The House Boat

This week at school was difficult just because I was nursing a cold. I am getting used to juggling all the changes and two totally different systems. I have an incredibly challenging schedule compared to most of my colleagues, but I still seem to work less than many of them. I guess I have become quite efficient.

At the new school, I am part of a group that is steering the implementation of MacBook Air's that are coming in the fall. Each new student is required to buy one. There is a lot that needs to be prepared before we, as a school, are ready to use them. It is fun thinking through the problems and solutions. Also nice to have the experience at PRO to draw on.

The weather has changed for the better, and as such, our little patch of grass in the back yard needed some trimming. Last year, our trimmer broke, so we looked online for a new one. We found a few options and finally got a reply from one seller. Yesterday we biked over to pick it up and arrived at some industrial complex - no residential places to be seen anywhere. So Naomi called him up and the guy explained that he lived on a house boat.

We walked toward the water and he showed us the trimmer which was just what we were looking for. We talked a bit about how it was to live on a boat (his looked not like a boat but like a floating house) and he mentioned that he liked it but he didn't like the lack of control over where his house was 'moored' or the surrounding developments. He gave us a quick look inside his place and it was really amazing. High ceilings, wood floors, huge windows looking out over a little harbor, decks stretching over the water, and even a basement. We would have loved to live there. The housing in general here turns me off - super expensive, very small, connected in rows, and under water - so this would be a perfect solution!

When I got home I checked to see what the options were and realized, without much surprise, that the options were incredibly expensive. For what is basically a floating mobile home, equivalent in size and quality to what you would find in a dated, Stateside trailer park begging for a tornado, you pay around 150,000 Euros. Who buys this?? I did find a really nice one around the corner from our current house for close to 300k, but that was a bit out of our league. The one I got really excited about is shown in the link, but Naomi was less than thrilled. I don't know why it is so inexpensive, but she is right there is probably a good reason...

http://www.woonbotenmakelaar.nl/koop/gouda/amandi-0.html