That's a Lovely Bicycle

I hope you all weren't bored by my thorough description of getting to the Netherlands, and that you have come back to read once again.

We just finished lunch on our fifth day, and we are experiencing our first day of full on rain.  I think we've maintained a good mixture of getting stuff done and having fun throughout our days here so far.  Todd says we haven't been acting like it's vacation enough, and we have been pretty busy starting our lives here.  But most of the "business" we have to take care of is pretty fun.  Like house hunting.

We've now been out twice to check out potential homes.  One trip around the city with our agent was planned, the other was sprung on us via a phone call first thing in the morning telling us to be at the train station parking lot in 10 minutes.  We tore off our pajamas, threw on our jeans and ran out the door.  Our agent is a busy guy, so we had to move quickly to get some more house hunting action.

It has been a pleasant surprise to find many options that are pretty great.  Our criteria for what we're looking for has changed a bit, and we are definitely searching for a more traditional Dutch style house now.  This is in contrast to the apartments right in the center of the city that we thought we wanted.  These homes we're checking out are a quick bike ride to the Centrum, but they have more space and Jack can have a tiny spot outside at the back of the house.  The neighborhoods we've seen are lovely - lots of parks and green space, small cafes, and weekly markets all right around the corner.  We hope to have a place secured in the next couple of weeks.  I'll be sure to post pictures once we find one!

In the meantime, here's a pic from one of the neighborhoods we may live in:

Todd's most exciting development of the past few days was buying his "omafiets"...his granny bike.  We have found the market for bikes is saturated, however, they don't come cheap!  Todd's bike is just what he was hoping for, and he has lots of plans for tricking it out.  Here he is hogging the road:

Actually he wasn't hogging the road at all, almost every street has a wide and beautiful bike lane.  Biking is certainly preferred to walking in this city.  I just need to find a bike for myself!

Now I must turn my attention back to the tiny cup of coffee Todd has brewed for me using our Phillips Senseo.  Once we move out of this temporary place, we'll have to buy one of these for ourselves.  Yum!  Perhaps we'll venture into the rain for another cup later this afternoon as well...