Living large!

Yes, Comrade is going for the good life! Well, not really luxurious decadency, but a little step closer. He now lives in an old ex-monastry, in a small room with a bathroom attached. He shared this with a roommate, who, although being very cute, also takes up some of the allready scarce room.

Recently, I've recieved a little ray of luck. We've been trying to get an appartement in a certain building for a while now. We didn't try to hard, because this 'cramped small room' we're in now actually is pretty fine, but we were dissappointed never the less when we came in 2nd last week. See, the system is as following: Every week the free rooms and appartements appear on the website, and members of sshn.nl can 'place a voucher' through the site. Everyone can place two vouchers per week. At the end of each week, they calculate how long you've been a member and then give the room to the member who has placed a voucher ánd has had the longest waiting time. For two or three times in a row we came in 2nd, the last of those times actually being a little less of a room then hoped for.


The day after we heard we were second, new rooms were posted on the site. One of them, our dream appartement.


Comrade's got lucky. We came in first, and took it. One problem was rent. We were supposed to get government support on the rent, making the appartment even cheaper then the one room we're in now. However, this is a strange system as well. The gov. support is related to rent. At our age, there is a maximum amount of support you can receive. If, according to rent, you would receive more support then the maximum, you don't just get the maximum allowed, you get none at all.






I can understand that they do not want people renting luxurious appartements and then having way to much support. However, they do not take in account that there's two of us living there. By any logic, the rent should be devided between the two of us, enabeling both of us to get around half of maximum support. However, because they do not take this in account, our dream appartement suddently became a lot more expensive, but luckily we can share the rent, and we're still a little below average rent in this town.

So the question remains? What about this heavenly palace of luxury you call the 'dream appartment'?

Well, it's two-and-a-half room appartement just out of town, surrounded by forest. It's five minutes by bike to her school and about fifteen to mine. It's up on a hill (whatever that may mean, in Dutch terms.) It used to be a monastry, but unlike where we live now, you can't really tell. You enter in the first room, which is the living room. Behind it is a small passageway with a cabinet and cookingstation which passes as 'kitchen'. In this passageway there's a door to the bathroom and the bedroom.

Above a part of the bedroom and the kitchen/bathroom, there's an 'entresol'. I think that means 'between two floors', which sounds quite acurate. It's a sort of second floor, but it is completely open to the living room. Somewhere in this post there should be a map. Or, on second thought, let's provide you with a picture of the monastry back in the fourties!








Anyway, how to turn this into a dream appartement?

Well, I've got a few promises I made myself (didn't tell my roommate yet, in case I can't keep them...) to ensure that the appartement is going to be perfect.

1. Clean up more regularly. Though simple sounding, this is going to be the hardest of all for me.
2. Make room for study, and hobby. It relates to the first. Have good place to do this things, not just the little place you've got when you cleared the pile of rubble a little bit.
3. Discover the forest! We're quite close to nature here, and we're even closer there. We've allways known there were beautiful forests around this city, but we've never taken the time to explore them. I want to explore the area properly, especially the forest surrounding the building
4. Grow something. Something green. Weather herbs, vegetables, flowers or magic mushrooms for all I care. I want to plant something and make it grow. Preferably both in a pot in the court, ánd free in the forest.
5. Live green, all over. Hopefully, the thing we plant will be something we can use, so that we don't have to buy that particular item.
6. Have cats! This one is almost free, since we're going to get two cats from my father. His cat got preggers two times this year, so now he's got five swarming the place. The youngest two will move with us to that place. I want to make them feel at home and watch them grow up.

I think if I manage to manage both my own life, that of a (or multiple) plants, and those of our cats, I've grown up quite a bit, not?