A little heavy lifting.

If you looked CLOSELY at the pictures of Amsterdam posted in my last rant you might have noticed something interesting about the architecture (ok….so maybe not but don’t worry I will give you the inside scoop).  Since Amsterdam is a city of canals, quality real-estate is hard to come by.  That being said, the lots that line the famous water ways were once equally divided into small rectangular units so that as many families as possible would be able to enjoy water front property.  Sounds fair right?  However this leaves one small problem, the only way to expand your home as your family grew was to go up.  Today this leaves the streets lined with very tall VERY skinny homes and businesses. 

 

Skinny houses aren’t necessarily a problem if you don’t mind climbing stairs, however decorating these houses sometimes proves to challenging.  Therefore, every house is fully equipped with a "furniture" hook!

“What exactly is a "furniture" hook?” you might ask..... Exactly what it sounds like. The houses are so tall and skinny that getting furniture to anything above the first floor proves difficult. Therefore, any furniture that is too large to make it through the narrow staircases is pulled up through the window. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, someone goes up to the top floor and leans out the window to loop a rope through the hook, the furniture of choice is tied to one end of the rope and pulled up and in through the window of choice.

I couldn't even imagine watching my delicate pieces of furniture being dangled above the bustling streets (remember we are talking about bicycle city here) by nothing more than a rope in efforts to get them into my fourth floor room. Now, I know what you are thinking.... these hooks must be ancient devices that have long been replaced by some sort of modern moving technology....THINK AGAIN. While in Amsterdam we were lucky enough to see these hooks in action (although I was too mesmerized/terrified to think about snapping a photo).

Although there are no such hooks here in Germany we have heard many stories about Americans having to hoist refrigerators through balcony windows and sectionals coming through windows instead of doors.  Here however this has less to do with the size of the homes, than the size of the furniture!  Unfortunately Germans are not fortunate enough to enjoy extra wide Lazy-Boy recliners with built in beverage coolers or King size sleigh beds with pillow top mattresses and therefore do not need extra wide doors to accommodate the “padding” that comes with American style living.  We were not “lucky” enough to have to watch the movers contemplate how to get our 500lb safe up the winding staircase (I chose to keep all of the heavy furniture on the 1^st floor specifically to avoid this problem) I couldn’t image how awesome it must be to convince movers that pulling bunk-beds out the window really is the best idea when it comes time to move out!