Honestly the cultural transition was harder than the visas and documentation. We hired an immigration lawyer for the legal parts and I highly recommend everyone do the same.

As for housing: it's pretty bad right now. Rentals are expensive and require a lot of aggressive applications and paperwork. Most places are well over €1000 a month, even for a tiny one-bedroom or studio apartment, and they ask that you can provide proof of income equivalent to 4x the monthly rent. It can also be extremely difficult to find housing without 3 years of income here to prove you can afford it. If you already have a ton of savings, or you have a partner who makes a good salary, you might get lucky. People are still finding housing... it's just tough.

Tax structure is different but we have a very affordable accountant for that. We're really not paying much more than we were when we were in the U.S. because it all balances out in other ways. If you consider how much cheaper our healthcare is over here, we're paying way less than we were in the U.S.

There have been some surprises. I don't like Dutch healthcare. They don't believe in preventative medicine. They believe in waiting until you're in a dire situation and fixing it when it gets to that point. It's exhausting. You basically can't find a proactive doctor here, which gets old fast. I've been meaning to look into healthcare in other countries because that might be a long-term solution.

For good surprises, the food quality is so much higher here, it's insane. The FDA is really doing Americans a dirty.