House Hunting in Amsterdam

We just returned from a 3 day long house hunting adventure in Amsterdam and I am happy to announce that we found the perfect home for us.

I had a good feeling about our real estate agent from the start as mentioned in my previous post and I was not wrong.

Annemieke, the real estate agent, picked us up from the airport on Thursday and spent the whole day with us looking at apartments. It was really great. Not only did she showed us nice apartments but also provided helpful advice about live in Amsterdam in general. Like where to apply for a parking permit, where the shopping is, how to find the nice little boutiques, public transportation and she pointed out some very good restaurants. It was an overall delight!

If you´re ever thinking of relocating to Amsterdam and you need a place, contact Annemieke from Partner in Real Estate.

Originally we thought a two bedroom apartment would be sufficient for us, since we are currently not using our thrid bedroom in Geneva and the second is our walk in closet. But instead of going smaller we ended up going bigger. We will move to a very nice 4 bedroom, separate living and dining room duplex with a gorgeous terrace and ample storage space in the attic. Since we stayed within our budget I am not really upset about it, to be honest I am thrilled. This apartment does not feel like an apartment it feels like a house. I am already referring to it as "The House".

T H E H O U S E

We ended up in the Rivierenbuurt, a very nice part of Amsterdam which is more in the south but still close enough to walk downtown if you want to. Although it would have been nice and very cliche to have a place right by a gracht it is simply impractical. You will never get a parking permit, the houses are very narrow and dark and not to mention all the drunk tourists falling asleep or puking on your doorstep.

I think our new place is fabulous and we are very much looking forward to the move. If only I could take my friends with me, that´s the only thing that makes leaving Geneva hard for me.

At least we have a guest bedroom, so people can visit us and Geneva is only a 80 CHF Easyjet flight away.


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Whoa!!!

Has anybody seen the handbrake? If yes, please pull it! The move to Amsterdam is in full on attack mode and I wonder if everything will come together all right eventually.

We had 2 moving companies in our apartment for pre-move surveys. Oh how I hate it. I get all panicky when I invite people over to my place, "Is everything spotless, are all the pictures leveled, is the light setting appropriate?" but with movers coming in it´s even worse. They want to look in your drawers, open closets, measure everything. "That´s my stuff!!" the 3 year old boy cries in my head "Don´t touch it!!!" but what can I do. Moving all the stuff myself? I don´t think so, so I have to suffer through it. The poor men, they heard "Oh that drawer, you don´t need to look into that drawer, I will pack it up myself, should be half a box which I will label "PRIVATE HANDS OFF" quite a few times.

If you think that they can simply pack up everything one day, ship it to Goudaland and unpack it there two days after that, you are sadly mistaken. The Dutch are a bit particular with peoples households entering the country. You have to hand in a a letter asking for permission, that part is ok, but you can only hand in that letter if you have registered yourself in Amsterdam, got a social security number, have a lease in Amsterdam, plus three gazillion copies of everything. The process to clear customs takes between 14 and 60!!!!! days. Now here is the kicker, you can only register yourself in Amsterdam if you can provide them with a lease, and original birth and marriage certificates that are not older than 6 month. HELLO?! I have all the certificates needed but they are too old?! I am still the same person and getting new certificates in Germany is a nightmare. Oh well, I guess we are lucky that we are more or less close to the Netherlands. Temp housing would be my personal nightmare.

Some people make it easy though. We have been assigned a wonderful real estate agent who exactly understood what we are looking for after one briefing.

We told her that we would need:

-90+ m2 size
-3 or more bedrooms, one of which will be converted into a walk in closet
-parking available (1 car, either underground parking or parking permit)
-built in kitchen, but apartment otherwise unfurnished
-Newly renovated
-Full length windows
-Terrace
-Hardwood floors
-No ground floor apartments
-Storage in cellar or attic preferred
-Good car connection to a motor way leading to Schiphol
-Good public transportation connection to downtown
- Price range X-Z in hard to get neighborhoods.

We thought she would come up with next to nothing, but we were wrong. She sent us a list of over 20 places, including pictures and details and we have picked 8 favorites.
So, we´re off to Amsterdam for a couple of days this week to look at all those places. I am really excited.

If everything goes according to plan, I have 4 weeks in Geneva left. So much to do, so many people to see, so many drinks that need to be had and so little time.

Oh well, I am happy anyway!

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Change

I am happy to announce that I will be leaving Geneva and move to Amsterdam come December.


Be prepared for lots and lots of ranting about closing shop in Geneva and getting everything set up in Amsterdam.

Now I have finally something interesting to blog about again.

This Is Sooooo Awesome!!!

Did You Know?

Things I Wanna Do In Summer 2009

The Summer here in Geneva is beautiful it´s the complete opposite to the winter, which is a nightmare, always Grey, not really snowy, lot´s of rain and always cold, oh how I dread them.

Anyway back to the summer, with the lake right under your nose, there are things this summer I definitely want to do.


1. Get a boat license.
You can make a Swiss lake boat license without much of a hassle, it only takes you 10 hours of training since you don´t have to learn all the rules there are for driving down rivers which will connect to an ocean. So, I will go to the DMV, fill out a form, plunk down a small fee and then take my 10 mandatory hours with a teacher, who luckily speaks English, and I am good to go.

I will not get a boat of my own since it´s a complete waste of resources. Keeping a boat on the lake here costs you an arm and a leg, initial purchase, maintenance, having a parking spot, taxes and so on. Apparently there is a company in Geneva where you can rent boats on a time share basis. It´s like mobility, but with boats.
You pay a flat fee for which you will get points which will buy you time on one of their boats. You just log on to their website choose a date and time slot and you are good to go. How fabulous is that. I love it! I don´t fish, I don´t like swimming in the lake but spending a sunny Sunday on a boat with friends is just great.


2. Starting running again.
I don´t know how it happened this winter, but I have been packing on the pounds, which did not render me morbidly obese but I am not happy with my derriere lately, so I guess a little workout should be in order. It´s a funny thing really, I should really really really quit smoking but I am very afraid that I will gain more weight due to a shift of cravings, at the same time I do not last as long running as I used to since I am out of breath quite fast.
I guess I have to quit smoking and start running immediately to avoid gaining more weight and hopefully getting rid of the ones I acquired during the winter.


Update: I have deleted number 3 since some people find it offensive.

Ohrwurm Of The Week

An Ohrwurm, which literally means ear worm, is the German word for a song you have stuck in your head and can´t get rid of.

This week it´s Roisin Murphy. She used to be the singer for Moloko and went solo after Moloko broke up. The song is called "Slave to Love" a Brian Ferry song she covered for Gucci´s recent Gucci by Gucci fragarance add.