It’s been a crazy few days since we arrived in Amsterdam last week. The jet lag is starting to wear off, we’ve actually managed to get around by public transportation, and we started our house hunting adventure.

We had a call with our real estate agent when we were back in the States and told her our list of must haves, which I thought were pretty reasonable.

Our Must Haves

• 2 bedrooms
• Parking possibility
• Updated kitchen and bathroom
• Outdoor space (optional)

Our real estate agent secured 9 apartments for us to look at over a span of 7 hours (exhausting).

The biggest surprise, that I thought I was prepared for, but apparently was not, is that everything is smaller in Europe.

Apartment #1
We started our apartment search bright and early in the Oud-Zuid area in a place overlooking a canal. Aside from the gorgeous view and balcony, the most exciting thing about this place was the walk-in closet. I mean, it’s practically the size of an American closet. We really loved this place, and it came with a parking spot and elevator, but we weren’t sure if we loved the location/neighborhood.

Apartment #2

Apartment 2 got off to an awkward start when we walked in on the owner who apparently did not know we were coming to see the house. The best feature of this one was the spacious and updated bathroom. The rest of the house was okay, but the lime green kitchen and refrigerator were a little strange. This apartment was also in the Oud-Zuid area.

Apartment #3

Nope. Just no. I wish I had gotten a picture of this place that looked like a daycare from the 80’s.

Apartments #4 and #5

Things started to get a little blurry here, but both had updated kitchens and bathrooms, but were quite small. They also were not really in the part of town we envisioned ourselves being in, so we didn’t discuss these much further.

Apartment #6

This was the first apartment we saw in the De Pijp neighborhood which is the area we were most excited about. It was actually in the same building as some of our friends who moved here in January. The location of this place was perfect, but the furnishings were a little lackluster.

Apartment #7

This apartment was beautiful! Probably the most nicely decorated place we looked at, and everything was brand new. As a bonus, it had a large roof terrace overlooking the famous Vondelpark. However, we really had our hearts set on finding a place in De Pijp. And, when we walked by the street the day before, I told Tyler that the street creeped me out.

Apartment #8

Despite this being the apartment we thought we would like best online, once we showed up to the place and saw how small it was and the terrible layout on the busy street, we decided this was not the one for us.

Apartment #9

Which leads us to Apartment #9. The last apartment we looked at after a long day of searching. This apartment was located in our preferred area, and actually had furniture in the second bedroom. Although it is one of the smallest apartments that we looked at, we both knew when we walked in that this was exactly what we had been looking for. It’s located in a beautiful building on a quiet, but beautiful street. Actually, when we were going to look at the place, they were filming a movie right outside of our door. I didn’t get any good pictures of the inside, but will share more once we’re actually moved in.

Outside of our new home (no, the tiny car is not included)

We’re excited to move in tomorrow and stop living out of our suitcases!

Here’s a map of all of the houses we saw.