Where we live
We are about to finish two years in Amsterdam so the posts in the coming days will be looking back at our time here. Just this afternoon I was discussing with the wife how she found the apartment where we currently are. I was too busy figuring out work to play an effective role in house hunting, so I had left the decision in her able hands. Besides, I had picked our apartment in Bangalore during my bachelor days and we had simply stayed on there after marriage and it was only fair that this time I would get to live in a place of her choice.
I knew that we weren’t all that keen on living in one of those 100+ year old houses in the inner canal ring of the city because of their steep staircases, the horror stories of mice and the high costs of keeping them warm. The wife was looking for something clean, modern and new. She came here right after having viewed a really crappy place, and this apartment; with its modern construction, sunlight streaming through its huge wall-to-floor windows and the view of the river IJ, was not only the perfect foil, it also checked all boxes. She made a video of the house, caught me at lunch and got me to see the place that very evening.
The apartments in this area are quite new and are devoid of any sentimentality about being in the same city as the centuries old gabled canal houses. They are quintessentially 21st century in their design (with straight lines and boxy shapes) and choice of construction material (glass, concrete, steel dominate). The wife finds some of these buildings ugly but they are practical and more comfortable (elevators, double glazed, sound-proof windows and all that jazz) than their less modern counterparts which makes it very easy for her to gloss over their cookie-cutter looks. I am much less apologetic about their looks:
