In Amsterdam!... and living in a crazy apartment

So. Here we are, in Amsterdam, kicking off the New Year and the Dutch production of Dirty Dancing.

The good news is, David and I made it here safely. Although rather hungover from the night before -- clubbing at Cielo with Simon, Shannon, Simone and Mig -- we somehow gathered ourselves together, finished packing and made it to the airport in time (just). We had a nice, pleasant flight, and all our luggage arrived with us.

The bad... or at least not-as-good news is... we are living in a crazy person's apartment. I don't know how else to explain it -- it is one of the oddest apartments we've ever stayed in. Things don't make sense to me in it. The location of the apartment is perfect: center of the city, on one of the main canals. Our living room overlooks the canal, which is a special and prized view to have in Amsterdam. One might say that our apartment is stylishly decorated: colorful antique-ish pieces of furniture, funky modern chandelier over the dining room table, flat screen TV with surround sound, there are many details to the apartment that might make a certain type of urban hipster very happy. Unfortunately, I am no such urban hipster and I find the apartment truly odd. First of all, the ceiling is very low. And I mean, very low. As in, so low that I could get on my toes and touch it. David smacked his hand on the ceiling while stretching yesterday. This can't be normal -- aren't the Dutch generally tall people? The kitchen is also a mess -- obviously designed by someone who wanted to seem like someone who cooks and entertains, but who doesn't, in fact, know how. Case in point: the stove has SIX burners, but underneath them, where there should logically be an oven, there isn't. The oven is on top of a very narrow refrigerator, and it is a toaster oven. Not even a real oven! So in this kitchen, I could have 6 pots going at one time, but only toast a single piece of toast, maybe two. What? The toilet is the size of a closet, and it is on the "first floor"; the bathroom, the bedroom and the spare room that is like a home office are on the "second floor," but really, the second floor is just a narrow set of steps above the "first floor" of our apartment (which is referred to as a "Penthouse"). To go to the toilet at night, we must very carefully tread down the narrow, steep set of steps and squeeze into the closet that is our toilet. If one were obese, one would have no chance of going to the toilet in this apartment. And then the bedroom: the bedroom has a triangular roof, is like an attic room, and has a massive wrought iron lamp that hangs low and center... thus, as David succinctly put, one cannot do anything in the bedroom other than sleep and have sex.

So... What do we do?

I need to move or I am going to go crazy in the apartment. I miss New York and our brilliantly appointed apartment, which makes sense. We are currently trying to get the Dutch producers to show us more apartments... which may or may not be difficult.

Crossing fingers...