What moving to the Netherlands is really like! Week in the Life of an American in the Netherlands

hi everyone i'm evan i'm an american living in the netherlands and today i thought i would share with you about what moving to the netherlands actually entails thought i would give you a little bit of a glimpse into what a very average normal week for me in the netherlands looks like share a little bit with you about what i really enjoy here and also you know what you need to do when you actually moved to the netherlands i thought i would tell you a little bit about some of my experiences as well as we go along so when i have a few minutes off i like to go for a walk because sometimes the weather is nice and the weather isn't always nice but as you can see today the sun is out and utrecht has a lot of lovely places that you can walk to so today i thought i would walk to villamina park which is a big park in utrecht it's a city park i feel like i should probably clarify that i'm not off of work today but i'm taking a few minutes off for a walk so in front of me on my way to the park what you can see is pets museum which is an old railway museum it's really cool so that is basically a museum about trains i've never gone in there but supposedly it's really cool [Music] this is an old railway track right in the middle of utrecht this is insane where are we in the city or in the countryside city or countryside okay so now i've literally walked two three minutes away from the center and look at this it looks like you're in a little village so that is also something you shouldn't be surprised about if even if you live in a dutch city because dust cities are small and really cute so we have arrived in athena park [Music] really so be it winter or summer time you get to enjoy the city parks here because i think everyone's always out and about and enjoying this little piece of greenery in the otherwise concrete jungle i mean who wouldn't be happy doing this right seriously on days like this i'm just so happy like i just had to work today it was a pretty normal day but when you can be out and enjoy this weather like isn't that amazing it just really reminds me of why i wanted to move like american cities are nice and they have nice parts but it's not like this [Music] hello everyone it is a different day of the week today but still working unfortunately it is not the weekend but um i thought today was interesting because i actually thought i was supposed to have off from work because i requested off so that i could do something that i need to do this sounds really cryptic but i requested off initially today so that i could complete something that i need to do as part of my visa to stay in the netherlands so i thought that was interesting to share because when you move to the netherlands there are a few bureaucratic things that you need to do to integrate into dutch society the inburgering as it's called so one of the things uh you need to do for instance is have a certain command of the dutch language it's not a very high level that you need to have so i think it's a2 which basically just means that you are able to i don't know go to a coffee shop keep doing this go to a cafe or a coffee shop and you know order what you need so if you wanted a cappuccino you should be able to say cappuccino all she believed basically that level i think it's pretty reasonable because you live in the netherlands it's kind of helpful the other thing you need to do that's funny which i actually haven't done yet so i should get on it it is part of my uh visa requirement it's not for citizenship it's just so that i can continue living in this country uh so i should i should really do this i don't know why i've been putting it off and the part that i'm putting it off putting off is this cultural component this cultural test that you need to do and it has all kinds of questions like i don't know about the royal family about the history of the netherlands it also has some funny questions i've heard from people who've done this before that like if it's your neighbor's birthday what do you do do you do nothing do you say happy birthday or bake them a cake and it's like okay um it depends which one's correct and also even if dutch people don't typically bake each other a cake can imagine that wouldn't it be nice if your neighbor just randomly baked you a cake for your birthday i mean i wouldn't wonder what's in it but you know generally speaking it's pretty nice if your neighbor does that for you anyway so these are some funny things that you need to do but there is a third thing that i needed to do that i had no idea about until a friend of my girlfriends brought it to my attention and i was supposed to do that today and that thing is called a participation for cladding so like a participation like i wouldn't notice it just that basically you have done this participation course that's effectively what it is and it's a day-long workshop and i don't know what it entails all i know is that it costs 150 euros to do which is you know not nothing but also i have no idea what it's about and i was supposed to find out today but the leader of this workshop the session leader session lead um is out for whatever reason and this had to be rescheduled but i still thought it was interesting to share this with you because i mean if you're international did you know this i got so many letters when i moved that i completely missed this one because i thought it was one of the previous letters that i'd received about you know doing various things for your inburkering i had no idea this was even part of it and you only have one year to do it luckily it was i i got more time because of covid otherwise i would not be able to stay in this country and i somehow missed this letter also you have to remember that these letters arrive in they're in dutch they're not in english which is fine except that i'm someone even in english when i get these long bureaucratic letters i i try and read them but you know inevitably i skim through them which i know i shouldn't do but it's just how i work and yeah i missed this particular flattening it you know request to join one of these sessions and my girlfriend also missed it so that was not great i'm so happy her friend brought this up because she works with a lot of internationals and was like oh have you done this yet i was like no don't even know what that is so it's a very real thing you can look this up and yeah i'm curious in the future so i'm gonna do it now in a couple of weeks thankfully that's still within my time a lot of time period grateful for that [Music] tonight [Music] [Music] [Music] hello everyone it is saturday and saturday mornings or just like afternoons usually in our house means a few things so one it means brunch because it's typically the day where you know after a week of work my girlfriend i just like to take it easy so we might just do something in our neighborhood or in utrecht we wouldn't necessarily like do a city trip on a saturday just because we really enjoy things like brunch so brunch at brewery one of our favorite restaurants cafes here in uthrag is on the agenda and another thing saturdays typically means is like reading time and this is really fun so my girlfriend likes to subscribe to the folks cont so we get those uh magazines and newspapers that she reads that's her thing not mine i usually just sit with a book and uh today we're also going to the cinema the cinema oh how old fashioned me we're going to the movies this is what happens when you live abroad you kind of stop speaking your own language because you're just so immersed in the different languages around you um and you're also hearing a lot of non-native english for instance but anyways besides the point uh sing cinemas is fine going to the movies today and we're going to a art house movie this uh one of the cinnaville uh movie theaters because my girlfriend i have a cinnabill pass and if you don't know what a cinnabon pass is it's like a monthly subscription to these art house movie theaters if you know the movie theater is part of cineville and you can see as many movies as you like for a subscription so we of course signed up recently which was not very smart because the movie theaters weren't actually open for a while but it doesn't matter it's nice to support them and today we're gonna make use and go watch a movie i think the movie we're gonna see is called the worst person in the world why did we pick it because the time slot happened to work for us isn't that all what the weekend is about doing things that don't involve a lot of effort but that is definitely really nice i never had one of these subscription passes in the us so i love using it here i also have a museum yard card an annual subscription to museums so not all museums fall under this but very many do and then i just get to go to them for free so that is something that i really liked when i moved here that you could do this [Music] so brunch at brewery was amazing because it always is and of course walking outside on a day like this is just gorgeous like it's sunny you can see that there's a lot of sun in the background and it's cold out and this really reminds me of back home in the northeast of the u.s the winters are always like this it's really sunny but it's also quite crisp and i just love being outside so it's a bit of a shame that i'm about to head to the movies we just stopped back on our way home after we walked around a little bit in the city center and bought some random things like plants yeah we're going through a plant phase as you can see in the background too but yeah i don't know it's just i'm feeling it today it's a very nice day after a week of mostly working and then you know taking a few breaks here and there it's very nice to just have this weekend who doesn't love the weekend heading to the movies [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Dutch Americano

Views: 18,578

Keywords: moving to the Netherlands, moving to Amsterdam, moving to Utrecht, American abroad, week in the life, expat in the Netherlands, expat in Amsterdam, life in Amsterdam, life in the Netherlands, living in Amsterdam, living in the Netherlands, American expat, week in the life vlog

Id: F5-co5R1jPQ

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 13 2022