Our Amsterdam Home, Part 1

We couldn't be more thrilled with our home here!  It looked nice in the pictures, but in person we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it really is.  The owners are apparently super classy people, and everything they have here is high end.  This is both wonderful and terrifying: wonderful because we're not used to such things, terrifying to imagine what Andy is going to break while we're here.  It is bigger than any place we've ever lived!  Who would have thought our biggest home thus far would be in europe?  And it has all the musts we're lucky to have in europe: dishwasher (!), washer, dryer.  The overall style of the place is beautiful; definitely old Amsterdam style mixed with some modern elements.  The top two floors are ours; a nice guy named Kaas stays on the bottom floor.  (I think Kaas will hate us very quickly, with all the banging on the floor Andy does.)

How did we find it?  Dell gave us 8 or so choices of places we could stay.  They varied quite a bit, especially by location.  Our priority was to be as close to downtown as possible.  And this place is definitely right downtown, which is why we picked it.  The back of the house sits against the main shopping street in Amsterdam.  (Hindsight: I don't think we realized how small Amsterdam is.  Really, I think about half of the housing options would have had the downtown feeling we were looking for. But, nevertheless, we're glad we ended up here.)  It came fully furnished.  We've stayed in a "fully furnished" apartment before that had nothing, so we've been pleasantly surprised how how fully furnished this really his.  They even provided brand new linens!  We did ship over a few crates of things: mostly clothes, toys, pictures, a year's supply of diapers (not kidding), toiletries, etc.  

Here are some pictures of the main floor: 

Kitchen:

I am obsessed with this table.  And how cool are these lights? 

Not pictured: the fireplace.  How amazing will that be in the winter?!

Kitchen Balcony: 

View from the balcony. We've never had a view from our kitchen before.  Cameron says he doesn't mind doing the dishes, now that he has a view.  He does seem to jump on dish duty quicker now, which I'm not complaining about. :)  Oh, and that's our picnic table to use down there. There's a barbecue, too. 

Cute little table and chairs on the balcony.

Half Bath:

We've never had a "guest" bathroom before.  We are excited about it!

Living Room:

View from the living room to the kitchen.

This is one of our favorite aspects of this place.  The backside of the house overlooks the main shopping street in Amsterdam.  This is our view from the family living room.  Our bedroom, which is right above the living room, has the same view. Yes, that is an H&M in the distance.  And impressively, that's not even the closest H&M to us.

I'll do a post sometime soon that shows the upstairs.  I also need to do a post that documents how we actually get to this place.  It is a journey! Also, a post dedicated to our laundry situation.  This place is great, but it definitely has a few "european quirks," as I call them.  :)