Amsterdam 2014

This is our new home and for quite a while! Amsterdam. We love it here.

The bridge behind me is the Skinny Bridge and right now we live just down the street on the left.

                                     

I have been dealing with a bunch of boring adult stuff like legal documents, resident permits, international document certifications, health insurance, banks, housing, phones and the stuff you just gotta deal with when moving to a different country. Let's not focus on that because it's just plain boring.

Christmas! We had a very small and rushed Christmas but it was memorable and Andrew loved it. It wasnt as fun as I imagined it would be because Colin didnt know it was a day different from the rest. Kids make Christmas fun, babies don't. They just get in the way. Anyway, we did a scavenger hunt around the house and the present at the end was a bike! We walked around the nearby canal which has been decorated for a festival of lights in the winter.

We decorated by cutting out snowflakes and putting them on our 1 foot tall tree.

                                   

Andrew received a cane with some horse/dog creature on the top. He has always wanted one as a fashion accessory.

                                    

Taking his bike out for a spin in the front yard.

          He got me a beautiful floppy felt hat.

                                     

The home we are staying in is gorgeous and in the southern canal rings so very centrally located. It is a typical Amsterdam building that gets skinnier at the top (like the buildings below) and ours has three stories (kitchen, living room, and then bathroom/bedroom).

That means our bedroom is a triangle. It is pretty fun. It is a nice bachelor pad but, mostly because of the sleeping arrangements, it is not ideal for a small family.

It is like living in a village when you live in the center of Amsterdam. Everything is just down the street. We live off of a huge shopping street. Within a two minute walk down a cobblestone road you can get to 2 grocery stores, a butcher shop, cheese shop, pastry shop, bike shop, hair salon, playground, hardware store, electronics store, book store, and tons of bars and restaurants, not to mention public transportation and beautiful canals and boats. It is really ideal and so picturesque. We are so lucky to have had help in affordably grabbing this place temporarily.

This is the exterior. It opens straight onto the busy road. That is the kitchen and people can see into the house if you want or not.

The stairs, like many dutch homes, are very steep.

We love the brick walls in the kitchen and the living room.

We have bikes  and Colin has a child seat in the front of my bike. it is so thrilling to ride with him. He gets so excited sometimes and squeals with enjoyment.  I think he likes the wind because he makes happy noises when the wind from the canals hits him, just when we are walking. The seat is attached to the steering thingy. You can take the seat off easily if you do not want to leave it out for someone to steal.

                                       

When biking here, you are part of traffic and many times you have your own bike path and bike lights. Everyone who is cool has a bike. I hit rush hour traffic the other evening. Everyone was riding a bike on their way home from work. It was funny. People love seeing Colin in the bike seat even though it is a more common thing to see a baby in a seat here. I think it is because it is made for about 9 month olds-3 year olds so he is the youngest age you would see in it and it isn't everyday that happens here, I guess. Everywhere I have been in the US and here, people have also thought that my sling is really adorable. It delights people to see him tucked in there. Colin LOVES people. He will smile at anyone. He makes really good eye contact and will reach out to complete strangers. He just thoroughly delights people.

I am so ready to be settled in to a place we can finally call home. When we move in it will be 22 months, almost 2 years since we lived in our own home. In the past 2 years we will have moved 10 times. I feel like I have lived out of a suitcase for quite some time. We lived in our young married apartment  and then journeyed to Andrew's mother's home, Debbie, then sublet in NYC, then back to Debbie's, then Amsterdam, then Debbie's again, then 2 sublets in NYC, then our east coast trip to stay in Florida for a week and a half, then where we live now, and wherever we end up. It has been a bit rough doing that with a baby (hence the bad sleeping habits) but we enjoy the variety. I am also done with living in small, dark places. The poor student phase is behind us. I want a home that gets me excited to wake up and see the world. I spend  a lot of time at home so I have some standards it has to meet. I am very excited about the prospects though. There is so much beautiful architecture and people are very much into good interior design. That is great for us because we are getting a furnished apartment.

Once things settle down, I have plans to travel. Oh do I have plans!