Mind the Gap

"MIND THE "GAP" on the floor between white and yellow stripes, with a train passing by in the background.

If you’re still following this blog (all two of you), you may have noticed that we haven’t posted lately. Actually that’s an understatement — the previous post was in April of 2024, which makes it more than two years ago. Before we moved from Seattle to The Hague.

We missed quite a few trips in there. Naomi and M finished their trip to the Netherlands — we last left them checking into the Golden Tulip in Leiden. Then in July of 2024 Naomi, her son J, and I went back to Leiden to get J settled in his new apartment before the term started at Leiden University.

By that time we had already decided to flee the country, as I mentioned in Who knows where the time goes?, so after a night in the Golden Tulip N and I relocated to Cove Centrum, in Den Haag’s city center, and in between trips back to Leiden to help J put flat-pack furniture together, we did some exploring (which included the Rotterdam Zoo) and house-hunting.

A large, somewhat grumpy lizard facing left, head slightly turned toward the camera. — Komodo dragon at the Rotterdam zoo – photo by Steve

Five toroises, three are walking to the left while one is facing left trying to decide whether it wants to join the parade. — Tortoises on parade at the Rotterdam Zoo – photo by Steve

I could probably make a bigger postcard post about the zoo — but not today.

We didn’t really expect to find something right away, but we got lucky. The first house we looked at, in Den Haag, was nearly perfect, with a huge bathtub, toilets on all three floors, and a very modern kitchen. And a small canal running past the back deck. It was a bit far out, though.

Red tulips in front of a fence. Water can be seen through the lattice. The hedge beyond that is on the far bank. — Red tulips, our back fence and the canal.

A a small black mini-car in front of a three-story row house faced with grey bricks. — Scarlett-the-Carlett in front of our house. They are both small, but we love them.

The second was in a perfect location, with somewhat wider canal in back and a small strip mall just two blocks away, and unlike the first you could actually get down to the waterside. It was also clear that we would have to do a lot of work on it. There were a few more, but they weren’t nearly as good. We told our realtor to make an offer on the first place. And here we are.

Aside: buying a house in the Netherlands is completely different from the way it works in the US. For one thing, you pay your realtor a flat fee up front, not a commission. For another, the actual purchase paperwork is done by a notary rather than a title company or lawyer the way it is in the US.

We spent the summer packing. Naomi and I flew out at the end of September, after getting our boxes picked up by Gentle Giant movers, and leaving M and G to organize junk hauling and getting our cats picked up mid-month by Starwood Pet Travel. We checked into the Cove again, and set about ordering furniture, kitchen gear, and cat supplies. We moved in on October 10th.

A black cat sitting on top of his carrier and looking at the camera — Bronx – waiting for his flight

A tuxedo cat looking at the camera. Perhaps he wants a treat. — Brooklyn, waiting for his flight

A small tuxedo cat behind a red food bowl — Cricket waiting for her flight

A tortoise-shell cat with a very winsome face looking at the camera — Ticia waiting for her flight

The cats’ travel was delayed by their paperwork missing their flight. (They needed a vet appointment no more than three days before their flight, and the paperwork had to go from the vet to the USDA and from there to Starwood.) Starwood put them up for a week, got them new vet appointments, got the paperwork back in time this time, and sent them off. They arrived on the first of November, just two days after M and G. Whew!

We also made the trip to the municipality office to apply for our temporary residence cards. They were good for two years. We are taking advantage of the Dutch–American Friendship Treaty – Wikipedia, which enables American citizens to immigrate to the Netherlands provided they start a business there, or bring one with them. I had a little multimedia publishing business called HyperSpace Express. We redefined it as a partnership, intending to record a couple of CDs.

…

That was almost two years ago.

…

The main reason there haven’t been any posts here since then is that Naomi fell down a rabbit hole and wrote a novel, The World As it Ought to Be, which was published near the end of last year. She is almost done with her second, Paleomythic, which is due out next spring or summer. There’s more to be said, but not here — you’ll find it in her blog, over on Naomi-Rivkis.com.

Meanwhile the other part of the business, recording some CDs, got off to a slow start and then crashed headlong into various people’s schedules and my arthritis. Hard to play guitar when your fingers won’t cooperate. (It’s actually more complicated, but that will cover a lot of it.) But what we did get done was enough — we heard yesterday that our residence permits have been renewed for another five years! After that we can make them permanent or apply for citizenship.

We’ve all done a fair amount of traveling since the move; mostly to filk music conventions, visits “home” to the US, and in Naomi’s case some medical tourism… Until last month, which will be the subject of the next post.

A woman with blue and red hair looking smugly at the camera. Chance is sitting on the radiator to her right. — Naomi and Chance (and J’s feet on the left) — just after moving in.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply