AT FIRST everything seems 25% more expensive, due to the € exchange rate. But once you start doing things, food is about the same in the Netherlands, and housing is about half as much as NYC. A friend has a 4-bedroom apartment for his family for €1,400.
There are many other weirdnesses. The toilets are different. the showers are inscrutable - who thought that putting a piece of glass half-way across a slippery bowl-shaped tub was a good idea for a shower curtain? It's just not, ok? Showering in this configuration is bloody death-defying. Clothes dryers are rare, clothes washers are small, the food is disappointing, many vegetables come in plastic bags, there's no metal/can recycling. The onions are small.
Its a pretty great country, though, in general. The public transport - trams and trains, subways and buses, work well, and the pricing makes sense... as a former New Yorker, I'm pretty put-out by that. I have a not-very secret desire to be a tram driver. People exiting shops in Amsterdam proper have a smile on their faces more often than not. Almost everyone speaks English.
The beer is fantastic, the bar menus, not so: tosti (pressed grilled cheese sandwiches), burgers (very rare), a meatball in gravy, hard sausage and cheese, omelettes. Most things are a bit smaller, except the seats on the bus - lots of very tall people here, tallest of any country or so I read. There is also a cultural attitude around getting along, and contributing to the general good. People in cars don't honk at each other impatiently. Taxes are high, but not a lot higher than the US, and go to infrastructure.
I stayed in an AirBnB on a street called Princengracht - the Prince's Moat - about 10 minutes south of Centraal Station. It looked out over a square that had a playground and a playhouse/restaurant. Huge windows, UNESCO building. And, a feature shared with many houses in Amsterdam: a long set of terrifyingly steep stairs, 6 inches deep, and a spiral staircase set on top of that. I found there was indeed something scarier than going up or down these with a 50-lb suitcase - going up or down them when the light times out, in the dark!
My goal is to move here, so there's the DAFT - Dutch-American Friendship Treaty - and a lawyer. Consulting with the lawyer, my first assignment was to find a place to live where I can register as a resident at my local City Hall.
While at the AirBnB, I engaged in my usual "if it doesn't work, fix it," routine. I oiled door hinges, set the clock and replaced the light bulb on the stove, fixed a leak on the washing machine, took all the kitchen knives to the sharpener because cooking with them made me sad, fixed a leg on the faux-zebra chair, fixed a chain on a blind, and some other things.
Letting the host know I had done these things, and explaining I was there searching for a more permanent place, turns out she manages properties, rental and AirBnB, mostly working remotely from Portugal, where she now lives with her husband, who has had five bypass operations. She comes back about once a month to work on them. She had a tenant leaving a place down in De Pijp (pronounced de pipe,) a slightly fancy neighborhood, and offered to let me have a look.
It was a nice apartment, all on one level, 15 steps up from the street, and I put down 3 months on it. It is big enough and has enough doors to have a guest over, or even two, for a few days. Current resident, a pleasant young woman name redacted, is Indonesian, moved here by her company, just bought a place. She said the landlord was very pleasant and predictable, even though there might have been some issue around late rent. I described the apartment, cost and area to my friend and he said, "Dude, you scored." Satisfaction in getting a good place for a good value was just as great as the one you get in NYC.
It helps if you say you are looking for just six months or a year to try out your new business and are willing to prepay rent, often called a short-stay lease. Mine is for 6 months; we printed one in Dutch off the Internet, I went over it with Google Translate's camera feature, and we signed. I move in on Monday the 29th.
My second assignment is to get an opening balance for your new business from a Dutch accountant. After trying to save €125 by using my own accountant, I realized I was going to have to screw around explaining how to work with my lawyer for three hours, and relented and used the layer's accountant, and had my accounting statement in about 3 hours instead of a week or more, last Friday.
Lawyer churned out my Visa application under DAFT by Sunday night. Sent it in by privatized, registered mail by Monday noon. Should have an appointment with Dutch Immigration in 2-3 weeks, at which point I'll get a BSN (Dutch Social Security number,) and will be able to work freelance and have clients, which means I can create or run a business, but I can't "get a job" or be an employee with an existing corporation or business here, even part time, except as a consultant. If I do get a full-time IT Project Management job, that company will have to sponsor me, and I'll have to change my Visa application.
In the event, I'm still looking for a steady job as a project manager in IT with a company that will sponsor me, something of a long-shot, and, networking with photographers and models who know photographers. I'm going to do a faux-wedding shoot in the apartment, by way of getting some wedding pictures into my portfolio, and see if a local photographer needs a helper/apprentice/second camera. I did a couple of portrait shoots with local models in the lovely airbnb. I also walk around the city creating a mental map and taking photographs.
I've had endless sausage and cheese, been unable to find stew meat at the market (oh, for England's gently-priced butcher shops!) Wine is plentiful and mostly comparably priced to US prices. Ingredient names are a pleasant puzzle - some are cognates, some not at all. I have not been eating out at all (with the exception of the herring, see below,) or drinking very much. A Boston-based US model and advocate came by with her man, and we had a lovely dinner!
When the AirBnB ran out on Dec. 15, moved in with my friends and their 4 kids, ages 6-18, in Amsterdam-Noord... he owes me about a year of couch time, from about 15 years ago, and it has actually been rather fun. I've been cooking dinner for them - tonight is spaghetti and meatballs. We tried to see if I could just rent a room from them, but that didn't work out. A neighbor, Ben, is a retired teacher, knows German, French, English, Spanish and Dutch, and comes over and tutors us on Sundays.
One thing that is pretty amazing are the snack stands, in mall parking lots outside the supermarket, and on bridges over the canals... an amazing selection of herring, Hollandse Nieuwe - new holland herring, in January (! You can only get it in NYC at Russ & Daughters starting in June,) served sliced or on a nice hot dog-like bun but better, with chopped raw onion and pickles, a dish called Matjesbrötchen. It is heavenly, and I try to have one every day. Another is the bakeries, which are plentiful and filled with a vast selection of fattening sweet and savory pastries, and loaves of bread, and sandwiches.
Still to come: Indonesian food, farmers markets, discount grocery stores (thanks,
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