Life on Lijnbaansgracht

Most of you know that I spent 4 years living on the Lijnbaansgracht (pronounced Line-baans-gratt, or something like that anyway). It was a sweet little apartment formed in the shape of a little square doughnut. Every room had these huge windows; and the front room/kitchen and bedroom overlooked the houseboats parked on the canal (gracht). I used to spend hours reading and looking out the window in the chair pictured here:



The view was beautiful, especially in the summer when the windows, which you can see go almost floor to ceiling, were open as far as they would go (they were heavy bastards). Little metal pegs in the window sills kept them open. Swans were frequent visitors to my part of the canal and you could often smell the brownies (not the magic kind), muffins and cookies baking down the street at Gary's Muffins.



Sometimes the evening the light would turn a funny shade of blue-- especially in the summer when the sun didn't go down until nearly midnight. I never understood this phenomenon but tried to photograph it once, seen below.



In a fit of manic energy, in the wake of my breakup with M., I decided to paint my bedroom a happy yellow color. I thought it would improve my juju. As you can see, it didn't turn out so great. It was a little too lemon, and too little butter in color. But it was bright and it made me happy.



My kitchen, more like cooking corner, was pretty small. Check out the refrigerator under the counter by the window. That was it. Nothing larger. At first this really offended my big honking huge american refrigerator complete with ice-maker and water spigot sensibilities, but I got used to only being able to chill 15 items at one time... eventually. That reminds me, do you know you cannot buy ice anywhere in Amsterdam? If you throw a party you have to ask all your friends to BYOI.



Here is a shot of the living room. The apartment was 100% carpeted in this horribly ugly thin brown wall to wall carpet. It was hideous! I tried to hide it as much as possible with throw rugs and furniture. The basket on the floor used to hook to my bike... ideal for carting 15 items from the grocery store home to put in the micr0-fridge.



It was a sad day when I had to move back home and watch them remove all my worldly belongings from the apartment via the windows.



Even though I do love my apartment in Boston, nothing will ever compare to the gezellig little place I had for four years on the Lijnbaansgracht. Awww, yeah. It was great.