{"id":10523,"date":"2015-06-11T10:39:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T10:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=10523"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:58:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:58:00","slug":"the-mermaid-within-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=10523","title":{"rendered":"The Mermaid within…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have always loved the idea of a houseboat. To me it suggests a dream-like, almost fairytale existence. “Couldn’t we stay, for our three days in Amsterdam, in a houseboat, ” I asked? My husband, who is not nearly as romantic, noticed that the bedrooms were below deck – no windows, not even a porthole and really, who would want to wake up in the dark.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

\nAlas, Ariel, your siren song has been ignored once again. Due to the housing shortage in Amsterdam, people are allowed to live in houseboats. It’s a very romantic solution to a perennial urban problem. I presume that the boats are fairly permanent and hooked up to the sewage system, because the canals are very clean!!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

I don’t know the exact count, but there must be hundreds of these charming houseboats moored up and down the city’s waterways.<\/p>\n

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\nThis one has its own arched entrance, with a small patio on the “pier.” In fact, many of the houseboats actually had tiny gardens right on their decks.<\/p>\n

There is no subdivision blandness here, just a little magic in an urban environment. I think we need a few in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Have a great day!!<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always loved the idea of a houseboat. To me it suggests a dream-like, almost fairytale existence. “Couldn’t we stay, for our three days in Amsterdam, in a houseboat, ” I asked? My husband, who is not nearly as romantic, noticed that the bedrooms were below deck – no windows, not even a porthole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10527,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions\/10527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}