Mid-Week Moment 03: On His Way

End of Week 02: Yes You, and Everyone Else

Sometime during the shuffle prior to moving out of Boston, a housing appointment definitively landed on my first Friday in Amsterdam. It pushed its way through the stacked boxes, cluttered binders, amassed Goodwill donations, and crowded thoughts to happily sit above my upheaved life. Rightful deserved, as two months prior to moving out of Boston, a magnetic keycard to Room 225 at the Residence Inn replaced the keys to my Somerville apartment; a place where boxes, bins and just-plain-stuff crowded an otherwise blank wall, guarded by my former roommate’s two cats. However, as Mosey and Pocket surveyed the mass, occasionally pawing at it with curiosity, I finished packing those two black, rolling body bags that somehow needed to descend two flights of stairs. I wonder if one of my roommates is coming home soon.

Bags of that proportion, black holes that I could easily fit into and attract jokes of that subject, conveniently store nearly everything needed for my homeless months, but inconveniently do not move themselves. Down the stairs of my former Somerville apartment, into my little Jetta, out to the curb at the Residence Inn, up to Room 225, and down an elevator those bags traveled, which only made me realize the literal weight I could collect. And this was only a fraction of my belongings - the ones I carefully curated for those nomadic months. However, after all of that up and down, in and around, my bags glided out of sight on the luggage conveyor belt at Logan Airport. Relief gushed through tired arms and a strained consciousness as I buoyantly continued through security with only minimal baggage.

Friday morning I proceeded down the spiraling stairs from my bedroom and past my deflated black, rolling body bags to check the weather on my laptop, 20 degrees Celsius with only sun forecasted for Amsterdam, and study the agenda of apartments emailed by my real estate agent the day before. Though my list of ten apartments off of the Dutch housing websites Funda and Pararius arrived in my real estate’s email earlier that week, only six options populated today’s agenda, most of them unrecognizable.

“Rozenstraat rented out yesterday, and Willemstraat supposedly was taken but we got a call this morning from the real estate agent that it is back on the market. Strange, I don’t trust them.”

I stood near her desk, hands in my dark olive, leather jacket, as my real estate agent compared our findings. An exclusive and desirable housing market wove tight networks between agents and owners; everyone talked to everyone and loyal relationships influenced the list an agent composed. Apartments quickly appeared on the market only to be swiftly rented another who, by chance, scheduled a housing search only two days earlier. This game was as much slap jack, as it was poker.

Defined by the concentric set of 17^th century canals, Amsterdam’s immutable city limits and high demand fostered a competitive market, with many people looking at the same price range and areas. When asked at lunch by my colleagues where I would like to live, I confidently proclaimed the Joordan and De Pijp only to be met with “yes you, and everyone else.”

Weekend 02: Nieuwmarkt, "New Market"




Brood, Brezel en Croissants: A cross of cultures as Nieuwmarkt sits near Amsterdam's Chinatown.

 

Bloemen: A vendor wrapping a bouquet of flowers for an enthusiastic customer.

Mid-Week Moment 02: Angels from Above

End of Week 01: Some Kind of American Export

“You are a highly skilled migrant worker…”

Relocation Agent’s Email. June, 2011

Do I pick tulips on the weekends? The sarcastic thought that, to my own luck, only stopping to form scrunched brows, avoiding quick words through average typing skills, which never results in lasting impressions, especially over email. But forwarding this message did gratify some kind of need to protract my initial delight - I’m not an expat, only some sort of American export. A 25-year-old, non-expat export whose interests deviate from relaying the piddling differences new country adjustments seems to enact because, everyone, I’ve already gotten those out of the way.

Let’s check off the list together.

Ate raw meet, yes, I couldn’t read the label; threw myself at my temporary apartment door for ten minutes only to realize that my “stuck” door was actually a locked door; and ran after a train, which was a great form of exercise, and only that. Hi ho, a week in the Netherlands, with only 103 weeks until I reenacting my States’ status. A counting exercise merely meant to emphasize how quickly the every day living can trivialize typical travelers’ mistakes.

Travelling can free the dampest from their locked habits and routines by non-contextualizing their actions through exposure to foreign surroundings. Those mistakes, instead of lasting frustrations, turn into humorous anecdotes to humanize an otherwise glorious expedition. It is only natural to feel at ease through complete anonymousness in a place that one steps into only to step out of days later. With minimal impact on their now vacation spot, many move on, back to their homes, securely locked while they were away.

But at least they don’t throw themselves at their locked doors. My temporary neighbor, who I haven’t seen since, maneuvered his car into a snug parking spot as I looked around in frustration. As the only person who appeared on my street during this whole episode, he was pretty much enlisted into solve my problem. Waving him over, I signaled to my door and how it was jammed up top.

It was 7am the morning before that I arrived at my temporary apartment after a long flight from Boston. The agent explained everything about the apartment from the Internet to garbage day and handed me a set of keys. One looked normal, and the other, long and cylindrical, only caught my curiosity after the agent left. Exhausted, I abandoned my fastidiousness and chose to ignore it until now.

 “Did you know that your door is still locked?”

My scrunched brows appeared again as he asked for my key chain. Erecting the long, cylindrical key, my elusive neighbor opened the top lock and I shrugged, an action that I found is a universally understood response. Someone clearly overestimated my abilities with the “highly skilled” entitlement during the beginning of this whole process.  

But no matter, along the way these things will happen as a temporary apartment dweller evolving into an actual Dutch resident. In these 103 weeks, a continual dialogue of living in Amsterdam and working outside of its limits will manifest through anecdotes of the vitals – transition, neighborhood, relationship, and refreshment. One that will not sweep over, as a momentary traveler’s might, but burrow into specific aspects of Amsterdam the young and curious would delight. As a new city, even new country, okay wait new continent, will adjust perceptions and routines that were only locked at the top before an elusive moment realized their easy accessibility.

Weekend 01: Grachtenfestival




Campagnietheater: The finale to the week long, classical music festival that organized performances throughout the city.

 

Prinsengracht: Boats crowding the canals to watch a concert situated on a platform over the water.

Mid-Week Moment 01: Gurus

Week 00: That Saturday Afternoon

At the end of all of this, I will be 27 years old, an initial thought when the opportunity presented itself some March afternoon. A draft of two years in what I will refer to it as the Hils, a city outside of Amsterdam, sat not only on the end of my desk, but also in Entourage, my work email inbox. After three years as a designer at this 100-year-old start up, my next bit would be abroad, a hope secretly stashed only in the lines of my red, purse-sized notebook.

Previously, the happening of moving from my beloved States only rendered realistic through specialty graduate programs such as Ars Sutoria and Palimoda; which admittedly occupied my personal Gmail inbox. Moving and travelling’s displacing and adapting components never dissuaded my overseas notions, however, leaving a comfort zone by jumping overseas stood as a tall challenger with its many unknowns.

In between the month of accepting the job and physically moving, numerous messages, lists, and forms collected in all of my inboxes, some sent from the Netherlands, others from my parents in my home state of California. And there I sat in the middle, answering messages received from a time zone six hours ahead and waiting for responses from the other coast three hours behind. Anxiously, I toggled between Gmail and Entourage, updating my family with news from work, summarizing the accomplished tasks, and listing the next ones to come. My email served as a living record of the steps included to dismantle this life and reestablish it elsewhere, with hopefully a little refurbishing as well.  This sort of tasking required acute organization that frequently overrode my initial giddiness. And there, this email inbox, something I used to look forward to opening with its daily surprises, became a regimented agenda with daily reminders to myself sent in bold subject titles:

8AM LEAVE TO SELL CAR

3PM CALL TO CANCEL AUTO INSURANCE

2PM TAXI TO AIRPORT

Like I would wake up the next day and think, “hmm that car shouldn’t be there right?” and “am I supposed to be going somewhere in that taxi out front?” Well, as ridiculous as they were, they worked; and with my car sold, apartment rented, furniture discarded, and filled moving boxes taken away, I sat in the Residency Inn’s lobby.  Looking up anxiously from my ipod as 2pm ticked closer, I wanted to remember that moment. A moment furbished with coarse, non-stain carpeting boarded by neutral, eggshell walls and epitomized by the late 90’s furniture. 

I should throw out my gum.

Twelve hours before arriving in Amsterdam that was where I sat with two black, rolling body bags and my allotted carry ons for that Saturday afternoon's red-eye flight.