After the delay with the internet apartment scam, we only had about three weeks to find a place in Holland.
So we emailed about 30 real estate agents, mostly in Utrecht and Amersfoort, because we wanted a place in the middle of Holland. Then Bernt started calling real estate agents, and ended up talking to Frieda, a lady in Amsterdam whose advertised apartment was not available anymore: the owner couldn't afford the mortgage repayments (it's hitting Holland also). However she suggested another place - a 17th century cottage in Velsen Zuid, bordering the North Sea Canal between Amsterdam and the North Sea. This sounded perfect, although its location isn't quite in the centre of Holland. When Frieda heard we were from Australia she really started talking: she owns a plane which is stored in Albury, Victoria. A few weeks later I was talking with Cecile, one of our Dutch friends in Melbourne, and it turns out she knows Frieda!
After Gerben had checked out the house, we decided to take it - our house was organised!
After spending a few hours at Gerben and Tanja’s place, we went to our temporary home in Velsen Zuid, about a 30 minute drive. The house was perfect for our stay in Europe. It’s in ‘Old Velsen’ - a pocket of Velsen that was separated from the rest of Velsen when the North Sea canal was dug. There are about 30 houses there, all from the 17th century and heritage listed. Our landlord was Jan – a lovely man in his late 70s, and we took an instant liking to each other.
Jan’s a limousine driver and used to live in Venice Beach in California for years - I often went to the beach in Venice when I lived in California. Jan also has a house in Amsterdam and divides his time between there and ‘our house’, which was split in two separate residences. Our house wasn’t always right on the canal: the canal was widened several times over the centuries to allow for ever bigger ships, and after the last widening in the 1960s Jan’s house ended up being waterfront property. One way to increase the value of your home… just gotta hope that they won’t widen the canal again…
Having the canal as our backyard proved enormously entertaining for us and the kids. We were so close to the canal that when a big ship passed it would get dark in our house! The most amazing ships would go past – lots of cargo ships with tugboats, huge cruise ships, dredgers that went back and forth from their dredging to the North Sea to dump the dredged materials, floating cranes, and even a ship carrying a complete A380 (the largest passenger airplane in the world).
The house itself was pretty small and basic, but absolutely fine for what we needed, and we settled in quickly.
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