If all were to go swimmingly…

Our new Leiden apartment is situated in the middle of a quiet Dutch neighborhood partway down Poelgeeststraat.  Besides the fact that it is sitting right in the heart of Leiden, the best part of this neighborhood is simply its Dutchness.  There are small families, plenty of bicycles, and cozy row houses lining the street lamp lined street.

Last night, as we were once again daydreaming about the day we get to move in (!), we strayed to contemplating the street name, Poelgeeststraat.  Initially, we both thought it sounded most similar to Poltergeist, but we soon decided that that just couldn’t be it.

It probably has something to do with water management, Matt said.

And of course, I agree, almost everything here in the Netherlands has at least something to do with water management.

Eventually, we stopped debating what Poelgeest might mean, and just looked it up.  It literally translated as abutted mind street, which I think, overall, is quite a nice name.  I don’t mind the Dutch way of thinking, so hopefully through time, with their row houses butted up against mine, their mild and livable demeanor will start to rub off.

Also…

This particular entry happens to be my one hundredth post.  Although I couldn’t come up with something so stupendous and important that it deserved to be the 100th post, we love Leiden, and we are very excited to move to Poelgeeststraat, so I thought this would do.   At any rate, I hope I will be sitting in my row house in Poelgeeststraat looking out at our neighbors orange cat when I post number 200.