 After a long break of nearly three years, I have decided to revive my blog again. I will restart with a weekend trip recommendation for those who are looking to have a taste of the Netherlands outside of Amsterdam: Zeeland… Zeeland has been on our radar ever since we moved to the Netherlands, and we finally have had a chance to make this trip during mom’s visit to us back in August. Before I share the detailed recommendations, allow me to navigate you first on the map. Zeeland is the westernmost and least populous province of the Netherlands, right above Belgian border. It is a province that is pretty much an accumulation of islands and peninsulas. This is because most of Zeeland is below sea level, what a surprise, huh? The name of the province is literally “sea land”, which is probably no surprise to you considering the geography I just described. Our trip to Zeeland was short, we left on a Saturday morning and came back on Sunday evening. The province is small (only about 2,930 square kilometers) but you need to plan your trip in advance as there is no concentrated activities given the scarce population. For this reason, we have decided to keep Middelburg – the capital of Zeeland – as our base and drive around to small villages and sights from there. Looking back, I think this was the right decision as Middelburg offers most of the attractions in the region. Located on the central peninsula of the Zeeland province, it is pretty much less than 30 minute drive to everything else in the province, and offers some picturesque spots. The city is historic, it is dated back to late 8th century, and has the shape of a fort with ancient walls surrounding the city. You can see the aerial view on google to understand what I mean with the pointy edges around the city walls. The city itself is quite small, one can easily cover the entire city center by walking from one end to the other and hitting all attractions in half a day. And this includes frequent stops in little cafes and shops on the small side streets. We started our city tour from the parking lot at the edge of the city center and walked along the shopping streets towards the townhall (stadhuis). Around town hall, there are many small cafes and restaurants where you can enjoy your beer or coffee for a short break.  Another quite nice sight was the Abdij, a small enclosed square with a tower and historical buildings in surrounding. There is also the famous Zeeuws Museum at this square for those museum enthusiasts (not me!).  After about 3-4 hours, we felt that we were actually done with this beautiful small town and have decided to explore other sights in the province. I will first tell you about a site that you should not miss: Oosterscheldekering The Oosterscheldekering is the largest of the 13 ambitious Delta Works series of dams and storm surge barriers, designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding from the North Sea. The construction of the Delta Works was in response to the North Sea Flood of 1953. This was the last great flooding that impacted the area. This surge barrier is nine-kilometer-long and really impressive to see with your own eyes. This place shows you how this small country keeps its safety below sea level. There is also an artificial island called Neeltje-Jans, at one end of the barrier, with a small theme park for the children.  Our last stop during our Zeeland weekend getaway was a small village by the ocean called Westkapelle. Westkapelle is a small city on the island Walcheren. It is on the westernmost tip of Walcheren and is surrounded by the sea on three sides. It is tiny tiny, with a handful of restaurants, but it offered us a nice coffee break before we started our 2-hour return drive to Amsterdam. We certainly enjoyed our weekend getaway in Zeeland, and I hope that you will as well if you ever make it there. Feel free to drop me a line in case you need more specific recommendations such as hotels or restaurants to hit..
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 Today marks a very special anniversary in our lives… We have moved to Amsterdam exactly a year ago! And I though there is no better excuse to break the long period of silence and tell the story of our first year in this beautiful city with some numbers and facts. So, here they are…
365 days since moving to Amsterdam… 365 days of rain (I’m just joking! it’s really not that bad…) 238 days of commute on bicycle, including 5 days on snow and ice, 22 days miserably missed out due to heavy rain… 158 Dutch words learned (152 are the same in German, so I might be cheating a little bit!) 62 runs completed, 547 km run in total, including 1 half marathon and 1 10-mile race… 48 different restaurants tested (and liked! How do they keep the bar so high??) 18 cities visited in 9 different countries, 3 countries for the first time ever!… 12 visits by friends and family (not sure if they came to visit us or the city J) 5 days spent to get used to living here, 1 day was more than enough to fall in love!… 1 laptop bag stolen (but surprisingly not my bike yet, though it is probably just a matter of time)… 1 Ajax game watched live in Bijlmer Arena (I think I watched more Galatasaray games at TT Arena while living in Amsterdam, some habits don’t go away…) 0 days where I wished I still had a car (you want to improve the quality of your life? drop the car!) 0 mouse spotted in the house (our friends tell us that in Amsterdam, you either have a cat as a pet or a mouse, you just might not know it yet!) 0 traffic jams experienced (I’m not counting the heavy congestions on bike lanes during the rush hours)… 0 political turmoil reported, 0 economic crisis artificially generated (booooring! I am still wondering what the Dutch are reporting in the evening news, the cat stuck on the tree?)… I will keep adding more statistics as I remember other stuff, but you get the idea! I had already communicated earlier that my next post would be about the ease and joy of transportation in Amsterdam. I must admit, it’s been a long two months since my last blog post. However, better late than never, right? You may think of it as the additional time I needed to excel on my navigation with Amsterdam’s transportation system. There is one thing that hasn’t changed since my last post, and that is my opinion on how amazing the transportation options are around here! Obsessed with the idea of owning a car? Think twice… If you are coming to Amsterdam as an experienced professional who has climbed up the corporate ladder and earned bunch of perks, it is the natural instinct to protect those while you are transferring. One of the most important compensation elements in most countries is the company car benefit. And once you get the taste of having a nice car with no worries of the cost of fuel, insurance or maintenance, it is hard to let go. The first question you ask during your interviews is “What make/model of car would I have as the company car?” Well, let me tell you; once you start living here, you quickly realize that owning a car is more of a burden than a benefit. The parking permits in Amsterdam run as high as a few hundred euros a month and if you live in the core center of the city, you may wait more than a year to get one! The cost of owning a car does not stop here. Local taxes can run as high as 300 Euros a month. Also, having a company car as a benefit does not excuse you from the cost of driving. The company cars are strictly considered as means of doing business, and if you drive your car for more than 500 km per year (that’s right, per year!), then you are taxed based on the value of your car each year, so in about 5 years you end up paying the full price of your car in taxes.. So, there is no way out of high costs when you join the car owners family in the Netherlands. Thought about going ‘green’? If you insist on driving, there are more green options than owning a car. There are car clubs, where you become a member for a small fee, and you are able to lease a small and environment-friendly car on an hourly basis. Readers from the U.S. will immediately relate this to companies like Zip Car. This is a great option if you don’t need a car on a daily basis, but occasionally need one for either driving out of town or running errands. The most commonly known companies are Green Wheels and Connect Car. They offer a variety of car categories and membership types that suits your specific needs. This can however become another costly experience if you go long distance or extended periods of rentals. But, there is always the traditional way of renting a car for this.   Who needs a car anyways?...
Yes, this is so true for Amsterdam! Before I came here, I did a ton of research on lease company cars, rental cars and car clubs. I was even tempted to sign up for it to make my life ‘convenient’ the minute I arrive. Well, I am glad I didn’t… The public transportation in Amsterdam as well as in the Netherlands is absolutely amazing! The city is literally wired with railways, metros and tramlines. You rarely have to walk more than 5 minutes to get connected to one of the public transports. All trains run on exact schedules, you can follow them on most of the stops and of course you can track your next ride online. Google Maps does an excellent job of routing you through the city on public transportation, including the walking connections in between. If you really want to get ‘local’, you have the 9292.nl website or the 9292 app on your smart phone. You can plan your trip, check for delays and customize your personal frequent locations for easier use. It works like magic! Unlike many urban cities, the trams and trains are very clean and modern. You don’t get the feeling similar to riding the NYC subway or the Bay Area buses. Chances are that the person sitting next to you is either an executive of a multinational firm or a tourist having a time of his life in Amsterdam. The cost of public transportation is also relatively decent. A direct train ride from the airport to the city center costs you 4 Euros, and a tram ride is about 1.50 Euros if you get a ride card called OV-chipkaart. If you are just visiting for a few days, daily passes are also very efficient as they include both the airport transfers and the local rides. The tickets and daily passes can be purchased at major stops, online or on the trams. If you don’t want the complexity of planning, you can always keep it simple and pay 3 Euros for each tram ride. The pleasant experience of public transportation is extended throughout the Netherlands. The national railway system is called NS, and the official website is simply ns.nl. Here, you can also do pretty much everything relating to your travel needs, including a seamless connection to the extended European railways. With the on-time and fast express lines, long distances become really short. For example, Rotterdam is only 25 minutes away from Amsterdam, and Brussels is only about an hour. What if I am not the public transport type of guy?... You can immediately think that taxi would be a good option. Nope, it’s definitely not! Unlike other major cities, taxi rides are crazy expensive, despite the relatively short distances. Just to give you an idea, a taxi ride from the airport to the city center costs more than 50 Euros. If you need to go for a 10-minute ride across the town, you can bet at a minimum 20 Euros. The new trend of Uber may be a creative alternative for you in Amsterdam, despite the fact that it was recently deemed illegal by the local authorities. It comes in options of black car service or simply a local driver taking you from one place to another. This experience will cost you about half of what you would pay for the taxi. If this is the first time you heard about Uber, I encourage you to test it out (here or in your own town) as it is a unique experience… Well, I saved the great news for the last… If you can let go of roaming engines and comfortable seats and go back to basics, I have yet to talk about the best option for you.. Yes, bicycles! Bikes have become a lifestyle, even a symbol of Amsterdam, for a very good reason. But, I am afraid you need to wait for my next blogpost, because this definitely deserves a full post of its own… I promise, I will not wait for another 2 months to do the third post of my expat memoirs series, as I am already excited about it :) This post will be the first of a series of write-ups I am planning to share with you about my experiences as an expat living in Amsterdam. There is absolutely so much to write about, many topics have crossed my mind, but I thought I would start with the natural one first: the experience of arriving here and taking care of the mandatory steps in order to become ‘local’. The word expat is used slightly off-context here in Netherlands. You don’t necessarily have to be on a temporary mission or a fixed-term assignment in order to be an expat. If you are a so called ‘qualified’ professional with an intention to stay for long time, you get the benefits of an expat in the Netherlands. I called it the benefits for a reason, because the Dutch know really well that in order to fuel their sizeable economy, they need more skill and force than what they already have. This is a tiny country, with a population of only 17 million. And to become a recognized economy in the world scale, you need a lot more. Therefore, if you fall in the so called ‘expat’ definition, you are more than welcome over here. Immigrating anywhere is not easy; you basically are leaving behind everything you are accustomed to, and entering a totally unknown territory. But, the Dutch system is specifically designed to make this painful process as easy as possible. The orientation starts even before you arrive, and of course it requires some paperwork. It is not nearly as burdensome as one might guess. Almost all information can be submitted either online or via scanned document, so that the applications can start ahead of time. You first apply for a temporary residence permit, and against the general assumption of immigration services taking forever, this only takes 2-3 weeks. You get a notification that your temporary visa is approved and you can go to the consulate at your hometown and get it within a day, nice start! Once you have this, you are basically free to go in and out of Netherlands and the European Union… Please note that some EU countries may give you a hard time if you are entering the zone through them for the first time, so it is advisable to start with the Netherlands. Once you arrive in the country, the immigration officer greets you with a smiling face and really welcomes you. You are in before you realize, and off to your ‘new home’, no hassles, no hardships. In almost all major cities, there is an expatcenter. I first thought that this was another tourist information desk where you can get nice booklets about the city and the country, but it is much more...  They have truly integrated all ‘localization’ services here. So, you don’t need to go to the registrar or town hall separately. You get your Dutch ID number (kind of a tax or social security number), you get stamped a work authorization in case it is not granted before, and you get fingerprinted for immigration. They say that you should receive your permanent residency card with a week, yes, you heard it right! As you are getting ready to step out, they offer you all forms and information about getting your driving license, and point you across the street to the banks where you can now open your first local bank account. All of this takes about an hour or two, and before you realize, you are ready for your first day of work!
There are two more formalities that you have to do within the first few months of your arrival; getting a health insurance and getting tested for tuberculosis, which are both mandatory here for foreign nationals. The insurance is just a matter of filing another online form, and the TB test is taken at the general health center in the city, but even there the process works like a magic and you are in and out within 15 minutes. You might ask: can everything be so perfect? Of course not... One downside I might mention here is adapting to the local language. The sounds are very rough and different, so even as an English and German speaker, I have a hard time following people here. By the way, everybody is so friendly and well educated that they immediately switch to English when they realize you are not Dutch. And thank God there is google to translate all those local websites instantly to broken English for us :) I tried to give you some flavor to the super-nice experience I have had with the painful process of changing your life. If you want to find out more details, there are a ton of websites out there describing all of the above in a lot of detail. The one I would highly recommend is www.iamsterdam.com, so if you are seriously thinking about making a move, definitely check it out, it helped me a lot! Alright, this is it for now… I think my next post will be about the ease and joy of transportation in Amsterdam - it is simply amazing - so please come back and check out the site over the next few weeks… |
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