Nade On The Move

After our first tour through some of Europe's most beautiful counties, we were left with a lasting impression of the wonderful country, Slovenia. 

I had never been to Slovenia before and quite frankly, I must admit, that I…

I have always been a bit of a free spirit. Ask anyone that knows me and they will probably say that I don’t stick around in one place too long. I can live somewhere for a while and I'll start getting…

We started off originally with a mini trip, you read about that in Our First Trip As Digital Nomads . For our first trip, we didn’t venture far and we most definitely played it safe visiting…

There are many places to visit in Campania and I must admit that I haven’t got round to visiting all of it yet, I am only one person. But, as I only write from experience, I will give you 6…

Everyone knows the feeling when their holiday is just around the corner (vacation for you lovely americanos). We have all had those weeks where we have to go out and buy a new bikini, a fancy new…

I know I go on about it all the time, but the majority of these bloggers out there that have all those fancy photos, thousands of followers and videos of them looking pretty, whilst they tell you that you can…

Minimalism seems quite easy, right? Chuck all that crap out that you don’t use and be happy in the presence of the things you need. That feeling which you get every time you ‘Spring clean’ your house. You walk around…

Ok, you can probably see by the title, it deserves quite a few names or I may have been busted in not actually knowing what to name it. But, all you need to know is that it is actually possible…

Wanting To Find Real Freedom

Looking back over my working years, I have really wanted to find real freedom ever since I remember. I have never thought it was right that someone else decides what I do with my…

Amsterdam is already famous enough for you to just type quickly in Google before you fly ‘Things to do in Amsterdam’ and there will be thousands of articles and blogs telling you the top 5 things to see or 10…

So, during my first year in Amsterdam, I didn’t see much of the city. I wasn’t social and I definitely let how my job made me feel effect my home life. Leaving work and forgetting about it to go and…

The Amsterdam City Swim really was an experience of a lifetime and seeing Amsterdam from the water, at that angle, was to see Amsterdam in a different light. Walking or biking around the city you will see the beautiful architecture close up and maybe get an eye full of some naked Dutch people occasionally because for some reason they don’t use curtains, rarely close their blinds and, to be honest, they really don’t care if anyone is looking in. 

When we found our first semi-permanent apartment to tide us over whilst we found something just right because the housing market in Amsterdam is insane (I’ll get into that at a later date.) We moved on to a street called Ferdinand Bolstraat in the very sought after location of De Pijp. For reasons beyond me, everyone wants to live there. Those three months were enough for me! 

It was my first experience of the Dutch not using curtains and seeing it all. A lot of the buildings in the city, if not looking on to a canal, look on to the opposite building, with windows which look like Polaroid picture frames, that frame the lives of those which live there. It can be quite interesting to watch and I do love a good people watching session. There was a lady who opened her window fully every morning, on the 3rd floor, swung her legs out over the edge, crossed them and smoked a cigarette as she watched people pass by. 

Usually, I would see a couple cooking whilst their child was throwing a ball or something small and green at them. See, what did I tell you, pure entertainment this! The girl who we were living with said she had seen a woman on the top floor bring a fair few men home and showed them a good time. I cannot report to you on that, I wasn’t a witness, thankfully. 

However, after a few weeks of living on this street and looking out and only seeing walls, I began to start to feel a little claustrophobic.  Where I come from, if you look out the window, you see rolling hills and it just feels easier to breath when you look out the window and you can see for miles. 

I knew from this feeling that we had to overlook the canals or something, I couldn’t live there feeling trapped. Living in De Pijp isn’t for everyone, it is only that everyone thinks that they want to live there. It is in an awesome location. I would say it would take you about 15 minutes to walk up into the centre but if you want to go to the station I recommend jumping on a tram or, by this point, if you have a bike, go everywhere on that. 

What made things worse for me was that it was always full of tourists! (I know, why am I complaining when I should know tourists would be in the centre of Amsterdam) but, when you are aiming to become a local and settling down into the life of a local, hearing people shouting and singing at 5 am even on weekdays just isn’t for me. Thank god our bedroom was on the back! Phew! I have even gotten up to go to work and those partying from the night before are wandering aimlessly on “Drunken GSP mode that always gets you home”