Happy 2026 y’all! Gelukkig nieuwjaar! We enjoyed a few slower weeks to end the year, reflect on our journey thus far, and welcome a new year and new adventures. We cooked and baked lots of goodies, and walked in the dunes and on the beach for Christmas and New Year’s Day. The best present we got was approval to schedule an appointment with the government to begin our immigration process! We have a few appointments scheduled, the first is to get a stamp in our passport that gives us the green light with immigration, the next is to get our fingerprints and biometrics scanned, and the last is to begin our resident number application (similar to a social security number). Luckily that last appointment isn’t until mid-February, and that’s when we need all our apostilled documents. The saga still continues on that front, as Diana’s initial application was lost in the mail for a month, so we ordered a certified copy of the birth certificate and had family send out the forms from Ohio. It is finally processed and in the mail on the way back to the Netherlands! We were able to quickly acquire a digital copy of the marriage certificate, but are still waiting on the physically copy to arrive here. Our latest, unhealthiest hobby is to refresh our tracking numbers every hour to watch for updates. It’s been stressful to say the least to get everything in order.

We also learned that the Dutch are fanatics for fireworks, and they set off their own…everywhere! We had a nice private show in our backyard, thanks to our neighbors, for a solid 10 hours from about 6 pm to 4 am. It felt as though we were, in what I imagine a warzone sounds like, the epicenter of a warzone, and walking to the beach the next day felt slightly post-apocalyptic seeing the burned trash cans in the street and all the remnants of the fireworks splayed out on the ground. We read though that this was the last year it was legal to buy them, and you’re only allowed to set them off for one day in the country, on New Year’s Eve, so we’ll see if it’s as intense next year!

Lastly, it snowed this week in the Netherlands! That is a rare experience here as of late, and it was very pretty to see. The country however does not know how to function during a snow storm, so a lot of flights and public transport were canceled, and people were advised to work from home for a few days. It didn’t last very long in our neighborhood, but our friends in Amsterdam shared pictures with a foot of snow!

We are continuing to prep ourselves for launching the business here, and staying positive for future immersion in this country. Pictured below is the main street that’s a 5 minute walk from us, called Keizerstraat, all lit up for the holidays, and us on the beach at Christmas.

The last few weeks have been stressful as we got closer to our moving date on Nov 1! Our immigration lawyer was hired to help us with our business creation (check! We’ve had an office space, accountant, and an official gov ID since July), relocation services, and visa application. We were intending to have a place secured before moving, but our lawyers dropped the ball. We can’t apply for our visa until we have a permanent residence, so housing is crucial. As the Netherlands also has a housing crisis, and for business research, we wanted to see how they approach securing housing for newcomers. In lieu of having a place, we had to scramble at the end of October to find a place to land for the first month. Thankfully, after a few tries on Airbnb, we were able to secure an apartment in Amsterdam Oost (east, pronounced oh-st). Of course, it was way more than we hoped or intended to pay, which as an aside, has felt very frustrating being upcharged plus the conversion fee from USD to EUR for everything that we’ve paid for thus far. It gives us that much more appreciation for the resilience and lived experiences of unhoused people, and the immigrant experience.

We arrived on Sunday, Nov 2 and were relieved to have an easy time getting to the place with all our luggage (the rest of our possessions that fit into 2 checked bags, a carry on and a personal item)! Now we will be spending the next few weeks looking at apartments (our requirements are: close to transportation and fully furnished, within our budget) that our lawyer finds for us, although it will probably be further from Amsterdam than we initially thought. We are so relieved to be here, but won’t be able to fully soak it in until we have a more permanent residence. So for now we are adjusting to the time difference and happy to be one step closer in this chaotic process. The Airbnb is in a charming location, just along one of the many canals of Amsterdam, so it’s nice to start in such a great neighborhood!