Life Above The Porn Store

We've finally moved into our semi-permanent digs here in Eindhoven, a very nice house in a subdivision north of town.  Before we post any pictures of our new place, I thought you, dear reader, might want to see where we made our home for the first month in the Netherlands.

Our first, first house---which we dubbed the "crack den" was scary bad.  Non working toilets, lights exploding out of sockets and copious amounts of mold and mildew.  We didn't even spend a night there because it was so uninhabitable.  Two days later we moved into a sweet little apartment above a porn store.  I like to say it was the cleanest place in town, but it too had some little quirks.

Here it is, home sweet home.  

This view was far more tame than the one at the back door where we had a full-on frontal nude poster!

This is the view out of our front window.  The red path is the bike lane.  The nice thing about bike paths in the Netherlands is that they are a different color which helps us remember where to ride, and where to watch out for bikers.

For those of you who haven't been to the Netherlands, these dutch stairs--going down in our place--are as ubiquitous as gouda and tulips.  Teeny tiny narrow stairs, that have a steep pitch.  They would probably be illegal in the US, given our building codes, and for good reason.  These are not very safe, especially for the elderly and clumsy. 

Here are the same stairs going up, which is a much safer trip than coming down.

One thing that I've become resigned to in the Netherlands--which is probably common in most of Europe--is that a second bathroom is a rarity.  In all the places we looked, only one had two bathrooms.  But a second toilet is common.  Ours was right NEXT to the kitchen.  This bathroom was about the size of one in an airplane.  I'm not sure how these super tall people survive with such tiny spaces.  See the sink, it only has hot water.  Toilets rarely have hot water plumbed into the sinks.

This is the weirdest thing about our apartment.  See the pole.  That attaches to a hook in the attic door.

Pull on it and down comes a ladder.

Where does this ladder go? You may ask.

Why to the dryer--of course!  That wacky Dutch design.  The washer was in the bathroom.  

So there it is, our first place in Eindhoven.  Quirky, but comfortable for the month we stayed.  I'll post some pictures of our newest digs soon--I promise.