The night before we took off, the Hidalgos were kind enough to let us overtake their home with the kids and our 10+ bags. Stacie came to pick me up at Cisco in the Yukon rental. That was when the leaving really hit, no home, no car, everything is all packed up, here we go.
We headed up to San Francisco to drop off the bags and head over to Luisa’s for dinner. Gigi, Rooster and Bridgette came up from Santa Cruz, Bri and Anthony got home from work, then we all headed off to dinner. Jaime couldn’t make dinner as he was just getting back from a romantic getaway in Alaska with Joe. (Word on the street was that they enjoyed a nice night’s sleep on a bear skin rug in the shape of a heart.)
Luisa was fantastic to us all night, the Chianti was flowing along with the Oso Bucco. She even took the boys for a while and filled them up with ice cream, cookies & suckers. This was a great way to say good bye to the US for a while!!
The next morning we woke up and got ready to head off to the airport. I checked my email one last time to find out that our temporary housing had changed and that we needed to find our way to central Amsterdam on our own. This started to worry me, thinking ahead to the tired kids, tired parents, 3x more luggage than we have arms and on top of all of that, driving through the Canals in Amsterdam. There was no turning back now. Amsterdam or Bust!
We couldn’t have asked for a better plane ride, no crying or screaming from the kids. The only bummer was that neither one of them slept the whole ride out which left for one tired Q family. We flew through Frankfurt and left for Amsterdam after only an hour layover. An hour and 15 minutes later, we were in Amsterdam.
After waiting for all of the bags, we piled them onto other bags, an airport cart and some onto the stroller. We pushed them through the airport, to the Hertz desk, and got the keys to our Honda Civic Hybrid (with a bumping system) after about an hour. I stuck the two car seats in, put Carter and Avery into their seats, then began piling as much luggage in every open space that car had left. Still after all of that, we had 3 large bags and no front seat.... It was off to the Taxi stand for Stacie, the stroller, and the 3 remaining bags.
Before turning the car on, both of the boys were out. I entered the address into the “Hertz Never Lost” and off we went. Good old Never Lost took me right into the Jordaan, on Binnen Oranjestraat, where our temporary apartment was. I definitely didn’t feel comfortable driving there, tired, small streets, canals & bikes everywhere. I just parked the car on the side of a small street and hoped that Stacie would show up soon. She got there at the same time as our leasing agent, and we started unloading the car.
Stacie said that she was a BIT nervous riding around alone and tired with a Dutch/British/Jamaican taxi driver for half an hour having no idea if she’d end up in some brush under a canal to never see her family again! Finally, her taxi driver went down our new street the wrong way and got into a swearing match with a policeman. The taxi driver proceeded to tell the cop to f*@k off, so he did, and let them go by. This was our first view into a culture of tolerance.
We unpacked the boys first, laid Carter in the small bed up on the 3rd floor and put Avery on the couch on the 2nd floor. After sleeping for 8 hours or so, the house woke up and we headed out for some dinner. Since our last dinner was Italian in the US, why not make it Italian in Amsterdam? Tired and not knowing the culture, we stumbled into our first dinning experience, not sure if kids were welcome, and if we needed to seat ourselves? It all worked out and we got a nice dinner along with some Heineken for Mom and Dad and apple juice for the boys. Avery quickly turned that pizza into some “child output” and it ran out through his pants. Thinking he had just spilled juice on his pants, I put him on my lap to calm him down, only to find out later that Avery and Dad now both had pooey pants.
The house we were to call “home” for the next month was in a great area full of hustle and bustle. The house was 4 stories spread out over 4 flights of tiny spiral steps. Not good after too many drinks! The boys shared the front room on the top floor. Carter got the bed and Avery pulled up some hard wood floor and a Thomas the Train air mattress, as we didn’t trust him to not roll off the bed! The place definitely exercised form over function.
The parking in the Jordaan is insane and expensive, and Tony had to go out every few hours and feed more Euros into the meter. Not convenient.
We quickly found the supermarket, and learned even more quickly that one must bring their own grocery bags to pack your groceries into yourself. Otherwise, you have to buy the grocery bags before you pack your own groceries.
The owner of the apartment, Hussein, was friendly and full of information. He said the apartment used to be an Indian restaurant with red velvet wallpaper. He had the bottom floor dug out an extra meter and a half and made a bedroom/laundry room/bathroom out of it. The entire apartment was decorated with Ikea items, except for the PINK fridge, which Hussein hand-picked himself to match his undies!
A few days in we met with a realtor to have a look around Oud Zuid (Old South) to find a permanent home for the next two years. We loved the last one we saw and thankfully were approved to move into it at the end of October.
