Living in Netherlands vs Living in Germany as a Foreigner| What you should know before moving.

hi guys welcome back to my channel so in today's video we're going to be talking about living in netherlands what it's like versus living in germany so to talk about netherlands i have my friend here christy welcome to the channel and of course to talk about germany yes truly we'll be doing the german comparison um if you're not subscribed to my channel please subscribe and if you're not following me on instagram it's atwalio chronicles do you want to leave your instagram handle or you want to keep yourself on the private privates well hi guys my instagram handle is at cheerleading1.1 okay you got that um so yeah let's get into the main comparison of this video that i'm sure you guys want to hear all about so first of all i'm gonna ask christy some questions about like living in netherlands like how long have you been living in specifically amsterdam now how long have you been living in amsterdam um well i moved to amsterdam in september last year so i have been there for roughly 10 10 months little over 10 months okay so like before you move to amsterdam were you living anywhere of course you were living somewhere else what i wanted to ask was like did you live anywhere outside of your home country before uh moving to the netherlands oh no no so this uh moving to amsterdam is the first time i left my home country to live anywhere else okay and have you did you visit anywhere else before going there or you just like it was your first place visiting outside of your home country oh no um well i have to process my visa to come to amsterdam i had to go to ghana oh okay okay so yeah and you're originally from nigeria for those who are um wondering yeah i forgot to say that you're originally from nigeria right okay so now let's get into the comparison this is the fun part so so what's it like generally like the cost of living in amsterdam for instance rents groceries foods and so on transports can you tell us a bit about that well um where i live is some sort of student accommodation set up so for my own um accommodation it's roughly let's say approximately 500 euros 500 euros per month like what's the size of your room um i might be wrong what i'm going to try and remember probably 12 meters just 12 square meters oh that's quite small for five months wow wow that might be wrong yeah amsterdam is definitely way more expensive than berlin here because i talked about the cost of living in berlin in the previous in a previous video i made i will leave the link somewhere and i said like for for me personally i i'm very i'm quite lucky i paid 300 for my room and it's like 20 or 22 square meters all right yeah your room is a lot bigger than mine yeah yeah so um i'm quite lucky but generally the um um rooms for students or for private persons individual persons that's what i mean costs anything between like uh 400 350 400 500 500 is quite extreme but some people be extra like that they charge that much yeah um i think ours costs up to 500 because we also had some appliances in the room so they came with a fridge a bed a microwave so i think that's why yeah so is it like a student accommodation or it's a private accommodation that you had to find yourself or well luckily for us the school made all the arrangements before we got here oh that's so nice so you didn't have to look for accommodation yourself okay on the other hand in in berlin i think there are no way not i think i know that for students there are no like students accommodation organized by the school instead there's a student body that is called student and vec that organizes accommodation for all students of public and private meals some private universities in in germany so this body is in charge of accommodation and not every there are not enough accommodations to go around anyway so like most people most times you have to look for accommodation yourself and then you go to the general market and look for like a room on your own which is quite stressful but yeah yeah so what about like um groceries what kind of supermarkets do you guys have there and like how much do you spend roughly on on food per week for instance um well i would just say first don't use how much i spent as a rule of thumb oh yeah this is like our personal experience please i tend to go outside my list many times when i go grocery shopping but um i could paying it down to an approximate figure of about 40 euros on groceries per week no no no per week i think when i go shopping it's what i buy could last me say two to three weeks sometimes so girl 40 euros three two to three weeks yes i buy vegetables i buy some meat i buy milk cereal you know i don't well that's just for me like i said so how many times you eat in the day yeah well i don't i cook over the weekend and you know since we're in school we do this bulk cooking sometimes where you just have food to eat throughout the week okay and i eat lots of noodles so that's probably why i don't need to watch food okay okay but like 40 years two to three weeks i need your secret please please guys don't release this budgeting secret like 40 euros for three weeks or two weeks that's amazing that's like wow yeah and like what do you guys have like discount supermarkets and um like budget supermarkets and hi and do you guys have like different types there like um it is here well i believe there would be but i sort of found the one i like and i just go there all the time so it's called alpha time okay yes so as far as discounts go i have a discount card oh so once you're checking out you just swipe the card and then you get some discounts on what you've bought so how did you get the discounts card yeah the um the cashiers always offer it to you so they'd ask do you have a bonus card if you don't have it then you get one and if you have you just swipe it uh that's kind of like a loyalty reward system kind of because you come there so often so you get some kind of like points for the money you spend there right yeah and the points don't accumulate over time for you to get it maybe at the end of the month or something it's on the spot so once you just swipe the card then it just gives you the discounts that's nice i don't think i don't know if anything like that exists in germany i've never heard of it and i'm sure if i heard of it i would have jumped on that i know i would have jumped on that train quickly but i never heard of it and i don't want to repeat some of the things i said in my video about the cost of living in berlin but i talked about also the cost of groceries and stuff in that video if you want more information please go to that video and watch it um let's talk about transportation of course yeah so um so many people move from one point to another using their bicycles but i did not jump in on that so i still ride the tram a lot and sometimes i take the uber okay somebody being sorry okay no no no it's only when it's necessary so it's not every day but please when is your next session okay i don't want to change okay so for transportation like how much do you spend roughly per month can you give us like per month per month let's just say per month i would budget about 80 euros to load my tram card so that's basically taken into account going to school every day and then a few other you know places i might go okay during the week do you guys have like um districts and regions and stuff like that or does it cover like public trust all public transportation that's tram buses trains do you guys yeah we have trains okay sorry no so trams buses trains it covers everything yeah and it covers everything within amsterdam and outside amsterdam yeah i think we use the card in the netherlands so the whole of the country you can use that card i think so okay guys i'm gonna check while i'm editing this but you can put the correct expansion because i don't know that sounds a bit it's the gvb card yeah so ah okay interesting so for us here we have like a transport card i talked again i talked about this thing in my previous videos guys i'm just promoting this i'm not promoting it but the information is date just can't watch it okay um so we have like a region abc like i told you when you came so um depending on the regions you want to cover that determines how much you have to buy the tickets and of course like if you live here the transportation ticket thing is cheaper than if you're coming as a tourist and you want to buy like uh seven day tickets and stuff like that oh well some people get discounts on movement within regions as well you know like i told you it's the so there's this subscription that some people have on the transport um companies website so they get a different type of card so this one is yellow this one has your details and you link it to your bank account and then you just pay you know i think monthly yeah and so on that card you get discounts within your selected regions as well as your daily trips so you wouldn't spend as much as 80 that you spend right now you know so since i project 80 my friends who have it um say estimated to be let's say 60 tops so while i pay 80 they are much cheaper than yeah it's cheaper okay let's talk about um safety and security okay like um as you're living in amsterdam as a woman did you like what's the situation like in terms of do you feel comfortable um walking around late at night without feeling anybody harassing you or stuff like that well i definitely have a greater sense of security if i had to walk around at you know odd hours compared to you know where i've lived before and nigeria to be specific okay i tried not to say the name let's say it yeah so even when i don't let even with memories of the past you know would try to make me scared to walk setting roads at certain times my friends would tell me come on this is amsterdam you're safe here yeah so i think it's so far i have not had any security concerns or breaches so if you can feel comfortable walking around even at 3am if you're coming back you take the public transport and stuff like that yeah well i don't think they'll be running at 3am so it's instances like that's where i would need to take the uber where are you coming from at 3am girl okay oh that's quite interesting it doesn't run at 3am i think the tram stopped running um nearly two past twelve for instance and also the trains about the same time or maybe one so there's some time of the night where you can't find trains or trams oh what's it say i think for berlin like the frequency there's always trans um there's always trains and um and uber uber is the underground um yeah so i don't know about trams but i know trains buses and um the metro underground metro runs even at late at night but the frequency is less than during the day so that's the good thing about berlin here that there's always public transportation at every time it's just that maybe the frequency when it's like 12 or 3 a.m is more like every hour or every 30 minutes i don't know okay but something like that that's an interesting difference see we brought out a difference for you guys nice that's interesting um as for safety and security um i also feel the same way here in berlin like of course if you compare it to nigeria for instance like a world of difference but i feel absolutely comfortable walking around even at 12. i mean you also have to be street street smart as well like you will not walk in the park exactly alone not taught me that you know you're just asking for trouble like i think as a woman anyway so uh but generally i also have this sense of safety and security although i've been reading some questionable stories recently since this runa is making people crazy i've been reading some questionable stories recently on the internet news and stuff like that so let's talk about one of my favorite topics which is making friends you've been there now for 10 months what's the experience being like for you like getting in touch with people outside of your class okay um i'll just say at this point ninety percent of the people i hang out with are people in my class girl yeah i mean like you know some i met before leaving nigeria so it kind of just remained that way uh so you've not tried to make friends you've not even attempted to make friends outside of your class circle well i have you know one or two people i know who don't go to my my school so ah those are those people want to talk about how like how easy or difficult was it to get in touch with these people and make a connection and friends you know because when you move to a new country you kind of establish your social circle again and in some countries is easier in some countries it's more difficult to make friends yeah so all these ones were online friends yeah so i met one on internations that i recommend yeah so yeah so they're all online i did not meet any friends through physical interactions for instance unless we're counting the people that live beside me my name is okay fine yes but like um these people are they also foreigners like you or they are dutch people no no they're foreigners oh so it's themselves you know they're just friends for me okay i have to say like um in my personal experience because i'm one that would actually go out and try to make friends um i find that it's slightly well if i take your story and compare it to my experience slightly it seems slightly easier to make friends here but more it's more easy with um fellow expats or foreigners like you that it is making friends with actual local people but i have to say i have to give it to my german friends i do have some german friends and i mean the general thing is like it's not easy to make german friends but i have a few of them that i really appreciate guys i appreciate you okay you have to tell us what we're doing wrong oh what guy don't worry i'm making a video with the secrets i'm giving you all my secrets on how to make friends when you move to a new country watch out for that video okay so another thing i like to talk about of course is language so um is there like how would you say you don't speak dutch right no i don't not even like basic level right so how would you say life is for you generally without like you only speak english and you don't have any dutch speaking skills what's life for you everyday life for you as a result of this language barrier well i have been able to sail smoothly without knowing dutch in amsterdam i mean even when i'm in situations where someone speaks dutch to me i just smile and say please english i don't speak any dutch but when people when i meet people and they speak dutch to me probably when i'm buying something or in a bank i just smile and say please can you say that in english and then they just switched to english so oh that's so nice so they're not upset or anything so nobody like attacks you i'm like we are in touch sorry we are not allowed to speak dutch i wanted to say netherlands [Laughter] no oh that's so nice no one has attacked me and made me speak dutch by force i mean they just and they're always switching to english in a friendly way right yeah they just switch to english and even when their english is not good you know they switch to english and then some are a bit shy then they say okay my english is not so good and then i say it doesn't matter i wouldn't understand you yeah i mean well berlin is a whole different world from other cities in germany so in berlin of course you will find generally that people speak english as well and when they see that you're struggling they speak english to you but we have those outliers that are just rude by default and they tell you i talked about it in some of my videos like they tell you outrightly that you are in charming visiting deutschland if you're emotional expression i mean i don't know in my head this is how they always sound when they say that you know so um we still have some people like that they're just rude by nature so i don't think it's a function of i mean i'm trying to support berlin here so you guys get it right it's not a function of the berlin situation it's a function of just the rude people yeah but in other german cities i think english smaller cities not the big ones i think english is not as widely spoken as it is in berlin and it's expected that you should speak german there's this expectation like nobody's going to tolerate you not selling me diana second german like nobody's here for that so that's an interesting um distinction between the two countries right yeah yeah i mean one time i took a school trip to one small city outside amsterdam and well i didn't have to interact with so many locals but the few i had to talk to you know it was still okay to speak english so wow it's called i might not pronounce it right but shelling okay yeah so you know it was a full class trip and you know we're always with our facilitators so they probably made the interaction with the you know hotel stuff easy yeah but i could speak english to those people too oh that's so nice yes that's so nice i think yeah english is more widely spoken and more widely accepted in in the netherlands as compared to germany for instance would you if you have the option to live in the netherlands again would you actually choose to live in the netherlands if i had the option to live in amsterdam or well any part of the netherlands i would i would i mean if it's a really good opportunity you know maybe a great job great husband single and searching she already gave you guys her instagram slide into the dmv if you are reasonable please if you are foolish please stay with don't foolish people okay yeah thank you thank you so much for sharing like your experience and your perspective with us on this channel and guys thank you so much for sticking with us till the end of this video i hope you enjoyed it number one the number two i hope you learned something the most important thing actually on my channel is that you enjoy watching the video that's it then if you learn something great okay guys thank you so much for sticking around and i will see you in my next video cheers bye guys

Channel: Waleochronicles

Views: 19,394

Keywords: livinginnetherlands, livingingermany, livinginnetherlandsvslivingingermany, netherlandsvsgermany, livinginnetherlandsasaforeigner, livingingermanyasaforeigner, livinginholland, livingingermanyblack, livinginnetherlandblack, studyinnetherland, studyingermany, nigerianinnetherlands, nigerianingermany

Id: cmTb2HT_TlQ

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020