3 Months in the Netherlands

So…we’ve been in Amsterdam for three months now.  Well…sort of.  Given we were on the road for almost 3 weeks, it has actually been a little over two months, but we landed on June 17th, so it seems appropriate to give a three month update now.

In general, I would say we are adjusting fairly well.  Having Alex in school gives some structure to our days which is nice.  Mike and I have been meeting with startups and VCs to try to get a bit more plugged-in to the startup ecosystem out here.

Given our first impressions, here are the things we really like about living here:

• Much less reliance on cars.  We probably drive 1.5 times per week on average.  Most of those are to go hiking in other countries, so I think even those don’t really “count” as driving.  It’s really nice to bike or take a train almost everywhere.

• Much less focus on image.  There are very few expensive cars and a lot less worry about what you are wearing or your body type.  It’s possible this is because we haven’t been here long enough to see it, but I did have a conversation with someone about people who wear designer clothes and there was some disdain for the designer clothes.

• An appreciation for other points of view.  We have definitely spoken with people from different backgrounds (mostly immigrants from places like Germany, Suriname, Bangladesh, Morocco, etc.).  It has been good to get to talk to them a bit.

• Alex’s school seems great.  See prior blog post on this.

• In general things seem to cost less.  We are spending a lot less on groceries and restaurants.   Usually when we get a bill at a restaurant I have to check to make sure they didn’t leave something off since the bills always seem too small.

• “Far left” or “Far right” politics are amazingly close to center with far more common sense than we are used to in the US. Both sides still argue, but they work together.

• It took a while to get used to this, but we are now fairly acclimated to interacting with people in the US.  It is nice to know that when we wake up we have several hours to catch up on the previous days’ emails/etc. before everyone will be awake again.  

Here are the things we miss or like less:

• We miss

  • Our friends/family.

  • Our cat.

  • Large grocery stores.  The stores here are small, so there is very little selection.  You can choose from 6 kinds of salad dressing, but they only have those six kinds.   There is only one kind of toilet paper.  We had to go to a special store in the mall today to get olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

• We like less

  • Food spoils a lot faster.  This is probably a good thing (the food is healthier since it has less preservatives), but when I am used to shopping once a week, it can be annoying when something is moldy within a couple of days. This is likely one of the reasons Dutch refrigerators are so much smaller than we are used to.

  • There is much less selection for over the counter drugs.  There is no Nyquil or Pepto or Robitussin.  It’s possible most of these things are prescribed through a doctor, but we haven’t gone to a doctor yet, so I’m not sure.

  • Everything is small here.  We call it “Barbie-sized”.  You should see our vacuum cleaner.  And our spoons.  And our garage, our oven, refrigerator, the parking spots…

  • Hiking in the mountains (see the previous blog about this).

Some things that have surprised us:

• Amazon is almost the same here as in the US.  There is a little less selection, but almost everything can be delivered to our house the next day.

• We have really good ethnic food restaurants near us.  We accidentally ended up in a part of town that seems to have a lot of immigrants and because of that there are some quite good restaurants in the little strip mall near us (Indian, Thai, Greek, Peruvian-Japanese (!), falafel, Italian). Dutch food tends to be bland with lots of cream sauces, so it is nice to have good ethnic food.

• People here hardly drink anything. The normal size for a soda is ~8 ounces. Most people at dinner will drink 3/4 of this and be done with their meal. I think we're seen as weird when we drink one of those plus share a 750ml bottle of water with our meal.

I think the summary is that we still feel like we are settling in, so it may be too early to give a final verdict.  But…in general there are a lot of positive aspects to living here.  Keep in mind - the rainy season hasn’t started yet!