Exodus to Amsterdam Göteborg

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).

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