From Antwerp to Gent...

Hello Antwerpen!

A brief spell of hot and humid turned into rain in a matter of days. Like a day of sunshine in Seattle people in Antwerp took to the streets in those two days; wearing the clothes intended for the summer that never came in 2011. Katie and I roamed Antwerp on foot and on bike. Rain or shine we visited the medieval city center almost daily as we wined, beered, and dined at infrequent hours. Early for lunch, late for dinner, late for lunch, early for dinner, we couldn't seem to get our timing right. This was partly due to jet lag, but mostly to getting reacquainted with sleeping in.

Lost in the moment of new found European freedom, we enjoyed the company of our friend Laurens who's passion for Belgium may be second only to his passion for cooking. Welcoming us into Belgium with open arms on our second night, he prepared a Moroccan lamb stew on preceded with champagne. At dinner we enjoyed great conversation over a few bottles of delicious Bordeaux and Ponzio Family Grappa. We talked about his recent home purchase and his five year plan for a complete renovation of an early 1900s home and how he would like to utilize Katie's interior design services. After a hearty dinner, two bottles of wine, and the grappa we took to the streets for a night of debauchery. Too many beers and bars to count we found ourself at "home" around three in the morning and rode our momentum until four belligerently dialing family.

In our first few days in Belgium we learned a new verb, Velo. Whether grabbing a meal, going for beers, or apartment hunting, Antwerp has a system of ready to use bikes scattered all over town. Never having to walk more than 1-2 blocks, we swipe a card at a Velo Station which automatically unlocks a bike to ride for 30 minutes and deposit at a location near to where we want to end up. As Katie and I mastered the art of learning the rules of the road influenced by the grace of a few 10% beers, we continued the search for what would be our home for the next three months.

Let the Hunt Begin...

The apartment hunt was starting to concern us. Most leases were three year and furnished flats, used to corporate rentals, were charging astronomical amounts. We approached our home hunt using three different tactics: (1) Find a furnished flat to rent month to month, (2) Find an unfurnished flat and use one of a few companies that rent furniture, and (3) Rent an unfurnished apartment and buy the things we needed to fill it. The reality was none of these were good options... (1) on average was leaps and bounds out of our price range, (2) after bartering down the price, the furniture rentals still wanted 800 EURO per month for the most economical furniture selections, and (3) Landlord's do not typically rent out an unfurnished place for anything less that one year.

Real estate offices here (rental or purchase) always have the word "IMMO" in the title. Not only did we stop at each Super Immo, ImmoMaster, or ListenToImmo that we came across, but we also used the cornerstone tool of the Belgian housing market, www.immoweb.be daily. Despite our best efforts we were continually came up with nothing. After our fourth or fifth day of aggressive searching, we took a day off. We set out by train to explore more of Belgium and first chose the town of Gent (just 40 minutes away by train) to do a little sightseeing.

(As an aside... In Belgium, Gent is spelt Gent but some of you may observe it as Ghent. We are aware of both spellings, but people here spell it without an "H")

Gent captivated Katie and I. Once the textile and medieval headquarters of Europe, this sleepy little picturesque town was mesmerizing. We accidentally arrived on a day when the museums were closed, but spent a while walking around town. Before walking into a single Cathedral, Katie looked at me somewhat starry-eyed and I knew what she was thinking. I asked her, "what do you think about seeing if we can live here?" Politely, she referenced Antwerp and that it was our intention to live there, but Gent was love at first sight for us both. After all, Gent was more in line with what we were looking for with our three month adventure. It was somewhat sleepy, very historical, had a strong sense of culture, it is a university town, and even closer than Antwerp to the French border.

It is being flexible that makes a good adventure a great one. Katie and I agreed to keep our options open and simultaneously search in Gent and Antwerp. From the moment that we had the revelation that we preferred Gent, we instantly stopped meandering around town and put our house hunter "IMMO Madness" hats back on. We searched all day visiting countless IMMOs and had just one option; a furnished "luxury" studio with a common kitchen for more than it should have been. Rather than swinging at the first pitch, we decided to retreat back to Antwerp. I had some work to do and conference calls to take. We decided we would come back to Gent in two days armed with appointments and leads via IMMOweb.

A Paradigm Shift!

Gent got its name from the French word for glove. In medieval times it was said that Paris was small enough to fit into Gent's glove. These days Gent is a somewhat sleepy college and touristy town with beautiful canals and medieval architecture throughout the city. Katie and I took the ten minute walk from the Dampoort train station just as we had done on our first day. As we did on our first visit, we stopped to marvel at the window displays of countless boutiques full of textiles, wallpaper, expensive (non-Ikea) Scandinavian furniture, and bakeries. We loved Gent and our desire grew to fanaticism in the 48 hours since our first visit.

Despite hours on IMMOweb, countless phone calls to landlords, and emailing several people on AirBnB for a long term rental, we had just one appointment. We had only been able to look at one other apartment up to this point; it was a slum and located in Antwerp. Tensions were high for Katie and I, not only because of having very few options, but it was Wednesday and we were to check out of our accommodation on Friday. This meant that we either needed to find a place or book a costly hotel for the unforeseeable future.

It wasn't just the lack of options and the ticking clock on our current accommodation that made us nervous. These were all secondary to the fact that this apartment looked perfect. It was a large two bedroom apartment in the heart of the old town. Situated along a picturesque canal with views of a 16th century medieval castle from the living room, this apartment was literally where we dreamed of living before even setting foot on the plane at SFO. The only thing that stood between us and our dream apartment was the impressions we would make on the landlord who lived in the same building.

We noticed there were just six units in the building as we arrived at the apartment's entrance. Our hearts were racing. Katie and I took turns giving each other the same words of encouragement as you would before going into a job interview, we hummed a few verses of Eye on The Tiger, and pressed the buzzer.