"So what'd you do today?"

"Oh, some grocery shopping. A few telephone calls. Nothing too unusual. What about you?"

"Me? Hmmm. Well, um... I, uh -- I bought a house this morning."

* * *

It's true. Surreal. Anti-climactic. Understated. But true.

Today, Marci and I signed the papers for the purchase of our first home in the Netherlands. The process here works a bit differently than it does in America -- so we still have to wait three days (a mandatory "thinking period") and then secure the final financing from the bank before we can officially call ourselves homeowners -- but basically, it's a done deal. We bought a house today.

Lest the story sound any more dramatic than what has really taken place, the house that we bought is the house that we've lived in for the last five years (which is actually just an apartment, in American terminology). The opportunity to buy the place kind of just fell in our laps. Because of our renters' rights (which make it nearly impossible for a landlord to have us removed, against our will) and because of tax incentives for the owner to sell within a six-month period of time since his own acquisition of the space, we were given an offer that we felt we couldn't refuse. So we bought a house today.

It still sounds crazy to say it out right like that -- but it's true. We got the place for about 75% of its market value (which is to say, 75% of the cost that the other apartments directly above our apartment went for -- in exactly the same neighborhood, exactly the same square meterage, and exactly the same time of the year), and believe it or not, our monthly mortgage payments will actually be less than what we've been paying in rent each month (when some tax breaks are factored in). Thus, the decision to go forward with purchasing the house seemed like a no-brainer for us.

Still, it's crazy to realize that we bought a house today.