(Having a place to live is a privilege. Being able to buy a home, even more so. Owning one as nice as this, ten times more than that. Everything that I describe below, especially the parts that sound like complaints, I do with the understanding that we are astonishingly fortunate people.)
Let’s start with the names, cause they’ll certainly be the first thing you notice. The row houses along Reinwardtstraat in east Amsterdam were built in 2003 (practically yesterday, in European time) and are architecturally unremarkable. But some Y2K-era architect decided they could heighten the street’s curb appeal with… names, installed in different fonts and colors, one per building. It’s super corny, and it limited my enthusiasm for the Reinwardtstraat apartment when we first saw it.
Still, once we got past the front door, we warmed to the place almost immediately. It’s over 100 square meters1, compared to the 582 we’ve been working and living in for the last two years. It’s in the Dapperbuurt neighborhood, half a block from an outdoor market à la “Notting Hill,” and only one block further from a gorgeous park. It’s half the distance to my work and a three-minute walk to train and tram stops, effectively making most places in the city much more accessible.
We’d barely begun our home-browsing process when our realtor sent this listing. It checked all of our boxes, but we kept our expectations realistic: in this crazy market, stories of placing dozens of unsuccessful offers over many months are routine. “We’ll find the perfect place,” I had assured Kiki, “and then somebody will buy it before us. Then we’ll find another perfect place, and we’ll lose that one too. But at SOME point, we’ll find the perfect place and get it.”
Yeah, no. This was the second house we visited, the first offer we placed, and after two days of roller-coaster haggling, it was ours. Imagine waking up early one morning, packing your lunch, applying sunscreen, and setting out for a long, zen day of fishing… only to pull a giant flopping marlin into the boat on your first cast. You’d probably scream like we did.
Continue reading Thank God it wasn’t “Joey”