Expat Life: A History of a Dutch Window (II)

A couple of days after I published this photo about the living room's window and its new decorations with curtains, flowers and candles,...

From Coisas Minhas

....we received a letter saying that a Hostel for hard drug addicts and long term psychological patients would open nearby our house.
The future Hostel building was located just in front of our bedroom's window. As you see below, also a big one. And we were living in the first floor.

From Coisas Minhas

A hostel, in my opinion, is a good solution for this kind of situation. The drug addicts are followed by doctors and have better living conditions:a daily shower, food and bed. They don't sleep in the streets or steal food in the supermarkets. But for me, it's difficult to watch hard drugg addicts everyday. I have lost some childhood friends with these kind of problems and I prefer not to be reminded of it. So, we decided to search for a new house. However, I felt such a frustation by then because I had so much work, cleaning and painting the house and replacing the old appliances.

As you may remember, we had just one month (November 2007) to look for a house, sign a rent contract, come back to Lisbon and bring back our furniture, books, etc, to the Netherlands.

Our main priority was to find a house in Almere where the prices were [and still are] more affordable. The city's centrum was our target because we were not familiar with Almere. So, this house was perfect, with a view to the canal, nearby the restaurants, the stores, the City Council, the theater, the cinema, the library, the lake and the park. The perfect place to begin the discovery of the city... and the Netherlands. :-)

Our landlord, who lived in Groningen, had paid for the paint cans and the new appliances (the fridge, the washing machine and the glass-ceramic cooking plate) but we had all the work, specially me. We never thought that a hostel like this could open here, in such a central place. Just when I finished the works and we were preparing ourselves to enjoy more the house...

After a couple of days, a committee was organized by the owners of the apartments. They are still fighting against the hostel location.

Now, you know why we decided to look for a new house in March 2009...:-)

It was related with the great exposure of our bedroom's window.

However, I also have a funny memory of it... when I got scared with the knocking noise of the window's cleaners. I thought I would clean the windows just as I used to do in Lisbon...;-)) I wasn't expecting them...:-)

Expat Life: The story of a Dutch Window (I)

A photo of the living room's window of the house where we lived before we came to Tussen de Vaarten...
As you can see, Dutch windows are big...;-) This one has 6m2...true..

From Coisas Minhas

When I was organizing all the boxes for the removals, I received a letter from my landlord saying all the windows in the street would be replaced and my presence at home would be requested a couple of times. So, I was there when they put this wooden cover to protect the house from the cold and the rain.
A couple weeks later, all the houses in the street were protected from the bad Winter weather and they began to remove the old windows. The noise was terrible! I couldn't study. A couple of days later, at 7.30 am, they arrived to put the new window. I was very tired by then with all the preparations for the removals. I gave them coffee, barley coffee. It 's what I drink in the morning.
By the end of this day, the window was replaced and I finished the last boxes.