the apartment hunt has begun!

For the past couple days, Anders and I have started our apartment hunt! It's kind of fun!! There is only one site though online that lists apartments here in Norway--FINN.no, and it isn't always updated properly.. we found an apartment we really liked, but when we called the owner she had told us that it had already been rented out and we were about the 50th person to contact her. The ad was still up on the site though! Kind of annoying. We have found a handful of other places that we like though too and have e-mailed some to tell the owners a little bit about ourselves and if we could come for a showing. We are going into Oslo tomorrow afternoon to look at a couple..

Here are some of the specs that we are looking into, when searching for apartments:
-Sandvika or Oslo area
-2-rooms (living room & bedroom, with bathroom)
-Balcony
-Around 10.000 NOK/month (which is around $1,800/month)
-More than 30m²
-Able to hook up washing machine (if not included)
-Oven, stove & dishwasher
-Bathtub (would be PERFECT)
-Allows pets--I want to get a kitten!! :)

We understand that we will need to compromise on some of these things though.. but we have started to look every day, as new apartments seem to be added. We also have to take into consideration that right now the cost of apartments will be pretty high, while students are trying to find places to live before school starts back up again.. if we don't find something that we absolutely LOVE (together) and picture ourselves staying there for at least a year, then we will wait a couple more months, when the pricing of apartments probably will go down as well. We'll see though!!

No more news on the job hunt, unfortunately.. only time will tell, I guess! For the time being though, I will continue to look.

Just wanted to post a short, little update. I have one more week of relaxation before I start my new Norwegian class on Monday, the 22nd.. looking forward to going to Anders' family's cabin up north this weekend! Should be fun. I'm off to the gym now.. been sitting on my butt these last few days! I need to do something active.. all this sitting around is making me super lazy ;P Happy Monday everyone!!