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zkaI want to start this entry on a positive note! (Before I describe our first 2 weeks of confusion and overwhelm.) Last night we discovered the best Indian food ever, a 3-minute walk from our house. Today we rode our bikes to the mall, and had lunch with expat friends (ex-Portlanders), it was lovely.
So it's been a nice 24 hours!
I've heard folks describe the Netherlands as relaxed, and laid back! I'm sure it's true, after you spend significant time here. Long enough to find your groove.
I'm fully confused by everything here, on an hourly basis. I expected to escape the layer cake of stress, 2 weeks ago. Instead I have moments where I feel like my breathing is constricted and rapid. Holy shit dude. Every single email, phone call, interaction, and transaction (no matter how minor) has a language barrier, because we don't speak Dutch.
I like the Dutch language. It's a close relative to English. It should be "easy" to learn, compared to (oh I don't know) Mandarin? I'm watching videos and raiding the Hear Dutch Here website. It's been 2 weeks, I can say "good day" and "thank you". I'm unsure if my context is correct; am I being polite, or inappropriate?
I feel like there's a 3x difficulty multiplier to all things digital. I keep a Google Translate tab open, and I'm constantly pasting text into it. Sometimes the translations are suspect! "Alstublieft" is translated as "please", but workers say this to me after I say "thank you"?? As always, context is everything: This expression is a formality, and the literal translation is akin to "as it pleases you".
Spoken Dutch has sounds which aren't present in spoken English. The letter G sounds like clearing your throat, "hhccchhhhh". Watch out, this sound has regional variations, too.
By the way. Everything is digital now. The black glass controls reality: Buying stuff, finding information, making plans, sourcing food, the financial universe. It's all pixels through a language barrier.
Lots of websites just don't work here. I ordered specialty sewing thread from a German website (couldn't find a store in the Netherlands). Clicked the checkout button, it debited my account ... but the order wasn't confirmed, and the items were still in the cart? Hmmmm. I called them by phone (note the 9x language multiplier: my English × Dutch bank × German store employee), she was very nice and it's resolved now, but this sort of thing happens alarmingly often. My husband had a package tied up in Dutch UPS for 3 days, and of course the phone tree is useless, even after you understand which options are available.
Very frustrating, when you're trying to (oh I don't know) do anything. Or buy essential objects for your empty living space.
There's a local bakery whose website simply reads: "This account has been suspended. Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources."
In America, I think we're raised with the implicit expectation that things mostly just work, at predictable times. If something is obviously broken, we feel entitled to have someone else fix it. I suspect the rest of the world is a bit loosey-goosey.
Getting insurance is straightforward. Getting a doctor is trickier. Your GP (General Practitioner) must work in your zip code?! This seems weird, but our expat friends explained it's because doctors make house calls, and they don't want to travel far from the clinic.
Husband called all the eligible medical practices, and no one was accepting new patients. On the final call, he stated that everyone else had turned us away, and they sighed and said "okay" and squeezed us into their practice ... starting in October.
If you take life-saving medication, I hope you have several months squirreled away in reserve?
Also new to me: Doctor's appointments are strictly 15 minutes long, and you're allowed to discuss one issue. If you have multiple issues, you need to schedule multiple 15-minute appointments (yes, these can be adjacent).
Trash must be sorted correctly. There are 14 categories of household waste, but only 4 are relevant to us:
But wait! Our grey bin is marked "Restafval", hmmmmm. We called city hall, and the representative didn't understand why we had a can for "everything else". They promised to launch an investigation! Which probably didn't happen. We're still awaiting their callback, days later.
Foolishly, we've dumped all our trash in the grey bin, because we're Americans, duh. Tomorrow, we have the exquisite privilege of sorting 2 weeks of rancid garbage into proper bins and bags, and I'm living honey
Our dog loves the backyard. She's barking at everything: cats, neighbors, doors slamming shut. Houses are packed closer here, we share walls with neighbors. Baby girl please stop I'm mortified
Everything is tiny, and proportioned strangely, not really the human-scale I expect: refrigerator, shower, washing machine. The "oven" is a microwave with special modes that mimic baking and grilling.
Don't get me started on the murder-stairs.
That's enough complaining for one night. I guess the punch line is: it's been a mere 2 weeks, and we're still """adjusting""". Imagine a progress bar, ranging from "American" to "Dutch"; we're at about 2%, and it's no one's fault but ours, of course.
Foolishly, I expected life would be easier here. Currently, it's not! I'm inventing new ways to cope with stress, and being immersed in situations which are (literally) foreign to me.
Unless you're moving into a fully furnished house, and already speak the language: there will be many challenges. How's that for mind-blowing wisdom? Wow, great.
Next entry: be more positive, yes? There's been delights and surprises in the mix too, so ... to be continued.
So it's been a nice 24 hours!
I've heard folks describe the Netherlands as relaxed, and laid back! I'm sure it's true, after you spend significant time here. Long enough to find your groove.
I'm fully confused by everything here, on an hourly basis. I expected to escape the layer cake of stress, 2 weeks ago. Instead I have moments where I feel like my breathing is constricted and rapid. Holy shit dude. Every single email, phone call, interaction, and transaction (no matter how minor) has a language barrier, because we don't speak Dutch.
I like the Dutch language. It's a close relative to English. It should be "easy" to learn, compared to (oh I don't know) Mandarin? I'm watching videos and raiding the Hear Dutch Here website. It's been 2 weeks, I can say "good day" and "thank you". I'm unsure if my context is correct; am I being polite, or inappropriate?
I feel like there's a 3x difficulty multiplier to all things digital. I keep a Google Translate tab open, and I'm constantly pasting text into it. Sometimes the translations are suspect! "Alstublieft" is translated as "please", but workers say this to me after I say "thank you"?? As always, context is everything: This expression is a formality, and the literal translation is akin to "as it pleases you".
Spoken Dutch has sounds which aren't present in spoken English. The letter G sounds like clearing your throat, "hhccchhhhh". Watch out, this sound has regional variations, too.
By the way. Everything is digital now. The black glass controls reality: Buying stuff, finding information, making plans, sourcing food, the financial universe. It's all pixels through a language barrier.
Lots of websites just don't work here. I ordered specialty sewing thread from a German website (couldn't find a store in the Netherlands). Clicked the checkout button, it debited my account ... but the order wasn't confirmed, and the items were still in the cart? Hmmmm. I called them by phone (note the 9x language multiplier: my English × Dutch bank × German store employee), she was very nice and it's resolved now, but this sort of thing happens alarmingly often. My husband had a package tied up in Dutch UPS for 3 days, and of course the phone tree is useless, even after you understand which options are available.
Very frustrating, when you're trying to (oh I don't know) do anything. Or buy essential objects for your empty living space.
There's a local bakery whose website simply reads: "This account has been suspended. Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources."
In America, I think we're raised with the implicit expectation that things mostly just work, at predictable times. If something is obviously broken, we feel entitled to have someone else fix it. I suspect the rest of the world is a bit loosey-goosey.
Getting insurance is straightforward. Getting a doctor is trickier. Your GP (General Practitioner) must work in your zip code?! This seems weird, but our expat friends explained it's because doctors make house calls, and they don't want to travel far from the clinic.
Husband called all the eligible medical practices, and no one was accepting new patients. On the final call, he stated that everyone else had turned us away, and they sighed and said "okay" and squeezed us into their practice ... starting in October.
If you take life-saving medication, I hope you have several months squirreled away in reserve?
Also new to me: Doctor's appointments are strictly 15 minutes long, and you're allowed to discuss one issue. If you have multiple issues, you need to schedule multiple 15-minute appointments (yes, these can be adjacent).
Trash must be sorted correctly. There are 14 categories of household waste, but only 4 are relevant to us:
- Paper and cardboard: goes in the blue bin.
- Compost, food scraps: in the green bin.
- Plastic, metal, drink boxes: in the grey bin.
- Everything else ("Restafval"): Put it in a bag, walk it up the street, open the weird public receptacle with a city-issued key fob, stuff the bag into its chute. The bag falls to a subterranean pit. When the pit is full, a sensor is tripped, and the city picks up the trash.
But wait! Our grey bin is marked "Restafval", hmmmmm. We called city hall, and the representative didn't understand why we had a can for "everything else". They promised to launch an investigation! Which probably didn't happen. We're still awaiting their callback, days later.
Foolishly, we've dumped all our trash in the grey bin, because we're Americans, duh. Tomorrow, we have the exquisite privilege of sorting 2 weeks of rancid garbage into proper bins and bags, and I'm living honey
Our dog loves the backyard. She's barking at everything: cats, neighbors, doors slamming shut. Houses are packed closer here, we share walls with neighbors. Baby girl please stop I'm mortified
Everything is tiny, and proportioned strangely, not really the human-scale I expect: refrigerator, shower, washing machine. The "oven" is a microwave with special modes that mimic baking and grilling.
Don't get me started on the murder-stairs.
That's enough complaining for one night. I guess the punch line is: it's been a mere 2 weeks, and we're still """adjusting""". Imagine a progress bar, ranging from "American" to "Dutch"; we're at about 2%, and it's no one's fault but ours, of course.
Foolishly, I expected life would be easier here. Currently, it's not! I'm inventing new ways to cope with stress, and being immersed in situations which are (literally) foreign to me.
Unless you're moving into a fully furnished house, and already speak the language: there will be many challenges. How's that for mind-blowing wisdom? Wow, great.
Next entry: be more positive, yes? There's been delights and surprises in the mix too, so ... to be continued.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 07:44 am (UTC)(His friend group consists of very highly-educated, well-traveled young academics, so I think this view is mostly because when they visit European countries they tend to go direct from an airport to a university.)
But really, it's kind of an idealized situation his friends are in: Western and Northern Europe have, for example, recycling sorted out to a more consistent degree, and his friends can glorify that in their minds ... but they still live in the US, where an enormous bin is magically emptied on a weekly basis right next to their house, and they can fill it indiscriminately with rancid food, shop rags, used makeup, soiled gloves, diapers, broken glass, dead animals, etc... Most of us try to produce as little of this foul stuff as possible, but it's really great to have it just vanish when our efforts lag. I felt really bad when I replaced a shredded brake cable housing on my bike last week and had no idea what to even do with it except put it in the bin...
The magical bin is, of course, a source of huge environmental problems and we're trying to figure out how to move away from it. Seems mostly we're tinkering with the source of garbage rather than its destination. Right now my house on Linden St generates two giant bins full of recycling every week - mostly cardboard - and only fills up the actual "garbage" bin about a third of the way, even though it's half the size. Eventually we may give up the small bin entirely and achieve a higher level of European-ness.
So yeah, it's a pain to me and you and the other expats, but it's really just like taking a step several years into the future...
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 05:04 pm (UTC)Why aren't my new neighbors and I juggling 14 bins each?? Probably because that's not the optimal number; maybe 3 bins + 1 extra step is doable, any extra steps would be frustrating and folks would stop following the rules.
I dunno.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 06:56 pm (UTC)I can see separating yard/“organic” waste from recycling, for example, just because yard waste tends to soil recycling materials…
I guess the true optimal number of bins is zero, and we should just be making zero garbage :D
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 07:00 pm (UTC)Remember when “going to the dump” was a thing? I sure do. It seemed like the family took a truckload of stuff to the dump every year…
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 08:13 am (UTC)I've been mucking around for years with the idea of living full-time in Europe, assuming I could get a visa to allow it, but the idea of cutting ties completely with America scares me. Partly because of an accumulation of small things, like those recycle bins, the tiny appliances, tiny beds, tiny showers, etc. Partly because of financial worries, like the cost of tools and hardware, the cost of long-range travel, of owning any vehicle larger than a bicycle, and the impossibility of being able to afford property in an urban area, at least for little ol' me.
But then I look at the actual life I've adapted to live, after struggling for over a decade to move past the deeply materialist and consumerist default in America. All my possessions - furniture included - fit into one room, and most of what's here is stuff to sustain my bicycling hobby, which is all about spending time out of the house: At work, at cafes, in parks, visiting relatives and friends, or traveling much farther abroad. I think the only reason I would want more actual property or living space than I currently have, is if I was raising young kids and wanted them to be able to run around in the woods like I did growing up. But for me, personally? Get me a well-curated 350-square-feet of living space in a beautiful city, and I'm happy as a clam.
Now I could be wrong, but I get the feeling you're in the same anti-materialist mental space. That means, everything you need really is around you! But! There will also be an unavoidable interval where all the tiny details of everything are different, which will make them difficult and annoying, and drive you bananas. For months.
My advice is, establish a couple of basic routines you like, and wire them into your schedule. E.g. "10am every Saturday we go to Froopie Doof Cafe and get the shakshuka, then loaf there until noon with a newspaper, plugging bits into Google Translate and trying to read them out loud to each other." "Every Wednesday at 5pm it's really bad cop show night while we swap tiny loads of laundry around." You're going to be overwhelmed with things to learn and sort out, but if you stick nice things on the calendar you'll force yourself to relax and ignore the chaos for at least a while...
And remember, you don't have to instantly love this situation, because you aren't committed to it permanently. You picked up and moved here, proving it was possible. In a couple years if the ants return to your pants you can try something else; or not.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 05:17 pm (UTC)I almost wish I had one consistent hobby. Maybe that would have capped the amount of stuff I owned. I've had so many hobbies and sidetracked interests through the years. Remember boxing?? I've been dragging boxing gloves around for 20+ years, I nearly forgot about them; just rediscovered the "gym bag" in the garage last month.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 07:04 pm (UTC)Yay sewing machines! Are you gonna make a Kraft Korner™️?