Gramz Goes to Holland: October 2014

We had 30 days to find a permanent apartment. After

struggling to find an apartment on our own (we actually only succeeded in seeing 2, one had a nice interior, but we

later found it was not in a very safe neighborhood, and one in

a nice area, but with a quite dated interior, the pictures made it look much better than reality) we got a real estate agent and he arranged for tours. Originally, we were to see eight apartments,

but between his scheduling them and our going out about

three days later, three had already been rented.

For all you fans of House Hunters Intl. that didn't see

this on Allan's Facebook page, you can play along.

Here are pictures of the 5 apartments we looked at.

You can pick, which one you think we chose.

This is House 1

This is House 2

This is House 3

This is House 4

This is House 5

Our decision came down to houses 1 and 5.

House 1 is a house in Diemen a village just outside of the

south side of Amsterdam.

It is 160 square meters, 2 floors

with 2 small gardens. It is close to work and church, which

are both on the south side of Amsterdam.

House 5 is on the south side of central Amsterdam

with a gorgeous view of one of the canals.

It is 120 square meters and on the 3rd and 4th floors

of a building. I never thought we could

afford an apartment this large right on the canal.

It was a really hard decision. After much debate, we decided

we can always go into the city and see the canals, but

we weren't quite ready for the constant noise and

trying to ride our bikes on the congested streets.

So, we chose the village house.

We bought our bikes on Saturday and rode to

church in less than 15 minutes on Sunday.

On Monday, Allan rode to work in just under 25 minutes,

despite being out of shape. Plenty of people blew

past him on the bike paths.

King William Alexander being sworn in.

The following Saturday was King's Day.

It was the first King's Day in over 100 years, as the new King was crowned less than one year ago.

Prior to that the country had been ruled by Queens

since 1870.

My Great Grandfather
Hendrick Bell

According to my family's stories, my Great Grandfather Hendrick Bell cursed Queen Wilhelmina back in 1890 that she wouldn't have a male heir if she didn't support the entrance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she didn't. See link for more if interested.

https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/776321?returnLabel=Hendrick%20Bell%20(KWJF-54R)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Ftree%2F%23view%3Dancestor%26person%3DKWJF-54R%26spouse%3DKWJF-5MK%26parents%3DKWJF-5KR_27W7-GM1%26section%3Dmemories

Regardless of the validity of the story, no male heir came along until after the death of Queen Wilhelmina. King's Day celebrates the King's birthday, which fortunately is within a week of his mother's birthday, so King's Day wasn't too different from the previous Queen's Day. Though we heard stories of visitor's that booked vacations to be here for Queen's Day only to find out it occurred the previous weekend.

King's Day is a huge party. Everyone wears orange.

The royal family was originally the house of Orange and

it is the official color of the country, very noticeable if you paid any attention to the Winter Olympics and the

success of the Dutch speed skaters.

We thought you might enjoy this short clip of

a man swinging over a canal.

All day people walk around Amsterdam or float around the canals on their boats and drink and blast music. We went into the city center and watched some of the crazy crowds. The canals were so full of boats they could hardly move. Amsterdam can be very crowded and noisy and smelly any time, but it was extra crazy on King's Day. As we were walking around, Allan suddenly stopped and said, I figured out what that smell is. I haven't smelled it this strong since a '70's rock concert. It's pot. Welcome to Amsterdam.

You might want to go and put some orange

on, so you will feel like you are part of the party
as you walk along with us.