ladyice

Being Dutch with an English partner I want to stick up for my country here a little.

* a survey has shown that Dutch children are the happiest in the world, eventhough they have the least amount of material things like toys.

*Dutch education is ranked among the highest in the world.

* we are not being brought up rascist to Germans, Holland has survied 2 world wars started by the Germans and we get thaught in school what horrors happened in them wars. Granted, there is not a lot of love lost between the Dutch and Germans but there is a past between us noone can and wants to forget.

* My English partner just moved over from the UK to move in with me and he says the quality of food, fruit and veggies is much higher than in the UK

* He loves the way we live our lives, our relaxed approach to life and the down to earth caractres

* Restaurants in Holland are of high quality, although maybe not to your taste. High hygiene codes are being followed.

* The snacks in the "vending machines" are not in there for 'hours on end' they are only allowed in there for a certain amount of time due to bacteria growth

* My partner complains all the time that I put the heater on, I hate a cold house!

* Our health insurance might be expesnive but compaired to the UK we have better coverage, Our insurance includes things like dental care etc.

* The social security is good in Holland, when you loose your job you get a percentage of the wages you made for an x amount of time. This allows you to keep up with things like mortgages and rent etc.

snowbunny

Please do!

snowbunny

Blunt Dutch truth - but I bet you weren't shopping on PC Hooftstraat.

snowbunny

I have deep sympathy regarding fibromyalgia. But it is not true that chronic pain patients are denied incapacity benefit or treatment. Even acupuncture for pain is partially covered under the "basic" insurance.

Gifted kids have a hard go of it anywhere. Certainly isn't any different than in the US. Possibly the Scandinavian countries do it best.

snowbunny

Brabant is about as "country" as it gets in terms of having farms and open space. But it is flat as a pancake and there are few tall trees. Having grown up in Texas, I am spoilt rotten about open space and true wilderness - which does not exist anywhere in NL. But having grown up in a completely flat area by the sea, I love the hills and rivers where I now live. It would be hard to go back to completely flat and relatively treeless. And unfortunately the weather is quite grey and wet much of the time. That is my #1 fear about living there, because long stretches of grey give me the blues!

Brabant and the south are traditionally Catholic with a culture quite different than other places in the Netherlands, especially the more urban Randstad (the eastern part of the country in general). Workers throughout NL can choose a 32-hour work week, but it will mommy-track you just like it would elsewhere. But it is cheaper to live there and have a bit of space than it is in or near the big cities.

Working in the NL is defined by the massive traffic jams each day. Some people prefer living in Belgium, or in the very east of the country near the German border as mentioned, but the problem is how you get to a job!

Casa Santo Estevo

Nice post, but I feel you are wasting your time as some folks want to be negative about everything and will not understand why you are so positive.

Nice post. It is just a pity that some all some posters can be negative about their situation, no matter how they live. It is so upsetting that they have such a dreary life. Yes life can get one down but to complain about everything is an utter waste of time.
Once again thank you.

begbie74

Wow! some very different opinions to NL here!

I am currently considering a job offer to work in Waalwijk near Tilburg and what i had seen so far has been very encouraging, but some of the info here has made me think i need to do a little more investigation before i decide for sure. In the short term i plan on commuting and only living in Holland mon-fri, but our long term plans would be to relocate to Holland.

I am a british citizen currently living in Southern Spain, so the weather is a huge concern, although i cant imagine is that much worse than the UK. I have visited Holland many times and found it to be a very nice place and the dutch people to be very friendly and laid back, but having never lived there i realise it can be very different.

My wife & I are expecting our first child and i have been told the Dutch school system is fantastic! Certainly a contrast to the Spanish system!

Can anyone suggest any good real estate companies in Brabant.

thanks

ShawHawk

The Netherlands,
-Don`t like the attitude of the average dutch ``mentality``
-The language, english is much delicate and hot
-And the surroundings, are not to diverse here.

Surely has some great perks and great things going for the country.
Like said before, the education/health care and in general quality of life.

It all depends on the individual at the end of the day..

Casa Santo Estevo

That is the way of life, some folks like this- others like that.

Ref agents; if you look in the WIKI you will see some information about housing. It is best to use an agent that is listed with FUNDA.

snowbunny

True, although if the current right-wing government has its way, there will be cuts to education and health care and to "social security" for the poor. There are some who fear that there will be a loss of the middle classes similar to that seen here in the US, where the gap between rich and poor widens dramatically.

Were that to take place, I think a lot of the positives of the Netherlands would disappear, and I hope that it does not.

knifey_spoony

I love the Netherlands but the food is without a doubt of a lower quality than the UK.Supermarkets in particular are pretty poor.Most of them are very small compared to what we are used to therefor not as much choice. Resturants are fine but take-away places are very average compared to the UK.Apart from that though it's an amazing country.

furkew

Because land is so expensive in Holland, its simply not good financial business to have massive stores the same as in the UK. Quality of the food IMO no better or worse. In many cases just different.

The range in the stores is very good, but you also need to take into account, that they still have buthcers, greengrocers, delicatessen stores etc offering a range of products as well which have all slowly died off in the Uk over the last 20 years.

I used to eat out on a regular basis in Holland with clients over a 20 year period, and its not easy finding real top class restaurants, but for very good food, it was hard work to find a bad one. In the Uk, it was hard work finding a good one IMO. (Delft, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Scheveningen & Leiden were the main towns/cities where I ate.)

I wont comment on take aways, because now living in Australia, the one thing I really miss is dropping into the Shoarma toco on a Friday or Saturday night for a Pita Shoarma with a garlic sauce overdose but I think its something you adapt to over the years. Australia is shocking for takeaways. Junk food or nothing.

chocciecake

sorry to say, but we moved back to australia, where i grew up, almost 2 years ago, and are headed back to the uk in march.

we lived in sydney,( which i love, awesome city!) but please don't fool yourself that it will be affordable!
you most likely will both have to work to afford to be able to live...
i think $100,000 a year is barely enough to get by...
we got by on less but couldn't spend money on anything...

for just the cost of our rent in sydney ($650 wk) we wil be able to pay all our living costs in the uk...

gelato

chocciecake - we both do already work full time to survive in Rome. Neither of us has a high salary but we get by. There are lots of good things here including free or almost free public daycare.

Actually we just got back from holiday in Sydney (seeing the relos) in December and you are so right. The prices were insane. Since I left in 2000 the city has become a place for rich people only (which we are not). I think the only hope is that the bubble will eventually burst.

I didn't realise that the UK is so affordable. Are you living in a city of comparable size to Sydney (ie London)?

ETA - just to stick up for Holland for a moment - the (non-food) shopping there is a hellova lot better than here in Italy. I LOVE Hema for kid's stuff and things like socks and undies. And we buy most of our kid's clothes at little shops in my husband's home village. So much cheaper than Rome and they have real sales.

furkew

There is actually a very good book which came out about 4-5 years ago called "ik mis alleen de Hema" (I only the Hema) about Dutch expats and their stories