We Got One!

An apartment that is. It’s on the Valeriusstraat which is a continuation of Frederick Hendricklaan (The Fred) which is my favourite shopping street. You have to cross a canal bridge between the Fred and our street. It’s only one bedroom but completely renovated so everything is nice and new. It’s near a nice and busy looking Indonesian restaurant which we are yet to try.

I am so relieved that we have an apartment. I have spent the week searching furiously and ferociously. I don’t warm to real estate agents or Makelaars as they are known here. In The Hague there are two types of Makelaar: The “proper” ones and the “cowboys”.

The proper ones have undergone proper real estate training and are registered with the NVM (the Dutch Association of Real Estate Brokers) . They are formal, frosty and standoffish, tend not to return phone calls or emails and cancel appointments. I don’t know how they make money because of the 8 or so of these makelaars who I tried to contact, only one property inspection happened.

The cowboys are actually cowgirls because they were all women, in their 50’s heavily made up, Kerry Anne Kennelly look alikes and completely scary close-up (I’ve never met KAK so I don’t know if she is scary close up). This group of makelaars sprung up in more recent years to take advantage of all the desperate and gullible expats who need an apartment in a hurry. They are flashy and pushy and trap you in their little cars, driving you around The Hague showing you 13 properties that you have no interest in, in order to baffle you and wear you down. It worked. We move in tomorrow.

I think “Michael”, the hotelier will miss us. After his outburst over breakfast the other morning, he has not been able to stop himself the last few mornings he has taken his place hanging in front of the fire place arms waving in excitement, spewing forth on his favourite topics – real estate and the builders next door. We are unable to get a word in but I know he appreciates our listening because he gave us an Easter discount on the hotel room even though we are still the only ones here. He claims there is another women staying here but we have only seen her once, a few days ago, so we are a bit sus on that.

Sean’s job seems a bit of a holiday as far as I can see. Day One his only task was setting up his mobile phone. He’s mentioned he had a couple of meetings but they sound like coffee breaks. His office overlooks the beach. I’m not sure when the real work starts.

The other admin duties we have had this week include opening a bank account and getting public liability insurance – apparently this is compulsory in case you knock over an old lady on the street or break a teapot in a shop, or accidently punch out one of the makelaars.

I also had my photo taken for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Identifcation Card. I was told that eyebrows and BOTH ears must be visible in the photo. Some Dutch people must only have one ear - remember that Van Gogh dude!

Now that we have an apartment, we can buy some clunky Dutch bikes to ride around the place.