Getting Life Going

Hi all! As foretold, we've been busy navigating legal paperwork, working on finding our next home, and finding work, and to that end, are making excellent progress!!

So where are we now?
LEGAL!
As of about a month ago (I know this is delayed), we both have our ID's, clearing us for Visa & Residence for 2 years!

This took a while, because we had to be very methodical, making sure that Emily had her biometrics taken, get a tax number (v-nummer), start the process of starting her business, apply for her visa, finally get her ID, then finally register the ID with their digital platform before she could sponsor me to be here with her.
What makes this take even longer is that our current address doesn't exactly exist. We don't have a door number, no front door, no easy way for deliveries to be made to us. We're literally behind a gate that says "Do Not Enter". As you might imagine, that means we don't always get packages or mail, no matter how important. This resulted in us missing some of the important forms, or some of the letters being delayed or just return-to-sendered.

One thing that was fun about this process though, was that the offices we needed to visit for these were either very close, or in a city that we'd been wanting to see, like The Hague (Den Haag) or Rotterdam.

So why didn't I get cracking on posting about it right away?

Our apartment is only a 6-month lease, the landlord isn't even licensed to extend it, so we needed to get on the job/home hunt as soon as possible. The same day I got my ID, I applied to 30 jobs and requested viewing at 3 different apartments. We haven't slowed down since!

We are very close to sealing the deal on an apartment in a beautiful city and look forward to sharing more about that, and have been averaging 2.5 interviews a week.

Ok ok! I hear you! We're in a gorgeous cool area and I've just been talking boring things, here are some of the wonderful things that we've seen.

Here is one of my favorite-looking train stations, just next to The Hague's Centraal Station. Most of these stations contain several Kiosk areas like you can see to the left that are a sort of combination coffee house (not coffee shop, that's what they call a dispensary here) and convenience store. They have laws to ensure that pricing at transit centers are no more than they would be outside of transit centers, so many of these stations are common hubs for people to come eat or shop as well, even if they're not going anywhere.

The Netherlands loves art, so it's absolutely everywhere. This is tucked away in our city in a residential area behind some shops!

I couldn't capture the whole display on my phone, it's so big. This is next to our favorite bakery, which is only 15 years younger than the United States! This mosaic is a map of the whole "Oude Delft" city! This part of the city is so old, that we've seen maps from the 1800's that still perfectly reflect the layout of the city!

We found an adorable coffee house with a window at canal level while a tour boat came through - meanwhile, Emily kicked my butt at chess...again...

The Hague is such a fun and beautiful city, and definitely one of the places we would very much enjoy living if life takes us here.

A spiffy gnome worth hiring (video call interview outfit, sans hat)