House Hunting

Sorry people, I have been a little distracted from posting lately. For the past few weeks I have been house-hunting.

Ben gets back on April first. When he's back in his place, Dan and Shelle are back in their place, and I'm....

So about a week and a half ago I thought I should start looking. Thought I'd go with the soft approach of emailing anyone I know and asking them to email anyone they know who may have a room. A few days later, no word. I needed to step up my game a bit, and with a bit of advice and help from Dan, I put together some notices for the public noticeboards at various Albert Heijn grocery stores.

The next day *ring ring*! A call from somebody who saw a notice and had a room at the right price and in the right area! Yay! Checked it out. Boo.... What a dive! A mouldy, dirty, gypsy squat-like dive. Oh, and the "2 rooms" I would be getting had a total floor space of about 6 feet x 10 feet or so. Ha, as nice as it all was, I graciously said no thanks.

A few more notices went up around the place but no calls came my way. So I hopped online and searched out a few more places that sounded o.k, and YAY, I got several calls the next morning - all from the real estate companies that apparently put the adds up online disguised as "real people", and that would happily rent me the rooms if I pay them a months rent as a commission for finding the place for me! Thank guys!

Then I came across another website that actually did have real people putting up real adds (strange as it may sound). I went and checked out a place that I found via this site, which would have been fine, if perhaps a bit expensive.

But in the meantime I had placed a free classified in the Amsterdam weekly - The local English language street press. That resulted in a few more calls and I have now agreed to move into a BIG room in an old house off the back of the Vondelpark (huge public park - great place to relax in summer). The room is an ex artists studio, so has a nice creative vibe, and the live-in landlady was very nice. I haven't met the upstairs house-mates yet but I think they will be pretty easygoing hippie types, judging by the incense in the air and the lentils in the fridge.

More about this place no doubt once I move in next week.