my goal is to get to know the city. So off I trekked in search of her statue. 

 The park is encompassed by a triangle of buildings that looks to be all one complex. The Frank’s residence I believe was 37C. I read that tidbit of information somewhere and have been unable to retrace my research to know absolutely. In any case the residence has been restored to its original 1930’s set up and is a writer’s residence for 1 year at a time for writers who cannot write freely in their country.

 I then retraced my steps as a test for myself. Along the Amstel River there are many true houseboats… 

I turned down one street too soon after a bridge I crossed and it was all head scratcher from there on in. A local, thankfully, was kind enough to come to my aid. Off I went to meet Corinna for a walk in Vondelpark and again I lost my sense of direction. Eventually she told me to meet her out front of the Riijksmuseum which is a hard building to miss. A stroll in Vondelpark with a stop at the Blue Tea House topped off the afternoon.

Today I decided it was time to hit the books so where to go to find some solitude… the Bibliotheek of course! Along my walk I passed Centraal Station.

So many buses, trams and subways. There is a significant amount of construction going on along that entire strip that I walked the wrong way. Bike paths are generally in red brick with pedestrian paths in grey. Well, the grey quickly disappeared and was replaced with a yellow curb. I suddenly had busses turning to the left of me and swarms of bikes to the right. Being an agile light-footed wonder I avoided contact and quickly found my feet beneath grey bricks again. *Whew* I eventually found a pedestrian who looked like he knew where he was going and followed him to this walkway that took me straight to the library.

It is such a wonderful open air concept library with plenty of work space available. Each floor is dedicated to a specific collection that is written in large letters on the ceiling of each escalator. There is also quite the security presence that I didn’t dare take out my camera for fear of it being confiscated. The top floor is a cafeteria so people could spend an entire day without having to leaves the premises. Hmmm, what a thought.

amsterdam, you big tourist Anne Frank, bibliotheek, houseboat, walking

It was my (Scott’s) first day at work today (more on that in a bit), so while I got to trundle off and sit in the office for the day, Shannie got to boot down to the street market that appears right outside our temp apartment on Saturdays and Monday mornings. Saturdays are more “Farmers Market-esque” days, whereas Mondays are more “Flea Market-esque.” Used clothes, antiques, vinyl records, chandeliers, and the like. And, since the market appears out of nowhere only to vanish completely a few short hours later, it’s not exactly… how would you say… “organized.”

Items for sale in haphazard stacks and piles, yet everyone who was there shopping seemed to know exactly where to go and what to look for. People seemed to know that they could “part the sea” and find exactly what it was that they wanted.

Today was also a bit damp, which is why Shannie only spent 10 minutes out at the market, instead of the much longer walk she had originally planned.

Shannie also, through the course of the day, managed to figure out and solve the problem we had in our temp apartment with it always being REALLY STINKIN’ COLD, and why we could feel the wind blowing IN our living room.

I hope the people who own this place don’t mind that we used their placemats to plug the fully 1″ wide gap in the window. Replacing placemats is probably cheaper than the heating bill being jacked up by essentially having no windows.

As was mentioned, it was my first day at work today. I don’t have any photos of the office (yet), which is fine since we’re apparently all moving in a couple of weeks anyways. Seems like a really good group of people to work with, and do we EVER have our work cut out for us over the next little while. Kinda wish I’d been here a month ago to start working on some of this stuff.

Shannie tells me that many of “her people” have been asking exactly what the heck it is that I DO for a living that brought us here in the first place. Long story short, I’m a computer nerd. When you go to a web page on the internet that lets you do all sorts of fun things, that’s what I do. I make things on the internet work. Other people make pretty pictures, I make them functional. The company I was working for in Calgary partnered with a company here to work on a number of advertising campaigns for a small athletic apparel interest headquartered in Amsterdam that you may or may not be familiar with.

Apartment update: We got word back today that we are indeed getting the first place we looked at last Wednesday (Apartment #8, for those of you keeping score at home). Requisite paperwork has been delivered, and we should be moving in on Friday. Anyone in Amsterdam that wants to come and help us haul boxes for 4 blocks just might be rewarded with beer.

amsterdam, work, you big tourist adidas, apartment, living in sin, market, rain, RIOT

Today was market day. Right around noon we put our walkin’ pants on and saddled up for a hike down to the Albert Cuyp markt, a large (4 blocks long, at least) open-air daily market in the De Pijp district of Amsterdam. Google Maps puts it at a 3.4 km, 41 minute walk from our place, through what is quickly becoming very familiar territory to both of us. Today also included the first real steady drizzling rain that we’ve seen since we arrived, which seems to be pretty standard weather here for most of the winter/spring seasons — those of you from cities such as Vancouver and Seattle will be well familiar with this. Shannie felt that the rain actually made her grow. She’s still just as short as ever, though.

Plenty of new sights, sounds, and smells at the market. Not only were there mannequins for Shannie to pose beside, but also stacks of severed fish heads for sale and even a couple of bike shops. Much of it was typical Farmers Market-esque fare (lots of fresh vegetables, baked goods, crafty knick-knacks), but there were also some things we didn’t expect to see, such as drug stores and lingerie shops.

Shannie, being much more the open-air-market connosieur than I am, felt that it had a good “vibe” about it, and that the general bustle about the market showed that the locals knew exactly where their regular stops were, and the tourists were able to walk the entire strip and take it all in. A good mix of cultures, both local and foreigners (like us!).

amsterdam, you big tourist de pijp, market, walking

For those of you writing to ask us about what’s up with the apartment, it turns out that the owner of the one we thought we were now getting (#8 for those of you keeping score at home) is trying to jack the rent up by roughly €200 per month, which is ridiculous. We’re attempting to negotiate, and we’ll find out on Monday if we get it or not. If so, awesome. If they won’t budge and continue to be stupid, we’ll likely end up with Apartment #3 from our first day of searching unless something else in this area pops up. We’d still like to stay in the Jordaan area, but the De Pijp snobs (Hi Kyla!) tell us that living there is awesome as well, so we’ll see what happens.

We’ll post more details as we find them.

amsterdam apartment, de pijp, jordaan, living in sin

Just got back from our second stop on the Immigration Train, this time to get registered as residents and get our BSN numbers (think Social Insurance or Social Security numbers).

In an interesting turn of events, due to an improperly-legalized form, it turns out that according to the Dutch government, Shannie and I aren’t legally married. Once the form gets filled out properly our marriage can be properly recognized in the Netherlands, but until that time, we’re registered as two single adults living at the same address.

So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go pick up chicks.

amsterdam immigration, living in sin, red light district, taxi

It’s been a full last couple of days on this side of the ocean. Where to begin…

First things first, we looked at 2 more apartments here, right in the same area of town (Jordaan) that we’re temporarily staying in. Both of these places are just a matter of a few blocks from our temp apartment. As per usual, kitchens!

Apartment 8

Pros:

• In Jordaan. Seriously, we love this part of town.
• Look at all that counter space!
• HUGE bathroom off the bedroom. If it wouldn’t be kinda gross, the bathroom could double as a guest room. It even had a chair in it.
• Balcony/terrace off the bedroom, big enough for a little table and deck chairs. Slippery, though… no running!
• One and a half baths, so guests can use the facilities without having to traipse through the bedroom.

Cons:

• More counterspace to clean.
• A little bit pricier than we’d wanted to spend, but again not deal-breakingly so.
• Slippery balcony could lead to plummeting.

Chances: we adored this place. We would have put an offer on it right then and there, but we knew we had one more place to go see. Unless the last place was going to blow us away, this was the one we wanted. As it turns out…

Apartment 9

Pros:

• Blew us away. This was pretty much EXACTLY the kind of place that we wanted.
• Completely fulfilled my romantic notions of an Old European Building.
• Quiet little side street, right in the heart of Jordaan.
• Front windows have a gorgeous view of the Leliegracht canal.
• HUGE bathtub. When one of you is 6′3″, you appreciate these things.
• Plasma TV and DVD player included.
• The most comfortable bed out of any apartment we’ve seen so far.
• Rental price is right around the higher end of our price range, but includes all utilities.
• I could go on.

Cons:

• Slight mess to clean up where our jaws collectively hit the floor when we walked in.
• At this point, we’re still waiting to hear if the cats are allowed. Silly cats!

Chances: we told the broker showing us the apartment right then and there that we wanted it, hands down. As mentioned, he wasn’t sure if cats were allowed or not, so we’re waiting with bated breath to get the final word. This, out of all the places we’ve seen, is clearly the one that we want most of all. If, by some ill-fated stroke of luck the cats aren’t allowed, we already know that Apartment #8 is fine with them, so we’ll take that one. We’re supposed to hear back today, but it’s just after 5pm local time, so who knows. Might be tomorrow.

What else, what else, what else…

Oh yeah, immigration. We had to go to the Immigration Center this morning to get, I dunno, some sticker in our passports or something that says… oh, who am I kidding. I don’t understand immigration law at all. Stickers, stamps, a stack of paperwork I couldn’t see over, a slightly panicky phone call to the office when the agent we spoke to (mistakenly) said I wasn’t allowed to start work for another 4-6 weeks, and other arcane processes that were way over my pay grade all culminated in one less page in my passport for international customs stamps.

Did I mention the cab ride? The Immigration Center is in Den Haag, about 55km from Amsterdam.

It was about 1 hour each way. We were inside the office for maybe MAYBE 15 minutes, if even. Thank goodness the cab fare was paid for, it would have been about €115 (close to $190 CDN) each way. Yowch. Richard, our driver, was fantastic. Gave us all sorts of good info about Amsterdam, Holland, windmills, house construction, bike locks, and we got to listen to Madonna and Sinead O’Connor. What’s not to like about that?

And, um… banks. We have Dutch bank accounts now (currently empty). Converting our savings from Canadian dollars to Euros is going to be a little painful. Meh, it’s only money.

UPDATE: just before finishing this post, the realtor called. The cats are a deal-killer on the apartment we really wanted, so #8 it is. Good thing we love the little furballs. #8 is by no means a booby prize, as we loved the heck out of it, too. #8 is also much closer to the best cheese shop in the universe (that we’ve found so far).

amsterdam apartment, banking, cats, immigration, jordaan, taxi

(There, THAT should be a sufficiently attention-grabbing title.)

Today was another walkabout day, and if I thought that Shannie put me through my paces on Sunday, I was mistaken. The problem we’ve had so far is that jet lag has been a killer. Getting used to the 8 hour time-zone shift has been difficult. We’ve been taking naps every afternoon and then finding ourselves both wide awake at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning. Our plan today was to be out all day, and not allow ourselves to be home to take naps at all until bedtime.

This plan involved us walkin, it would seem, through all of Christendom and back. We didn’t even get to every location on the agenda Shannie put together, and by the time we staggered back to the apartment to cook some dinner, we’d knocked well over 10 km out of ourselves.

Granted, there were some few extra kilometeres that weren’t factored into the original equation.

Fun game: decipher the map below to determine where the extra kilometers entered the schedule! First one to find a million wins!

Also, the aforementioned “Hooray for Boobies!” Yes, a good portion of our stroll took us right through the heart of the Red Light District. Now, Since Shannie and I strictly obeyed the “NO PHOTOS” sticker on every window, this’ll have to suffice, thanks to Google Image Search:

That’s basically what it is… girls behnd a street-level (secured) glass door, with a little intercom you can speak to them through. You talk to them, if they like you, they open the door. It’s all very businesslike (well, except for all of the exposed flesh and skimpy underwear), these girls are professionals (they’re unionized workers with full health benefits), and the only reason I know exactly how the entire process works is because I watched it happen right in front of me a good couple of dozen times over the course of a few blocks.  Let’s not kid around… legalized prostitution is a huge part of the economy here. Even the Lonely Planet tour guide book for Amsterdam has an entire chapter devoted to it (it has another chapter entirely devoted to the marijuana-serving “coffee shops,” but that’s for a future blog post).

Through the course of our day, we also managed to snap some architectural photos, some pictures of a huge Saint Bernard in someone’s living room, and drink wine in Rembrandt’s Corner, the little pub next to the Rembrandt Museum. Now that we’re home and supper has been consumed (pan-seared salmon with rice, garden salad, and white wine), we’re off to meet a couple co-workers for a nightcap. To the pub!

amsterdam, you big tourist boobies, jet lag, red light district, walking

Today was our first crack at apartment hunting. Through the course of the morning we managed to make our way to seven different places, and in the interest of consistency, I present here a brief description of each, along with a photo of their kitchens. This is gonna get long, so hold on to your pants and let’s go!

Apartment One

Pros:

• On a beautiful, quiet little street
• Nice big windows, bright, lots of light
• Red furniture. Like, bright red.

Cons:

• 2 sets of stairs even more treacherous than the ones we’re currently climbing to the temp apartment.
• Very little storage. No closets.
• I could stand in the middle of the master bedroom and nearly touch all 4 walls without moving.

Chances: Probably the third option if the other two that we would like more fall through. The cost of it seems awfully high for what you’re getting, but the location can’t be beat.

Apartment 2

Pros:

• Also in a nice neighborhood (De Pijp), very close to all sorts of pubs, restauarants, shopping, and a really nice park.
• Spacious, huge bedroom.
• Lots of storage space.
• Came with lots of plants.

Cons:

• The storage space mentioned above? FULL. The lady who owns this place, who apparently moved to Mexico or something, appears to be a bit of a clinically insane pack rat and left EVERYTHING behind. No exaggeration: there were close to 30 coffee mugs in one cupboard, and at least a dozen sets of towels, some appearing to be at least 20 years old.
• Pretty ugly furniture.
• Our cats will eat the plants.
• Monthly rent just a shade under €2000.

Chances: not in this lifetime. Way above our price range, and no way do either of us want to deal with the clutter and piles of junk.

Apartment 3

Pros:

• Brand newly renovated. New floor, new paint, entirely new kitchen. Like, they were still finishing it up when we were shown the place.
• The only place we looked at that included a plasma TV.
• Two floors, with a spiral staircase.
• Also in De Pijp, close to everything that we want.

Cons:

• Brand newly renovated. Maybe this is me being a romantic, but I really wanted to live in an Old European Building that FELT like and Old European Building. Though the building itself is older than dirt, the unit itself feels like a condo you’d buy in downtown Calgary.
• On a pretty busy street, with a major public transit tram line right outside the front door. Good for access, bad for noise.
• Slightly more per month than we had budgeted, but not deal-breakingly so.

Chances: we might have a winner here. My romantic notions aside, the place was absolutely gorgeous.

Apartment 4

Pros:

• Right on the Amstel River, with views of the river right out the front windows. Breathtaking.
• Nice stereo sound system included in the living room.
• Really funky art-deco lamp.

Cons:

• No bed. Seriously. Advertised as “fully furnished,” but there was no master bed.
• Spiders. ‘Nuff said.

Chances: this would maybe be the second choice if Apartment 3 falls through, though we’d have to negotiate for something to sleep on.

Apartment 5

Pros:

• First place we looked at with an honest-to-goodness balcony.
• Complex has a community garden
• Nice huge kitchen

Cons:

• Quite a bit farther away from the city center than we’d like to be
• Located right on one of the busiest arterial roads in the city
• Every sofa was uncomfortable

Chances: not so much. I don’t want to live that far away from work and amenities without owning a car, and I’m NOT owning a car. Garden area was nice, though.

Apartment 6

Pros:

• Funky. Apparently this building was a contest winner for “unique design” a decade or so ago. All of the doors were oval-shaped ports about 6 inches off the ground.
• Balcony overlooking a canal with a nice park on the other side.
• Big windows in the living room. Nice and bright.

Cons:

• Tiny. By far the smallest place we looked at.
• No dishwasher, and only one tiny sink in the kitchen. This makes washing anything bigger than a single dinner plate uncomfortably inconvenient.
• Even farther away from the city core than the last place.
• The only place we looked at with an electric stove, as opposed to gas.

Chances: unlikely. Too far away, too small, would have been a killer bachelor pad while I was in college, but I’m supposed to be a grown-up now.

Apartment 7

Pros:

• Had 4 walls and a ceiling. Building was not on fire at the time we viewed it.

Cons:

• Former occupant was a chain-smoker. Not enough Febreze in the world to get rid of that.
• Tiny fridge that had been unplugged and closed for too long, which became immediately apparent to everyone in the room when Shannie opened it.
• Appliances that are older than God himself.
• Every piece of furniture looked like it came from the “as-is” section at Ikea.
• The building is one of those depressing mid-70’s era eyesores.
• Far away from the city core, in an area of the city that can only be described as “less than savory.”
• Mattress on the bed was one of those foamies that you roll up and take camping with you.

Chances: there are numbers less than zero, right?

So there you have it. We didn’t look at anything in the area that we’re temporarily staying in, and the realtor is digging around to see if she can find anything around here for us to view, as we’ve found that we REALLY like this part of town (Jordaan, if you’re playing along at home). If something comes up around here, we’d definitely be interested in jumping at it. We’ll see.

To be continued.

amsterdam amstel, apartment, cats, de pijp, jordaan

Today’s been a walkabout day. If you’re unfamiliar with life in Amsterdam (which I COMPLETELY was before the possibility of moving here), there’s a few important things to realize. They are, in order of importance:

• Driving is for suckers.

Bicycles and foot traffic rule the order of the day. Now, the thing about me is that I’m generally not a huge fan of walking. Biking, definitely, but walking has always been Shannie’s thing. She’s the one who walked 45 minutes each way to school every day. Not that I don’t think that walking isn’t a viable transportation option, no, my problem with walking is that I get bored. All I can think about is what else I could be doing with the valuable time that I’m spending travelling at 0.5 miles per hour, and how much faster getting somewhere by bike would have been.

Living in this city could finally change that for me.

Because everything here is so densely packed, every few meters brings about something completely new to see and experience. That’s the beauty of living in a city where the core was built and designed before the age of the automobile. The streets are small, narrow, and the city center is planned around foot, bicycle, and horse traffic.

So today we walked. We needed to find a drugstore for things like soap, shampoo, etc., and the local grocer by our apartment had such a small (and expensive) selection that we opted to stroll to find someplace else. The closest place that was open on Sunday was about a 20 minute or so walk from here, so on went my walkin’ pants and hither and yon we went.

And interesting things did we see.

As a pedestrian here, you’re at the very friggin’ bottom of the Right Of Way list, just below cars. Bikes go where they want, how they want, with or against traffic, and everyone else bows to their royalty. As a walker, you learn very quickly to look both ways before stepping off the sidewalk lest you find a 30 year old steel bicycle ridden by someone old enough to be my great grandparent send you flying.

We also discovered a fantastic tiny little sandwich shop. Shopkeeper spoke very little English and understood even less, but Bacon is apparently a universal language.

Interesting sight of the day: apparently Amsterdam the entire northern hemisphere is going through a strangely cold winter, Amsterdam is experiencing something that hasn’t happened for quite a number of years.

The canals are freezing solid.

Every local sporting goods store is completely sold out of ice skates, as Amsterdammers are flocking to the canals, ponds, and other bodies of water in droves. As a Canadian, seeing skaters out on the water is a daily occurence for 10 months out of the year, but here it’s such a rarity that everyone’s jumping at the chance.

Even those without skates were getting in on the action.

amsterdam, you big tourist bacon, bicycles, walking