Day of Exploration!

Day 2 in the Netherlands brought lots of new things. Breakfast was frosites with melk and bananas. The milk tasted more like whole milk then milk with half the fat it just seemed a little off.

Then we met with out settling services woman, who helped us with sooo much. First she gave us a bag full of information, including translation dictionaries, phrase books, maps, maps, and more maps, and a few other booklets to help us survive. She told us tons of information about the area, having a car and parking it, and other useful tips. She accompanied us to meet up with our real estate agent and to all of our potential apartments. We saw many great places to live but each one had their problems. Some had no real oven
just a microwave/oven combo which I have no idea how to use, and the ones that did have a real oven were fairly small. Many were in town close to the shopping areas but others were a decent walk from both the train and the shopping. Once we got back to the real estate office we talked about each place and narrowed our choices. Out of the seven potential apartments we saw, we were able to narrow our choices down to three, they told us to take some time to think about it. After we left there, we went to the bank and opened a bank account. We also both got personal liability insurance. It costs 5 euros a month for both of us together and it insures you for when you run into someone with your bike, when you go to someone's house and break something, or you fall down in the cobblestone street. A little weird.
Then we went to the super market. It was very small compared to ones at home but bigger than the one we went to yesterday. Our settling woman, walked us through telling us what many of the things were. She gave us tips like bringing our own shopping bags, because they don't give them out and she taught us how to use the cart. You have to put in a coin and then take the cart. When you return the cart they give you the coin back. She gave us a cheater coin to use the carts. Tehe. It's a plastic coin that goes in place so you don't have to put in a real one. She taught us about buying milk and meat and some words that would be good to remember.
After she left we came back to find our new apartment. It was a bit smaller than the first one that didn't have wifi. It has a a bedroom separate from the living room and kitchen. The kitchen is smaller, has a microwave/oven combo, and fridge and freezer. (freezers are apparently uncommon). There is no traditional oven and no dishwasher. The tv is smaller, and the bathroom is much different. This apartment does have wifi, which was more important to us than the other things. This will work for the month.


We were on our feet all day long so we decided to make it an easy dinner. We got a New York style pizza which wasn't any different from any other pizza you've ever had, and came back and fell asleep pretty early.