Tram talk

Yesterday the temperature went below zero for the first time since we got here. It was something like -2℃ in the daytime. So it was not a good day for Tram 5, which Marlon takes to work, to be twenty minutes late. 

In a country where tardiness is unacceptable, the Dutch tram driver was beyond himself and visibly stressed. The crowd of frozen, grumpy commuters at each stop who would stomp into the tram and glare at the driver did nothing to ease the pressure on him to make up for lost time. 

Neither did the loud American woman who greeted every group of boarding passengers: "So! How long y'all been frozen for?" To make matters worse, a teenage guy kept leaning on the door, delaying the tram by a few precious seconds every time that door opened and closed. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Finally the tram speakers crackled to life and a voice boomed from the heavens. The beleaguered tram driver had had enough.

"WHAT. THE. F*CK?!" Who the f*ck keeps leaning on the f*cking door? I'm already more than twenty f*cking minutes late, so if the f*cker does that again at the next stop, I'm going to stop the tram, leave you all in here and go for a f*cking smoke break!"

Yesssss. Meltdown. In English. All the better for us non-Dutch to be entertained by.

So I was having a bad day yesterday. Call it schadenfreude, but sometimes it helps to remember you're not the only one!

Le sigh

The apartment situation has been a little crazy these past few days.

Through Housing Agent #1, we made an offer for the place on Beethovenstraat which was lower than the owner's asking price. After two days, the owner's agent told us they had knocked €50 off the asking price—and I was like, what the heck kind of tawad is €50? Still, we kicked our budget up a notch (the house is that nice), made a counter-offer, and waited.

And waited.

In the meantime, we viewed another apartment with Housing Agent #2 (a.k.a. The Blond Clive Owen). A ground-floor apartment near the Concertgebouw and Museumplein, it promised to be a contender, but turned out to be too big of an investment on our part—we'd have to spend for closets, curtains, a dryer, lighting fixtures and to clean up the garden. So much for that.

And still, we waited.

Marlon and I also decided on a back-up apartment should Beethovenstraat reject our offer. I haven't blogged about it since the pictures I took were crappy. But we saw it on our very first day of house-hunting, and it was the pick of that day. We just needed to get the final word from Beethovenstraat so we could make an offer on this other place before it got snapped up by someone else.

But still, we waited. And started to wonder why the owners were taking so long to evaluate our counter-offer.

Today Housing Agent #1 found out that the owner's agent was in talks with another prospective tenant about the same apartment! Instead of holding one-to-one negotiations with the first to make an offer, he had been playing us off each other without either of us knowing. After getting an offer from us, he would tell the owner, then run to the other party and get a counter offer, then make the owner decide.

This whole runaround not only prolonged the entire process, but drove up the rent (and the agent's commission)... in favor of the other "bidder". Marlon and I weren't expecting a bidding game, and we're certainly not funded to play one. Welcome to Expatland, where there will always be someone with a bigger relocation package/housing allowance/tax benefit than you.

So we gave up the bidding war to the other party, and for the second time in as many weeks, I'm crushed.

We now have a pending offer for the third choice on our list. I can only hope it's still on the market—we lost so time on this stupid waiting game—and that the negotiations are not as draining. We're only in the serviced apartment until Wednesday, so we have to close a deal on an apartment asap. Like tomorrow.

Afraid

While canvassing for sofa beds on the Ikea site, I saw this.

Afraidy Krueger! Mothers of Europe, beware! Having gone criminally psychotic after being booed at his last coffeehouse gig, Euro hipster bogeyman is out for revenge! He will make off with your children in the night!

And your little dog, too!

Let's try this again

After hearts are broken, life must go on. (Chos! Emo!) So, in the interest of moving on, Marlon and I have instructed our housing agent to make an offer on another flat. It's on Beethovenstraat, in what the housing agent and relocation consultants keep saying is the one of the poshest areas in Amsterdam. 

I don't know if this fact is stated over and over again because it's meant to be a huge selling point; it's all the same to me. It's not like fitting into the social hierarchy is on my agenda here. What I care about more is that right across the street are a tram stop, Albert Heijn supermarket, fishmonger, bakerij and butcher! No more carting heavy bags over a 15-minute walk in the cold!

Ayan, na-excite na naman ako. Be still, my heart. After my recent real estate heartbreak, I don't want to really get my hopes up. But I thought I'd share the place with everyone anyway so you can root for us!

It's on the first floor, so just one flight of moderately manageable steps, thank goodness. The front door opens into a small hallway that leads to all the rooms. I now have to think of things like where to hang the coats, and whether there's space for a coat rack or just wall-mounted hooks.

I like the wooden floors and the decent-sized living/dining space facing the street. The decommissioned brick fireplace in the corner is a nice old detail in an otherwise modern space.

The all-important second bedroom also faces Beethovenstraat. Because it's a busy street, the owners have all but hermetically sealed this room off. To compensate for the lack of circulation, they've also added a contraption that lets in fresh air while filtering out the noise from the street. It's the small rectangular box on top of the radiator.

I also like the checkerboard floor in the bathroom, and the fact that the place comes with its own washer and dryer (less for us to spend on!). It doesn't have a bathtub though, which I initially thought was not such a big minus. Huwag maging choosy ang lumaki sa tabo at balde, lol. But I did a long, delectably hot soak in the serviced apartment bathtub the other day, and I must admit having one would be a wonderful luxury.

Still, I can't complain. The his-and-hers sinks are a major step up from our tiny bathroom in Singapore.

The master bedroom is airy and spacious. The closet is a huge plus, since a lot of apartments here don't come with built-in closet space.

The apartment has its own garden! How cool is that. It will be really lovely to eat here with guests when the weather is warmer. It's a little odd, though, that the only access to the garden is through the master bedroom. Marlon and I are toying with the idea of switching spaces, i.e. using this room as the living/dining area and the front room as the master bedroom. But then that would mean that our bedroom faces the street.

A relatively spacious kitchen, with the very rare full-sized refrigerator (who needs a refrigerator when it's already cold outside? is the Dutch logic) and enough space for our kopitiam table, Eames chairs and maybe some extra shelving.

Looking at it on the map, Beethovenstraat seems kind of far from the center of town (the canal belt up top), but it's only about ten minutes by tram. The Museumplein where the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum are about three stops away. Yep, Amsterdam is that small.

For guests (that's you!), there's a direct train from Schiphol Airport to Station Zuid, which you can see is practically walkable from the apartment.

So root for us to get it! It's a great apartment for you too!

Prins Charming

Every girl dreams of meeting a dashing prince who will sweep her off her feet. Well, friends, it finally happened to me. 

His name is Prins Henrikkade. You could say he had me at hello. 

A listed historical building on the Prins Henrikkade facing the water, a few minutes' walk from Centraal Station and the public library, this apartment got my heart beating from the moment I walked into the perfectly preserved, shared entrance.

Being on the first floor (or second floor to us non-Europeans), even the dreaded staircase was transformed into a delightful confection. Kulang na lang ang yellow gown ko and my Beast waiting on the ground floor. Or, since I have a short bob and no yellow gown, baka dapat ang naghihintay sa akin sa baba ay si Captain Von Trapp.

The front door opened into a spacious kitchen, a full room instead of the little strip that is common to all the apartments I've seen so far. We could probably fit a decent dining table inside. I knew Marlon would love it.

And the living space. Exposed beams, herringbone floors, a gas fireplace... swoon.

*SHOOP!* Your Highness, pardon the sound of my panty falling.

This huge front room was linked to the back of the apartment by a small hallway...

... that looked out into a small light/airwell. The Prins was pushing all the right architectural buttons. Naughty naughty.

A decent-sized second bedroom for our many future guests, and at least one future baby.

Connected by an equally decent-sized bathroom...

... to the most stupendous master bedroom in the history of all house-hunts!

Fall to your knees, peasants! Behold!

I may have seen one too many episodes of So You Think You Can Dance, but it made me feel like breaking into a Viennese waltz. When the housing agent opened the original built-in closets, I simply melted into a vaguely girl-shaped puddle on the floor.

The best part about this handsome Prins? He's well out of the heavily touristed area, but just one or two streets away from the classic city centre views. With a "negotiable" asking price just a hundred Euros away from our budget range, I thought I had found my happily ever after. After seeing the pictures, Marlon gave me the go-ahead to tell our agent to make an offer.

But...

Like many modern-day fairy tales, this one does not have a happy ending.

Choosy pala si Prins Henrikkade. After my agent made the offer, the owner's agent nosed around into Marlon's salary, length of contract and tax status, then requested soft copies of his employment contract and both our passports. Mayabang ang lola mo at muntik ko nang sampalin ang kontrata sa mga mukha nila. But of course there is no way to make sampal with a soft copy, jejeje.

Yesterday I got a call from my agent. The owner rejected our offer. Not because of our income. Not even because of our nationality. But because of... our cat.

Unwanted :( :( :(

"The apartment has been newly carpeted, newly curtained, blah blah blah..."They didn't even want to put in a standard clause holding us liable for all pet-related damage. My agent was pretty pissed (his commission just rode off into the sunset!), declaring this truly unfortunate and unreasonable.

Lesson of the story: don't give your heart to the first Prins you meet. He just might turn out to be another frog.

The End.

Hunting season

"There's no such thing as a perfect apartment," warned my ex-boss, who lived and still owns property in Amsterdam. It might be in a great location, but tiny and with vertiginous staircases; spacious, but expensive; cheap, but with wooden beams poking out of odd places, or visitors having to enter directly into the kitchen instead of a proper entryway.

So far I've found this to be true. Working with two different housing agents (one assigned by the relocation agency, another that I found off the Net) and seeing 18 apartments over three days of viewing, I got a mixed bag of hits and misses. Marlon was only with me for the first day; I took over when he started work.

There were a couple of places boasting that Holy Grail of real estate, a classic Amsterdam canal view. One of the first apartments we saw was along the Singel, one of the famous canals in the city center. When the agent drove into this area, kinilig talaga kami ni Marlon.

Imagine looking out your window and enjoying this view every day. 

It even had a fireplace!

It also had a pair of Roman pillars in the bedroom. Roman pillars! So, thanks but no thanks.

Another canal-side apartment was sunk into a basement. A priceless canal view can be yours, if you can see past the various-feet view and dog-poop-on-the-street view.

Look down, look down, don't look 'em in the eye

A corner apartment on the Prinsengracht had this view in front...

... and a touristy strip of bars and restaurants on the side. "I should probably let you know that this is... not the quietest area in Amsterdam," the owner suggested delicately. Got the message loud and clear.

From centuries-old buildings, we headed off to the newer part of town. Newer in the sense that the buildings were built in the 1920s lang naman. Amsterdam hosted the Olympics in 1928 and built accommodations for the athletes, near the Olympic Stadium in the Zuid (pronounced Zoud, which means, you guessed it, South). This explains why the buildings all look alike. Still, a lot of them have little details characteristic of the era.

Zuid seems far from Marlon's office on the map, but one thing I've come to realize (after every Dutch person I know telling me this) is that Amsterdam is tiny and that everything is pretty close by. In this area, the apartments started looking less... er, quirky, and more livable. They were more spacious, too. 

We even found one that we really liked.

We also saw one with a garden and a small studio, but figured maintaining the garden was too big of a commitment. Neither of us have had much luck with plants.

One of the apartments in the low end of our budget range had some very... distinctive, and, er, historical marks embossed into the old metal doors.

Dahil sa madugong kasaysayan ng lugar na ito, na-afraid ako sa mga bagay na hindi nakikita, na baka makita ko. Pero mas na-afraid ako sa hagdan.

I ventured far west of the city, to an area called De Baarsjes. Though it's walking distance to the Vondelpark, Amsterdam's own version of Central Park, medyo hindi kanais-nais ang lugar. Again, a mixed bag—a roof terrace...

But rather depressing, cell-like bedrooms.

Far east of the city, in a sort of industrial/dock area called Zeeburg, was a nice corner apartment with tons of light, and a sweet dining nook.

But, in the words of the housing agent: "Here we have a very different part of town." And in the words of Ellen, my relocation agency yaya for the day, "This neighborhood is not so nice." Hindi naman siya ghetto. But all the gray cement blocks just don't say Amsterdam to me.

As Anna, our previous relocation consultant said about another apartment, "It could be anywhere. It could be in Denmark, for goodness' sake." (No offense to the Danes, of course.) The apartment she was referring to was an absolute no-no for Marlon. Paano ba naman, the master bedroom looks directly into the Philips tower, one of their two offices in the city.

Kamusta namang your colleagues can just look into your bedroom to see if you're really at home when you call in sick? And thank goodness Europe doesn't have much of an overtime culture, because Marlon would hate for his colleagues to know what goes on at night!

Getting down to business

Can I just say that it's great being married to a "highly skilled knowledge migrant"? 

There were a ton of tasks we had to do on Friday, things that had to be accomplished before Marlon started work on Monday. The day was packed, but everything was made absolutely painless by the fact that Marlon's job afforded us a relocation consultant to accompany us on all the errands. Our first stop was ABN Amro Bank at the World Trade Center, which is kind of like the Makati CBD—a cluster of glass and steel office buildings that I haven't seen anywhere else in the city. 

That one hour at the bank uncovered a few surprising tidbits, such as the fact that checks have been phased out in Europe. Yep! Nobody uses checks anymore—it's all debit and credit cards. I find that mind-boggling, considering that in Singapore, one of the most advanced financial hubs of Asia, I still get paid in checks. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

We both got "private accounts", which come with a debit/ATM card and are linked to a savings account with monthly interest. The setup sounds perfect; I just hope we actually have savings to put in those accounts. Marlon also got a credit card, the niftiest features of which are zero percent interest and monthly payments deducted automatically from your paycheck. Seems the Dutch know the dangers of living beyond your means.

Oh, and big-ticket items bought using the credit cared are automatically insured. Welcome to the first world.

After the bank, we headed to the Expat Center, also in the World Trade Center. It's a one-stop shop (which relocation agencies pay to use) for a number of services that would normally be scattered between several government offices, or even cities. So instead of doing these tasks over a full day or two, we just spent about an hour in this very chic office. Chi chi poo poo! as my friend Susie would say.

The receptionist at the Expat center welcomed us with a cute goodie bag...

... that contained, among a pile of flyers for organizations like Republicans Abroad (eew) and the British Society, an issue of Time Out Amsterdam, expat handbooks, city maps, and a prepaid SIM card. I like.

Instead of queuing up with the hoi polloi at the town hall, we simply had to squeeze into a cushy red cubicle to register our arrival into the Netherlands with this very friendly lady. She entered us into The System with data from our documents ("Philippine birth certificates are always so hard to read!") and gave us each a Burgerservicenumber, or BSN, a kind of social security number which we'll need for pretty much everything.

Afterwards, we registered with Immigration and applied for our residence permits. This involved simply walking over to the cubie of a nice man named Marcel and handing him our passports, documents, and passport-size photos with gray backgrounds and no smiles. "Look at that!" he exclaimed, pointing to my Netherlands visa photo. "They're allowed to smile in Asia!"

Within minutes, Marcel welcomed us officially to the Netherlands and handed us the approval letters of our residence permits. Marlon's residence permit is valid for five years, but only for working with Philips; mine needs to be renewed within a year, but covers any kind of job I can get. (Marlon can't even do volunteer work!) Marcel told us to expect an "invitation" within the next two weeks to come and pick up our residence cards, which will be our main IDs, at the Expat Center.

Sure. And I'll just kick back with a pina colada while waiting for that email. Did I mention that this whole procedure was absolutely painless?

Update (forgot this part!): At the Expat Center, we also converted our Philippine driving licenses into Dutch licenses. This was so easy, it was ridiculous. Because of Marlon's "highly skilled knowledge migrant" status, neither of us had to take a driving test! We simply paid 22€ apiece for a form with questions like "Are you able to use both arms and legs?" (like... DUHHH), filled it up, and mailed it. In a few weeks we should be receiving notifications on the next step, which is to send them our Philippine licenses. Within the next two months, we'll be equipped to drive all Europe!

The last official errand was driving into the city to be screened for tuberculosis. Of all the diseases, I don't know why this is the one the Dutch screen for; in Singapore, it's HIV. We ran into a couple of other new hires from Philips, also with their relocation consultants, in the waiting room. The X-ray took all of five minutes.

And that was about all we had to do to dig our migrant claws even deeper into the Netherlands! *Evil laughter*