Ever since forever I've felt like I wanna move out of Finland, explore and see the world, eventually knowing it would come to that sooner or later. I traveled around, learned some independence and grew up a little, finally ending up to moving to Netherlands in the end of 2013. Through some more or less unexpected ways and events I ended up finding my own place and to become happy after a long while looking for it. So here we are, how did I end up here?
Well it took few flights back and forth, some friends helping me out and some hard decisions to move here.
Let me tell you, the stress of flying with cats is something I never wanna go through anymore. Still we all survived to NL alive and made it home here!
It took a few months to get my registration done, including everything else that's required when moving to another country. Bank account, new social security, phone number, address change, insurance, looking for job… that's a month quickly spent, some cases even more than that. And don't even get me started about learning a new language if needed to.
Learning the places is easy, with right company you can make any experience so much nicer than it otherwise would be. Going around the city several times a week and making that mental map turns out to be not so easy but still fun mission. Basic stores, restaurants and bars are easier to start with and building up everything around those. Smaller the city, easier it is, more center means more options even if you're not familiar with some specific place. In my case I got both, living in center of Leiden that's fairly small city it's easy to get around and doesn't take too long to learn your ways.
The Netherlands was somewhat easy transaction from what I've used to in Finland. With some very slight European culture differences, it was easy to wrap my head around different manners and habits people are used to here. Althought for a cold finn it may come as a shock where our normal handshake translates here as kisses on the cheeks, it's nothing to panic about. Language is somewhat hard from the point of view of someone who doesn't speak it, but is slowly learning. It's indeed not impossible, although I'd believe it's way easier for someone who has background with german language.
This is also one of the countries where you will not die if you drink tab water, which is a huge plus.
Food culture wise it's also somewhat similar, though a bit more tastes from Asia than you normally ran to in Finland. Lots of decent restaurants around, and with a bit of knowledge of englis hand basic dutch you can even work your way around their menus, even if the restaurant doesn't provide an english menu (as long as you don't accidentally order magical mushrooms or space cake!).
More to come about life in Netherlands!
Well it took few flights back and forth, some friends helping me out and some hard decisions to move here.
Let me tell you, the stress of flying with cats is something I never wanna go through anymore. Still we all survived to NL alive and made it home here!
It took a few months to get my registration done, including everything else that's required when moving to another country. Bank account, new social security, phone number, address change, insurance, looking for job… that's a month quickly spent, some cases even more than that. And don't even get me started about learning a new language if needed to.
Learning the places is easy, with right company you can make any experience so much nicer than it otherwise would be. Going around the city several times a week and making that mental map turns out to be not so easy but still fun mission. Basic stores, restaurants and bars are easier to start with and building up everything around those. Smaller the city, easier it is, more center means more options even if you're not familiar with some specific place. In my case I got both, living in center of Leiden that's fairly small city it's easy to get around and doesn't take too long to learn your ways.
The Netherlands was somewhat easy transaction from what I've used to in Finland. With some very slight European culture differences, it was easy to wrap my head around different manners and habits people are used to here. Althought for a cold finn it may come as a shock where our normal handshake translates here as kisses on the cheeks, it's nothing to panic about. Language is somewhat hard from the point of view of someone who doesn't speak it, but is slowly learning. It's indeed not impossible, although I'd believe it's way easier for someone who has background with german language.
This is also one of the countries where you will not die if you drink tab water, which is a huge plus.
Food culture wise it's also somewhat similar, though a bit more tastes from Asia than you normally ran to in Finland. Lots of decent restaurants around, and with a bit of knowledge of englis hand basic dutch you can even work your way around their menus, even if the restaurant doesn't provide an english menu (as long as you don't accidentally order magical mushrooms or space cake!).
More to come about life in Netherlands!
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