Exodus to Amsterdam Göteborg

Poe and Vargos have been dropped off at their new home for the next 120 days. It’ll be interesting to hear how they get along with the dog who already lives there.

göteborg cats

We got word yesterday that, thanks to the geniuses at Sunridge Veterinary Clinic in Calgary, our cats can’t come to Sweden with us for one hundred and twenty days. Nice work on maintaining their immunization documents there, fellas. I mean, I understand that not screwing up handwriting, a skill you learned in grade four, is really really hard but still.

I know that it’s the EU, and there really aren’t any border crossings to speak of. I’ve been told by a number of people that I should just take the cats anyways, without the proper documentation or immunizations, because nobody’s going to check their paperwork and it’ll be no problem. A sound plan, in theory.

The thing is, I don’t know if that’s entirely a risk I’m willing to take. What happens, I mean what happens if somewhere along the trip for whatever reason some overzealous, I don’t know, person of authority asks to see their pet passport? What happens if, 6 months after we arrive, one of the cats gets sick and we have to go to vet only to be discovered that our cats are in the country illegally? I’m not certain if I have the finances and I know I don’t have the heart to put them in a lousy kennel.

Still not entirely sure how we’re going to get around this problem, and we sure as hell don’t have a lot of time to solve it.

Anyone in Amsterdam feel like babysitting two cats for 4 months? Poe [below left] and Vargos [below right] would be eternally grateful, as would their anxious humans.

göteborg cats, sweden

What?

It’s been over a month since our last update?

Um… whoops?

Let’s see… in the last month, we’ve managed to: participate in a Red Cross Walkathon, travel to the small Dutch town of Delft, bike 30+ km to the small town of Zaandstad (twice), get lost in the Red Light District a few times, and generally have more amazing experiences than any expats should be able to have without getting arrested.

I (Scott) don’t mind telling you… there have been more than a few times where I’ve been riding my bicycle home quite late at night (usually quite well into my cups) and ridden past a cathedral, or bridge, or some other brick structure older than Canada, or taken a high-speed train from one town to the next, or have been tending the net at a field hockey matchup and thought to myself, “this activity, that I’m doing right now, I’m doing WHILE. LIVING. IN. EUROPE.”

After 3.5 months, I’m not (snicker) homesick for Calgary (guffaw), or miss hearing about mid-April snowstorms in the prairies, or even remotely upset that I didn’t get to watch my home team miss the playoffs for a 3rd straight season.

I’m mostly STILL blown away that, after 32 years of life, I’m actually living on another side of the planet.

Still blows my mind.

Anyways, as it goes, the cats have settled in nicely, the street in front of our apartment has been torn up for reconstruction, and tomorrow is Koninginnedag, a national holiday, where (from what I understand), the entire city of Amsterdam looks much like this:

And how have you been.

amsterdam, you big tourist bicycles, cats, field hockey, immigration, red light district

While I was working my ridiculous schedule over the last couple of weeks, Shannie went around and made a few nice little video tours of various portions of our apartment. Many of our friends and family back in North America have been asking about the apartment we moved into, so here’s a little glimpse into what we call home.

amsterdam apartment, cats, jordaan, living in sin, Prinsengracht

Hooray for Scottie coming home before 3am! The pose he struck was one of sleep but lucky for him I did not capture the moment on film. Instead I wanted to show you a few statues I’ve found in and around Scottie’s office on Herengracht. Naturally there are copious statues all over so this is but a smattering in one concentrated area.

These are the loungers with a head bust. Scantily clad men surveying their dominion below with half a person in the middle. Perfect.

King Triton and his fish. This statue adds a very cool look to the overall building.

I’m looking across the building… window, brick, window, what? Right in the middle of the building is this righteous looking man carved into the wall. I loved it! I had to get the full look of just how much a part of the wall he truly is.

Don’t mind us we’re just holding up the balcony. I was quite taken with these two. I can’t find their feet, can you?

Last but not least a statue of kiddens in the windows. No, wait a minute! Those aren’t statues, those are our kiddens in our windows! Hee, hee! Vargos, our 7 month old male kidden, is the grey one on the left and Poe is the grey and white cat on the right. She is 6.5 year olds who once upon a time belonged to my sister.

There are plenty of statues to be documented so I’m certain I will have more as time goes on especially since they’re not going anywhere!

amsterdam cats, Herengracht, statues

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

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

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

Number of times our pilot apparently got lost approaching Frankfurt: 1.

Pubs visited: 2.

Number of those before eating our very first meal in Europe: 1.

Times accidentally wandering into the Red Light District: 1.

Hours slept out of the last 30: 0.

Cats that are very angry with us: 1.

Cats that, given the circumstances, are acting like nothing has changed at all, despite being locked in a cage in the belly of a plane for 14 hours: 1.

Boxes of belongings that got badly abused by the airline: 3.

Number of those boxes that contained expensive bicycles: 1.

Novelty photos taken: 1.

amsterdam, you big tourist cats, lufthansa baggage tossers, pubs, red light district