House Hunters International

We have been here in Rotterdam for 10 days now and we have spent most of those days looking at different places to live all over the city.  Since we don't have a car yet, we just walked and walked and walked some more for the first several days.  Finally, we got brave enough to try public transit, and we never looked back.  It definitely has it's challenges (with the 4 little people), but it is so much faster than walking.  So after all the walking, bus riding, metro riding, and house looking, these are our final three choices in no particular order:

#1 - Great Area/Small Kitchen

Pros:

- Really pretty family friendly area with lots of parks and cute shops.

- Completely renovated on the inside with new everything (paint, floors, kitchen)

- Big balcony and bonus "balcony room" which would make a good play/guest room

Cons:

- A LONG bike ride from Kaydree's school (5.4km one way, that would be like 12 miles of biking a day for me…and often in the rain).

- It's not on the ground floor so NO GARDEN and STAIRS, lots of stairs.

- Tiny kitchen.  Really tiny.  College dorm style.   

#2 - City Center

Pros:

- Just a couple of streets over from the school, an easy walk or bike ride

- Ground floor with a nice garden

- Completely renovated on the inside with new everything.  Awesome new kitchen, big fridge and freezer.

Cons:

- It's near the city center so it's very multi-cultural.  It's on a good street and so is the school, but one wrong turn and you're in the middle of Little Turkey.

- No closets in any of the bedrooms.  That could be a big expense moving in.

 #3 - Great Front Play Area and Back Garden

Pros:

- This one is on the corner of a private street with a small public park in front.  There's no cars around, the kids could play out front everyday.  The back garden is big too.

- Nice big kitchen (the biggest of the three).

- Huge, I think there were 5 good sized bedrooms.

- The surrounding streets are all really private and nice.

Cons:

- Another trek to the school (4.2 km)

- Aside from the kitchen, it's completely hideous inside.  I couldn't really tell until I walked in, but awful paint and wallpaper throughout the whole thing.  We would have to change everything ourselves.  And every single surface needed a fresh coat of paint.  

- Only 1 toilet…and the toilet seat had a picture of a COW on it.  I'm not exaggerating, this place is ugly and dirty feeling.

As an added detail, here's where we are staying now:

Our temporary housing is an uber modern 4 bedroom furnished apartment.  It's kind of fun for a little while, but I don't think I could do this permanently with the kids.  But, you can't beat the view:

The Erasmus Bridge at night, right outside our window

So, which place would YOU choose?