Just a couple of months ago, I was in Ghana making last-minute plans to come to the Netherlands for a brief sojourn. Things were so last-minute that I only found accommodation one week before I flew out. I was so grateful to have a place that I did not even know (or care) whom I would be living with. So when the landlady ushered me into my new digs and I met Tenant #1 (a guy) , Tenant #2 (a guy) and heard Tenant #3 was also a guy, I was calm on the outside but in my head I was bouncing off the walls in surprise. Don't get me wrong; I've had plenty of room-mates, housemates and flatmates in the past but they have never been exclusively male. So this was going to be interesting! The second shock was the stairs - the steepest I had ever seen before in my life! I still have visions of me tumbling down the stairs one of these days. Anyway, its been 2 months and I have settled into my Dutch digs. 
I love my room; it has large bay windows and a wonderful street view. The street below is very narrow and the large windows across the way remind me of the film Rear Window. Luckily, curtains and frosted windows are a deterrent against scary voyeuristic tendencies! In fact, Dutch houses tend to have large windows at street level so its quite common to peer in on a family dinner as you walk down the street.
 |
| Playing with the Boys: Dumpling-making and Mooncake-eating as part of Chinese Mid-Autumn festival |
Have I learned anything from living with guys? *Yes* guys are a-okay as housemates! At first the toilet seat remaining up used to drive me crazy but last week something occurred to me. If you live in a house where the vast majority of the tenants prefer toilet seats up then am I not the weirdo for wanting the seat down?
The narrow street of cobbled stone below as seen from my window. I sometimes wonder how people manage to park on this street.
0 comments:
Post a Comment