12 days until departure!

so the official countdown has started and we are at T minus 12 days.  let's review what has been done before the blog creation.

location - we waffled a little bit on our homebase location.  somewhere in germany made the most sense as it is the most centrally located and hubby's trips to germany would be frequent.  but let's face it, the food in germany sucks monkey balls.  germany was henceforth stricken from our list. there is also much business in london to be had but it is too bloody expensive.  barcelona was also on our short list but it's too far south from the rest of europe, making travel difficult.  when we combined what was important for business (central location, relatively reasonable cost of living, convenient to a major airport) with what was personally important (culturally stimulating and entertaining) we converged on amsterdam.   you might say 'but haven't you been to amstedam before?  on several occasions?  wouldn't it be better to explore and immerse youself in a different culture?'  to that i say 'shut your pie hole, we are going to amsterdam'

another reason for picking amsterdam was that we could get by on english while studying dutch on the side.  i have always wanted to spend an extended period of time in a county where i could really immerse myself in the language out of total  necessity but i kind of chickened out.  the kids and i will learn some dutch but will able to thrive from day one on english.

once we decided on amsterdam it was up to me to find a place to live.  more on that later.