10 Reasons why I love the Netherlands | Why Moving to the Netherlands might be for you

hello everyone in this video I'm going to talk about 10 reasons why the Netherlands might be for you the first reason is English when you are moving to another country it's very important that you feel part of the community and integrated and language plays a big role in this feeling leaving the house and not being able to communicate with the locals brings discomfort to your daily life but if you know to speak in English language is not a problem in the Netherlands that is the official language in the Netherlands but about 90 or more of the population actually speaks English and I have to say they speak a very good English in 2022 the Dutch rank the best non-native English speakers in the world according to the EF English proficiency Index this means that going on to do your daily life in the Netherlands will not be a problem also there are a lot of jobs for English-speaking candidates facilitating the entrance in the Dutch job market the Netherlands is a big expat community and that people are usually very welcoming to foreigners and make an effort to engage with newcomers for example by speaking in English as of January 2022 2.6 million of the residents in the Netherlands were born in a foreign country this is about 15 percent of the population that came to the Netherlands as immigrants with such a big immigrant Community it's very easy to meet people who are in the same situation as you and this is especially done through so many activities and events for immigrants to come together and to get to know each other and of course that sheets are always welcome another reason why the Netherlands might be for you is of course the Dutch people if I had to describe the Dutch people I would describe them as easy going very practical and direct I have a feeling that the Dutch are much more relaxed to a lot of topics or matters that other nationalities or other cultures give more concern towards too for example the university when I studied in maastrich I had a feeling that the university culture was much as competitive for example the grades in the exams in the Netherlands the students seem to be very pleased to just have the passing grade in general while in Portugal having the passing grade is a disaster like it means you are not good enough and by this I mean that you will not have access to the best job opportunities or even to the job markets so what happens is that in University in Portugal you become much more competitive towards your colleagues well in the Netherlands people students are just more relaxed and it's not just the grades at University but it's also how they interact with people who have somehow some Authority towards them for example the professors at University in maastrich and I think the same applies to the rest of the universities in the Netherlands you call your teacher or your tutor by the first name well in Portugal that will never happen you call my professor or there is a barrier created and I think by calling by the first name you bring down this barrier keeping the same level of respect and the same happens outside of school and outside of University even with your for example your family involved your parents involved there are a lot of doubts on how do you call them because we do not call in Portugal by the first name usually while in the Netherlands here it's much more relaxed it's just called by the first name it brings so much Simplicity to our lives and the same happens in the corporate world in the Netherlands so I feel that in Portugal it's much more hierarchical while in the Netherlands the culture is much more flat you just go to the boss of your boss if needed while in Portugal you cannot cross that layer in the majority or at least through my experience but also from what I know from our Portuguese culture that happens another thing that I found interesting among the Dutch people is that through the several interactions that I had in the Netherlands I never felt judgment or comparison about the job that I had or my background while in Portugal people seem to judge more or people seem to give much more importance about your background about what you do with your life about your what your parents do and they seem to put you in a category according to these three factors the Dutch they make you feel much more comfortable by not comparing you or by not making you feel judged or being compared they just seem to tolerate and accept much more have a much more open-minded than what I experiencing Portugal and I already mentioned in my previous video but the Dutch people are very direct you know exactly what the other person is thinking what they are feeling I understand why a lot of people a lot of cultures might take this as not being so polite because the Dutch people are direct for the good and for the bad and when they have to give negative feedback they will just give you without making it sound better or prettier they just give you the raw truth another reason is the culture the Netherlands is a country so rich in history there are so many museums so many exhibitions across the whole country that you can visit and besides this there are also a lot of activities I think every week almost every night there is a different activity Let It Be musicals whether it be theaters at where it be festivals and it's quite impressive because it's a small country and you have so much to do so I think you will not get bored if you come to the Netherlands and there is actually a museum card that you pay a annual fee of around 65 Euros and you have access to more than 450 museums across the whole Netherlands I will even put the link in the description below in addition to the all the museums that you can visit one of my favorite activities is actually just strolling around the cities the city centers in the Netherlands are just beautiful I've been living here for four years and a half and sometimes when I go to the city center I cannot even believe that I'm living in a first time I was not expecting that the nature in the Netherlands was so beautiful from the beaches and I came from Portugal which has beautiful beaches too Dunes in the middle of forests to the canals crossing the cities to the Lakes okay mountains are very much missed but this is also very beautiful so if you are an outdoors person and you like adventures in the nature the Netherlands has that for you I'm saying this and I'm putting this on the video because I think when people think about the Netherlands they do not think about the nature part and the outdoors part they think bicycles canals like in the city center of Amsterdam but it's really beautiful when you start exploring outside the city sometimes we just take the bikes we cycle 15 to 20 minutes to the suburbs and you find yourself in the middle of a forest and I really like that a lot of cities in the Netherlands have beautiful Parks very clean very well maintained and it really feels like that you are escaping a little bit eating so I find that being surrounded by nature in the Netherlands is very much accessible than one might think another reason is the quality of life and there are so many factors that impact your quality of life and quality of life is usually described as the standard of Health comfort and happiness experienced by individual or a group of individuals when I first came to the Netherlands in 2014 I noticed so many people on the street with a smile in their faces I don't think they realized they were walking or cycling with a smile but I remember thinking that they really seemed so much content with their wives and indeed when I moved to the Netherlands I saw a boost in my quality of life and I believe that the topics that I will be sharing next are the main reasons why my quality of life improved and I want to be very clear that quality of life can mean many different things to many different people and in this video I'm only sharing my experience and my take on quality of life and I'm only talking about some factors that contribute to it work-life balance the Netherlands as the shortest working week in the world with an average of 30.3 hours worked in the main job per week by an individual and this is a ranking made by the oecd the organization for economic cooperation and development by comparison the countries in the oecd work on average 7.2 more hours than the Netherlands and the US works on average 8.8 hours more than the Netherlands this is basically one more day of working that they have imagine what could you do if you have an additional value in your week there are a lot of reasons that might be driving this impressive average in the Netherlands and one of them is that in the Netherlands if an employee wants to adjust his or hers working hours the employer cannot refuse an employee has the right to work part-time as long as the employer cannot demonstrate that the company would suffer severe consequences if the employee starts working part-time the Netherlands also has the working hours act which is basically an act that puts a maximum limit to the number of hours that an employee can work per week for example for an employee aged 18 or above it can only work 12 hours maximum per day and 60 hours maximum per week but they can't work these maximums every week but rather an average of consecutive weeks it's not usual for the Dutch people to work overtime it is quite usual that they leave work between 4 and 5 PM and from the different organizations that I work for I saw that it's very common as well for people to have a four-day work week it is also important to mention that in the Netherlands it is mandatory for employees to take annual leave which is a minimum of four times the number of hours they work per week so for example an employee that works eight hours per day which gives a total working hours of 40 hours per week they are entitled to 160 hours of paid leave which totals 20 dice of paid leave another reason is safety the Netherlands ranks 21st out of 163 countries considered in the Global Peace Index of 2022 and it's actually ahead of countries like Australia Spain Italy Sweden and the UK especially when I compared to capitals let's say whisper and Amsterdam I live in both of these capitals and in Lisbon I will never walk out alone at night in the street there are so many times unfortunately that I felt unsafe that I had to cross to the other side of the road that I had to leave a Subway because I was not feeling safe while in Amsterdam also another capital of Europe I walk alone at night I cycled alone at night I never had a weird encounter and usually the type of crimes that you hear about on the day to day are not saying the crimes that end up on the news is that someone stole a bike or someone is not paying for the public transport quite different reality than in Lisbon another reason is the bicycle culture the Netherlands is considered the world cycling Nation where there are more bicycles than people and the Prime Minister leads by example by cycling to work the Netherlands has more than 35 000 kilometers of bicycle paths where in many situations the bicycles are the ones who have the priority over the cars and I have to say being able to cycle everywhere safely for me is a luxury and means freedom no longer having to wait for a bus or for the public transport to arrive no longer having to be stuck in traffic no longer paying for fuel or paying for a parking place or even spending hours looking for a parking place when I came to the Netherlands my stress Rivals decreased and I believe that the bicycle has a lot to do with it going to work in the morning by bike allows you to do a little bit or a lot of cardio and it really wakes new up and gives you energy to start your day and when you come back from work or from school you have to cycle back you are getting some fresh air you are able to forget everything that happened and you arrive home a much better person than the person or then the version of you if you are stuck in traffic another reason is the public transport network if the second distance presents to you a huge Challenge and if the weather is not very cycling friendly there are a lot of options to get around I find the public transport of this country quite impressive there are buses there are trams in the big cities in Amsterdam brought to them you try back and the Hague there is an underground line in Amsterdam and wrote through them there are trains there are fairies there are so many options to choose from and this really helps the different types of commute of people I know that the Dutch people tend to complain a lot about the trains and the sketch of the trains and if they function well or not but I have to say they work very well compared with Portugal If you have something happening and you cannot catch the train you will probably catch the next option in 10 minutes and I'll even put here two differences between the public transport Network and here I'm specifying more of the trains in the Netherlands and in Portugal and as you can see in the Netherlands you see several options different colors reaching everywhere while in Portugal the majority is in the western side of Portugal If you want to go to the east side of Portugal you have one or two options and as you can see a lot of blanks there are even places that is very difficult to reach to bus Network in Portugal wound hot cover as it should in the Netherlands you can go export Villages that are more far away than the big Urban centers and these Villages are not empty these Villages have people they are very well maintained there are things happening in The Villages it's very easy to access everywhere because of the public transport Network I hope that you enjoyed this video I'll put some links in the description below for you to explore a little bit more of the topics that I mentioned and I see you in the next video

Channel: Mafalda Boers

Views: 48,306

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Id: F7Q_wz-rvPk

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023