Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to The Netherlands| Expat Living 2023

hi everyone I'm Chi ifobi and I've been living and working in the Netherlands as an expat for two years plus I moved to the Netherlands in the summer of 2020 for my full-time job during the pandemic I had just graduated from my Master's and I was really excited about living in a new environment and had been looking forward to this new phase of life just like you I did a lot of YouTube research before moving I also created a few overarching priorities I focused my research on before moving some of my priorities were housing Healthcare language Community as well as my finances I wanted to make a video that gave suggestions on how best to approach decision making for some of these priorities before moving and whilst living here please do keep in mind that these tips are based on my opinion and personal experience and hopefully it's helpful to you in some way the first tip would be for me to resist the urge to live in Amsterdam now this advice is very relative to where you school if you're a student or if you work where your workplace is for me my workplace was close to Amsterdam indeed but I think I could have gotten away with also living in neighboring towns around Amsterdam and my reason for this is that I found when I moved here that I enjoyed smaller communities um just places that were more traditional than the huge apartment buildings and there's also traditional places in Amsterdam but for me where I stay is a huge apartment building and I found that that's not what I wanted I still live in um apartment building because I could not be bothered to move but something I wish I had known would be uh to move to somewhere like Harlem which I really enjoy I do a lot of street photography actually I have a YouTube video already on my YouTube page when I went to Paris for Christmas and so I walk around a lot I visit a lot of neighboring towns and I take pictures and I really fell in love with Harlem Leiden as well as another good city it's about a 30 to 35 minute commute from Amsterdam same thing with Harlem around 20 minutes and this is a really really cute towns that have like little cute bakeries and very small communities I think I would have preferred that so I would say really do your research if you're moving with a moving company really ask about the neighboring towns you also find that rent would be cheaper I don't think uh hugely cheaper but a little bit cheaper the farther you go away from Amsterdam as well so do resist the urge to only um look for houses in Amsterdam when you are trying to rent the next one would be how expensive transportation is and I do not know how to ride a bike I tried to learn before I came but the skills that I acquired were not sufficient enough to apply the Amsterdam Road as a new biker to be honest with you so I did buy a bicycle which is funny because I've just never used it before um but it is a transportation that's the train system transportation can get very expensive especially if you commute every single day and if maybe your company doesn't cover a transportation cost or if you as a person if your company does cover it if you are always out and about those costs will build up I'm not aware of any discounts on the transportation system except the ones for students I know that there's a discount for students and but if you know of any other discounts that are applied to cards please leave it in the description below if you're an expat or you're a resident of the Netherlands because I don't know but that adds up fast so you have to either make a decision to buy a car which can also get expensive to be honest because you're paying I'm sure you're paying insurance on that you're paying parking fees especially where you live you have to pay parking fees so I would say just be aware that Transportation can get expensive and plan accordingly next tip so another thing I wish I had known would be that it would not be easy to make friends I think this is also very relative to the time that I moved I moved in 2020 during the pandemic so it was just near impossible to first of all even go out and do things um as well as make friends so for me what worked for me then was reaching out to people on Instagram now this is you have to use your judgment with this because I don't want people going to meet people in enclosed areas and you know um not being safe so I would say really apply your judgment for me I'm an introvert so um approaching people in my own time after observing them or observing their Instagram was the way that worked for me I think another way that could work for you now especially since the pandemic is basically over would be to have some kind of hobby so if you like um art or if you like exercise there's something called class pass where you can pay amount of money and you get an amount of credits and then you can go to different kinds of classes like yoga or Pilates or spin class I'm sure you could meet people there um there's also like pottery and um yeah pottery classes art classes and you can meet people there as well it's a bit difficult here because especially if you don't know the language because most of them their friends are from high school and college which is the same as me right I have my friends from college and I'm still close to them and I still talk to them so you'll find that if you're looking for a friend group as opposed to one-on-one connection it might be harder for you to insert yourself into a friend group rather than just have a one-on-one connection with someone another place to make friends of course would be work and that's also how I've made some of my friends as well so I have made friends via just messaging a few people on Instagram as well as from work now the third thing I wish someone would have told me would be that you absolutely need a Dutch bank account within the first two months so I was under the impression because I had a Visa Visa card from the bank that I was using in the US and I thought I would be able to use this so I remember my first day I went to the grocery store when I came and I could not use my Visa card in the albertine albertine is a supermarket grocery store here and they said they only accepted Dutch uh bank cards and that was really really shocking for me because I just had never known anyone to refuse money from a Visa card so that's something you have to really have in mind is that you either withdraw cash and use cash when you first arrive um or you just make sure you sign up for a Dutch bank account I don't remember if you need your BSN number to go ahead and sign up for an account I would double check that and put that in the description box below or if you're as well if you know please go ahead and put that in the comments but yeah you do need a Dutch bank account especially if you're gonna get paid through your employee employer they will ask you ultimately for a Dutch bank account so that's something you should um really consider another thing is that you should make sure that the bank you're using has an English app some of the apps some of the bank apps do not have an English option I know One bank I know that does is Abby and Amro and honestly a lot of expats you use that bank um so yeah that could be that could be another thing if not just navigating banking will be a huge issue for you so also have that in mind the fourth one yes one two three right yes yeah the fourth one would be um just being aware now most of the documents taxes municipality documents Community documents that come in um as letters who always be in Dutch also the news will be in Dutch the reason why I'm saying this is because I came during the pandemic and there was a lot of notifications and um news that was coming in that I just didn't know I was not aware of because I couldn't watch the news because it was in Dutch so I will there is a um an English Dutch website that has all the current news for you to know as an expert if Dutch is not something you're comfortable with yet or you've just started learning and that's a good way for you to um be aware and just keep keep abreast of all the news that's going on um so that you don't get fined and then another one the fifth one would be the Health Care system I wish people would let me know that the Healthcare System here is a bit different so you have your GP you have your doctor and then you have like your dentist or your orthodontist or you know the person that takes care of your IU optician for me when I remember when I went to the GP For the First Time The Vibes are just very different I think in the US it's Overkill right they want to test you for everything and anything that is even when nothing is wrong with you but here it's much more laid back so you have to be really aware that if you're in pain or if you have a complaint you really have to stand your ground and be assertive in that situation because the tendency for your gpn this is only relative to my experience I'm not speaking for every GP but from my experience my GP I met was very laid back I remember I asked for a test and she was like you don't need the test why do you need to test if you're not feeling any pain so that was very shocking for me because if I had said that to a doctor in the US or if I just asked for a test in Nigeria they would have just done the test so that's something to be aware of is if you know indeed that you're in pain either go to the hospital if it's an emergency or just be assertive and really you know have that conversation with your GP because I think they're going to start psychoanalyzing you to figure out if you're a hypochondria and that might then set the precedent for the rest of the way they treat you going forward so just be aware of that that it is a more laid-back Health Care System here um the last one that I wish someone would have let me know is or I wish I had read upon is all the fines and all the taxes you have to pay now for me one of the fines that I paid was not recycling properly and this is because the recycling box was already full and I still just put it at the corner of the recycling box and I got it fine because I thought as long as you just have it out there so I would advise you to number one call them because there's a number on the website that says call us if this box is full or just keep it in your apartment so you see that they come pick it up and I didn't know anything about that so I got slapped with the fine so just be aware that they're fine I think there's also a fine for if you're biking and you're recording with your phone it's a pretty hefty fine as well so make sure you're just aware of the fines that that come also the taxes there's water taxes there's waste collection taxes and these notices will come in Via your mail your mailbox so make sure you're always checking your mailbox it's also going to be in Dutch so just go ahead and use Google Translate with that or you can keep checking the municipality website where you log in with your account there's something called a dgid that kind of keeps all your records of your registration or anything attached to community wise and you can always check if you have any outstanding balances there and then just go ahead and pay the reason being is that there's usually some kind of timeline attached to some of these taxes or some of this clients so if you don't pay within the conscripted period Then you could I don't know get a bigger fine or the the amount that you have to pay will probably increase so that's one thing I wish someone would have let me know is that um there are taxes to pay when it comes to water taxes waste taxes and the certain fines that apply now I'm sure I wasn't able to cover all all the tips but to me these were the most important and hopefully these were helpful to you if you're an expert and there's more that I haven't mentioned which I'm sure there is go ahead and let us know in the comments if there's any other video you want me to create um as long as it's not about immigration because I don't know much of course is there if there's an overwhelming questioning on that I will try and gather information our research and I'll put out a video for it but if there's any other questions you have please do let me know in the comments I'll try to answer as best as I can but for now I think that's all yeah so see you in the next video If you enjoyed this if it was helpful go ahead and subscribe go ahead and like it go ahead and share what else turn on your notification bells for new videos when I do post I haven't set a Cadence to how regular I will post um for now it's kind of just based on inspiration or based on demand but I will indeed that's something I aspire to do is to set a Cadence to how often I post um but till then goodbye [Music]

Channel: Chi Efobi

Views: 30,263

Keywords:

Id: TOjC41xwmZo

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 08 2023