The Amsterdam Apartment

I don't know how long I will be working in Amsterdam, but I hope I can stay in the same apartment the entire time. It is, without a doubt, the best apartment in which I have ever lived. Naturally, it is only part time and temporary. I seem to get lucky a lot, but it is always luck with conditions.

My very first apartment as an adult was a tiny box in downtown Minneapolis. It was too small and in an older building that desperately needed to be updated, but it was connected to the Skyway. I could go to the bank, out to eat, pay the phone bill, go shopping, watch a Timberwolves game or see the Eagles, minus Don Felder, without ever stepping foot outdoors. That was convenient in the dead of winter and heat of summer. My school was not connected to the Skyway, but it was less than two miles away. Ironically, my dance school when I was in high school was practically connected to the Skyway, but I lived much farther south back then. The best thing about that apartment was the freedom. There were very few rooms, but my boyfriend at the time and I could do whatever we wanted in any of those rooms at any time.

My first Hong Kong apartment was a tiny box in Mong Kok. It was even smaller than my first Minneapolis apartment, though the rent was 40% higher, but it was an easy walk to Paisano's, the flower market, the ladies market and Langham Place. It was not connected to anything, and had nothing close to a kitchen, but it was close enough to the MTR, which is convenient on any of Hong Kong's 150 rainy days each year, and only four stops away from the Eagles concert the second time they came here. And if you really want freedom, move 8,000 miles away from your family. Of course, that also meant moving a world away from our friends.

The Amsterdam house is above average by Minneapolis standards and enormous by Hong Kong standards. Without roommates, I would say it is too big. Even with two other people, there is plenty of room. Like every other building on the street, it is four floors with a red brick exterior. Without a number on the wall, there would be no way to tell one building from the next. A few of the neighbors have unique doors, but mine is the same as 90% of every other door on the block.

The street itself is entirely residential, with similar residential streets in every direction. I like how quiet and removed it is from the hustle and bustle, while at the same time, some of my favorite parts of Amsterdam are an easy walk away. I can get to Vondelpark in a few minutes, the Leidseplein in 15 minutes and the Rijksmuseum in less than 20. The Cuypmarkt, Anne Frank House, Bloemenmarkt and Spui are 30 minutes away on foot. The rest of the city is easy to reach with two tram lines a block away and several more tram and bus lines a little farther out. My street, like every other street in the neighborhood, has far fewer parking spaces than cars. Fortunately, I don't have a car. Owning a car in Amsterdam would be counterproductive. The trams and buses go everywhere, and someone else has to park them. Better still, Amsterdam is a great city to walk or bike around and get some fresh air.

Where I come from, four floors would be a mansion, but this is a standard-size house. I call it an apartment out of habit. In China, we call apartments houses, for some reason. Even a tiny box in Mong Kok without a kitchen is called a house when it is obviously an apartment. Everyone in Hong Kong lives in a house even though almost everyone lives in an apartment. I make it a point to call every house an apartment. Now, that has carried over to Amsterdam, despite the fact that the Amsterdam apartment is clearly a house. It is pressed up against the two houses on either side, and all of the houses combined might look like a long apartment building from a distance, but each house is self contained. You could completely tear down one house and it would not affect the house next door. I think if you tore out an apartment, the neighbors might notice.

I don't know enough about architecture to say what style it is, but it looks like a canal house, only it is not on a canal and is far newer than the traditional canal houses. New being a relative term. This neighborhood was built in the middle and late 19th century. While the house is over 100 years old, there are plenty of canal houses from the 17th century in Amsterdam. Unlike the traditional canal houses that are each unique, these all look the same and were obviously built at the same time by the same people. If traditional canal houses were originally built for the wealthiest in the city, these houses were probably built for the middle class.

The ground floor of the apartment/house has two front doors, just like every other house in the neighborhood. I was told that the two different entrances are because most of the owners at the time were merchants who used the ground floor as storage and/or shops. That makes sense since every house on the street has a gable with that furniture hook just like a traditional canal house. One door was for customers and deliveries, which were always brought in the front door because houses on canals got their UPS from boats. The other door opens to the hallway/stairway that leads to what they would use as their private residence. Today, some of the houses are divided into apartments. One door leads to the ground floor apartment and the other to the upper apartment. The houses that are not divided simply have two front doors. I suppose it is convenient if you are rushing downstairs to catch the bus in seconds flat.

The main front door opens to a vestibule/hallway with plenty of room for all the coats, hats, boots and umbrellas you need when you live in Amsterdam. From the hallway, there are stairs, one of many closets and two doors. One door leads to a tiny bathroom. The other door leads to a long, open room that covers the entire ground floor. The space is divided into dining room, kitchen and living room, but there are no partitions. The furniture is the only indication that you have gone from one room to another. Had there been a wall between each room, they would all look cramped. The open space makes it look much larger.

The dining room table is next to the two front windows, with views of the houses across the street. The kitchen is essentially up against one wall, but it has every appliance I need and plenty of counter space. An island with a sink and cabinets is the only thing close to a dividing line that separates the rooms. Beyond the kitchen is a long living room. It is narrow, but spacious. Tall French doors open to the surprisingly large backyard. All of the glass on the doors and windows makes the living room look bigger. From the street, each house is narrow and crammed together, but most have long backyards with gardens and patios.

The backyard looks like someone came in and manicured it yesterday. I don't know who takes care of it or how often, but everything is clean and trimmed. The patio furniture is clearly not new, but cleaner than furniture that spends its days outdoors should be. There is another empty storage closet, for some reason, and a separate rack for firewood. There is a working fireplace in the living room, but I was not about to mess with it without any instructions. It is obviously wood burning, but I can't just look at it and tell what kind of ventilation it has or if the flue is clean and open. It was never that cold anyway.

The second floor, which is called the first floor in Amsterdam and most of Europe, can be reached by either the stairway at the front door or another stairway from the other front door. Once up the stairs, there is another hallway that separates the stairs from the rooms. Every floor in the house has walls and doors between hallways and stairs. I assume this is for heating during the winter. It probably also helps with air conditioning during the summer, but this house was built long before air conditioning existed. There are also plenty of walls and doors between all the rooms on every floor except the ground floor, but it looks like there used to be a wall between the kitchen and living room. Someone obviously remodeled the place in the last century.

The second and third floors – or first and second – have pretty much the same floor plan. Stairs/hallway, bedroom facing the back garden, office/extra room facing the street and a bathroom in between. Each of the rooms facing the street has a tiny balcony that can't really do much beyond hold a few potted plants. The bedroom balconies are large enough for a storage closet and small patio furniture. I have no idea why there are closets on the balconies, but this house has closets everywhere.

I chose the bedroom on the third floor because my only roommate, so far, had already chosen the second floor. They are both essentially the same, except my room has an extra flight of stairs to walk up. She turned her front room into a gym, with an exercise bike, all kinds of portable equipment and some kind of machine I have never seen before. I have not decided what to do with my room.

My bathroom is spacious. All of the bathrooms, except the one on the ground floor, were renovated sometime in the last ten years. I get the feeling there used to be more rooms on each floor, but then they knocked down a few walls and made everything bigger. They definitely went bigger with the bathrooms. I doubt they had whirlpool bathtubs, double vanity sinks and showers that could easily hold three or four people in 1880.

The fourth/third floor is smaller than the others. That is where the roof gables out, so there is only a bedroom and bathroom. That bedroom has a sloped ceiling, which is great for lighting, but I chose against it because it is noticeably smaller and does not have that extra room I don't know how to use. I suppose it does not really make any difference since I will only be in the house part time, but as long as I had the option, I went with the better of the two. If we eventually find a roommate who cannot stand the top floor, I will be perfectly happy to switch.

One of my favorite parts of the house, aside from the kitchen, bathroom and backyard, is the roof. Even with the gables, all of the roofs in the neighborhood are flat. Some have nothing on top. A few have solar panels. And some roofs, like ours, have a terrace. Our terrace has a sofa, several tables and chairs, large plants and yet another storage closet. The closet is currently empty and I can't imagine what anyone would store in it. From the roof, we have views of all the other rooftops in the neighborhood. Since every building is the same height, we can see for miles and miles. Unfortunately, there is nothing like the Eiffel Tower in Amsterdam, and St Nicholas Basilica is too far away. If there were no backyard, the roof would be the perfect place to host a barbecue. Maybe some day I can be there on a day without too many clouds so I can watch the sunset.

I have lived in a few places over the years, but this is the first apartment/house I would ever want to buy. The houses where I grew up in Minneapolis were in nice neighborhoods, but too suburban for my tastes. The apartments were always too small, and only available to rent. My first Hong Kong apartment was tiny. The current one is bigger, but it feels more like a model house than a home. It does the job, but I would not want to live here forever. The apartment in Paris was beautiful, but too opulent, and probably far too expensive. Even if I could afford to buy it, I would never want to live in one of the most expensive neighborhoods. I always stayed in a hotel in Tel Aviv, so ownership could never be an option. The Barcelona apartment was nice, and in a lovely neighborhood, but I hated the bathroom. I don't know where I'm going to settle down permanently, eventually, but I could see myself living in Amsterdam – or Paris, Tel Aviv, Minneapolis, or even Hong Kong. The Amsterdam house is the only building, so far, where I could picture raising a family and growing old.

All I need is a steady job, someone to start a family with, a way to convince my friends to move to Amsterdam and enough money to buy a house that is not for sale. I think I might be staying where I am for a while.