It was Me—Again

            I’ma runnin’ down the road,

            Tryin’ to loosen my load…

During my last tour of duty at the International School of Amsterdam I lived in Amstelveen (pronounced like “weather vane”), a sprawling, residential section of Holland south of Amsterdam. Whereas the city of Amsterdam is old, replete with classic Dutch architecture with buildings older than the United States, Amstelveen is not. It’s not new, but it definitely is not old (by Dutch standards). All new employees at ISA are offered temporary housing at a local hotel that bills itself as “serviced apartments”. For me, by myself, it was darn near perfect; or should I say “comprehensive”? It has everything if not anything from Turkish steam baths to locked bike storage to a self-serve laundromat. Sweet huh? It was; but…as we say back home…”been there, done that!”

Amstel 155 (red roof)

Soon after I tricked Gwaz into joining me for ISA Redux, the decision was made to live in Amsterdam—old Amsterdam (which is about as redundant as saying “cold ice”). After an abbreviated association with a rental agent whom I knew from last year, I began searching on-line. (Try it. Seriously. In your free time between two and four a.m. Google words like “apartments Amsterdam” or “canal houses for rent in Amsterdam”. Any combination will work.) Before too long, I found one.

No, no, I didn’t find “one,” I found hundreds and hundreds. I should say that I found “the one.” I know me, and for those of you who know me, you know and I know what happened next…I obsessed. I wanted it. I found it, and I wasn’t about to let it go easily. Sound weird? Sound like it should be fairly straight-forward? Find an apartment, contact the agent, agree to terms, put down a deposit, sign the paperwork. Done…no worries; right? 

Yeah, you would think that.

The view from Amstel 155

From the second I saw photos of this place I knew it would be in high demand—the location, the view, the size, the price…pick one. (Like I said…obsessed.) Here’s how it went: I first laid eyes on Amstel 155-II the first week of December. I contacted the agent who was offering the apartment (not my acquaintance; different agency). A tour was scheduled—not by us, of course (we were still in America). Our friends, Eveline and Jim agreed to see it for us and share their impressions. They saw the on-line advertisement, and agreed it looked like a place worth seeing. An appointment was made, and they met the agent and were shown an apartment right on the Amstel River—ground floor, no walk-up (more on Dutch stairwells later)…perfect! Uh…check that…one little problem…uhhh…it was not the apartment I saw on line.

This should have been my first clue.

Allow me to digress. There is an ease to Dutch culture. They even have a word for it—gezellig. It took the Eagles an entire song to say the same thing:

            It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford

            Slowing’ down to take a look at me…

The Dutch loooovvvve to take it e-e-e-easy. Hey, no worries. (Use your best Dutch accent.) This is the wrong apartment? No problem; yes? Maybe you would like this one instead? Uh?

Our neighborhood

Uhhh…nah. Did I mention I’m American? Uhhh, yeah…no. The right one please.

Room with a view!

I’ll digress even further. There was a darn good reason for my obsession (let’s call it an "overarching sense of urgency" on my part.) Yes, I did not want to lose the apartment to someone local who could do the necessary paperwork and transfer deposit money easily, but there was an added consideration for us. I know I can’t describe this adequately, but I'll try. To secure any apartment a deposit would be made in the form of a bank transfer. Because we were so far away, the business manager at the International School of Amsterdam would do that for us. Still sounds simple right? It was; or, at least, would have been but for one small thing—the business office planned to close for Christmas Holiday at 1:00 p.m. local time on 15 December.

Let me summarize. I found the apartment in early December with plenty of time for the business office to transfer money. The agency showed the “wrong” apartment causing a 10-day delay until the “right” apartment could be toured. By that time Jim and Ev were in the Canary Islands challenging the world’s record for consumption of Mai Tais in a single day.

No kidding, long before the 14^th I saw the handwriting on the wall. I mention the 14^th because that’s when we received video of the “right” apartment. (By 9 January, I had requested the apartment sight-unseen, which was not permitted. The video was nothing more than shaky film of the same angles captured by the still photos available on-line.) Do I sound unappreciative? Hang on…

I emailed immediately confirming our desire for the apartment and repeating once again the deadline for the transfer of money was fast approaching. I can remember the response as if I’m reading it now: there should be plenty of time to submit the invoice. (I felt like saying, “Hey Jack, the people in the business office are as Dutch as you are, and if you think they are worried whether or not they get the invoice before Sinterklaas leaves chocolate treats in their wooden shoes, you’re kidding yourself!”)

The deadline came and went faster than Kasey Kahne at the Daytona 500. That’s when it all slowed down for me. You can’t lose what you never had. I realized I was the object of a massive Dutch conspiracy to make me less anal-retentive. It worked. The intervention was a success. Not only was no invoice sent to the ISA business office before the deadline, neither was an email sent to me explaining why.

That’s when I got it.

            Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy…

I gave up. I remember telling Gwaz, “We’ll find a place when we get there.” Although Amstel 155 seemed perfect (which, in reality, it is not, but more on that later), it was gone; or so I thought.

I wrote and revised several times an email to the agent expressing regret that the timing “didn’t work out.” (That was code, of course, for my internal craziness that something that could have happened easily was frustratingly delayed by a mind-set that I do not share and frankly don’t appreciate.) I figured “why burn the bridges I might need to cross?” I thanked her for her “hard work” (more code) and asked her to keep me informed if similar apartments came available. (See, I can be nice when I want to.)

When the email did arrive, it assured me that all was well. The (German) landlords (Ben and Jacqueline—both very nice people) were content to wait until we arrived in January to finalize the arrangements and transfer money.

            Lighten up, while you still can

            Don’t even try to understand

See, it was me—again.