Bori goes to Holland

My sincere apologies to everyone for having skipped such a huge amount of time since my last blogpost. Fortunately, I have a set of awesome arguments why I had no time to document and share my breathtaking life.

Basically what has happened is that I have gone through all the big steps of becoming a proper working expat in Holland. Expat, meaning expatriot - this is the official term for all these immigrants like me, don't ask me why, I don't know, but that's the bucket I am put in.

1. Finding a Job

First of all, I had been on a serious job hunt last summer. I think I attended like 15 job interviews, for only like 5 positions or so. Every damn job has 3 rounds of interviews! For any job, including customer service agents for crying out loud. So it is a tough process. In the end, I got hired by Booking.com, and started working as a Website Quality Specialist from October 1, 2012 where I work until this day, and I love it. I am really not complaining about this section, because in the end, just after 2 months of having graduated from my master, I already got an awesome job. (pat on the back)

2. Finding a Place to Live

Since Booking.com is located in Amsterdam, and back then I was living in Utrecht, I decided to move.

Let me tell you, looking for rooms in Amsterdam is not the most desirable way to spend your time, especially when you have just started your new job. Kamernet.nl, a room-renting website was of great help here, but honestly, the website is a pain in the ass. As a Website Quality Specialist, I would have some serious remarks on the usability of that site. Add to that, that of course it is not for free, there is a subscription fee involved, which makes it even more a pain in the ass. I seriously recommend to simultaneously also use Facebook groups like Amsterdam Apartments, where the platform is not specifically designed for this kind of interaction, but at least the functions and features work as expected.

Either way, I found myself a temporary place to stay, until I could find a place for long-term. So I just moved, packed all my life from Utrecht, stuffed it into the car of a friend (thank you Attila!), put it down in Amsterdam, and started looking already for a new place. I have been to about 5 proper Dutch kijkavonds, which means that the hosts actually invite all potential new roomies at the same time. First I thought it was a mistake when people kept arriving when I was there checking out the flat. But no, they actually made us sit around in the living room, and then made everyone answer the same questions in a row. It feels like a boring and awkwards quiz-show, or like an audition for a reality-show. Each round you have few minutes to convince your hosts that you would be the perfect new tenant for the team. And it's not about winning a washin-machine, what's at stake is where you are gonna live for the next couple of months! I was exhausted after these, like after job interviews.. You have to be focused, say the perfect things everyone wants to hear from you, be nice and smalltalk for 2 hours.

So I got through these, got my new place, bought furniture for my new place and moved in. I thought this is the end of this moving journey, but my biggest discovery was yet to come: Dutch walls are made out of cardboard. Or paper. I am not sure. What is sure, is that they have no noise-isolation whatsoever. In the first few weeks of living in my new apartment, everytime that my neighbours were walking in the staircase, I frantically ran out from my room to check whether our front door is closed - every damn time I thought someone is actually coming into my flat. Everytime my neighbours decided to listen to music, I had no choice but to listen too. Whenever they decided to not sleep, I also didn't sleep. I was using earplugs in order to not go crazy, but it didn't really help.

Unfortunately, eventually I DID go crazy, and thus moved again, just 2 months ago, to a place where I don't have upstairs neighbours, because it is top floor (smart, ey?). Oh because of course I never lived alone, a studio or appartement for 1 person is WAY too expensive in this city, so I am sharing it with 2 girls. Renting in general is ridiculously expensive in this city - it costs more than buying a house and paying the installments for it. Either way, now I not only have a roof above my head, but also a roofterrace!(again, pat on the back)

3. Finding friends and hobbies

Probably the toughest part is to build up a social life, far away from your home. I can consider myself already lucky, because I work with so many expats, that it is not hard to connect - an Italian or Greek expat working here has much more in common or can connect easier than with local Dutchies, simply due to their situation in life. However, of course, you cannot hang out ONLY with your colleagues. So you try to meet people on Meetup, you keep inviting your friends from home to come visit you (thank you Zsofi and Csoppy!)... but yeah, it will never be the same as being at home. You have to learn that you cannot count on close friends who are there for you anytime, which is a painful and sad lesson, but is very valuable. It took me months to accept this and to realize, that I have to actually invest in this, which is an exhausting process...

But it's worth it! And luckily I still have some people who I know from for example Utrecht. That's why I ended up dressed up in orange with a bunch of Italian and Spanish people to celebrate Queen's (King's) Day! 

Also, just recently I was able to start some musical projects again, so voila, another video for you to enjoy. And, just another proof of how crazy small the world is once more, the guy next to me playing the guitar, grew up in the same street as me, back in Budapest. The last time we saw each other was probably 10-15 years ago in Hungary, and we bumped into each other on Facebook this year (long live Web 2.0), just to realize that now we live ridiculously close again. 

4. Further everyday challenges

All the rest of stereotypical incidents that an expat has to encounter.

Move to Amsterdam, lose a bike

I was sure that sooner or later it will also happen to me, but somehow I was hoping it wouldn't. Apparently, 15 months is the limit in which the laws of this country say: sorry, expired, get a new bike. Honestly, it was probably just a matter of time until the hands of statistics have picked my fate to be the next person to have their bike stolen. Of course it happened on the very first weekend when I first left my bike in Amsterdam. But, my current ratio of having only my second bike while having lived here for already 21 months is still quite ok, so I'll shut up :)

Cultural shock & language frustrations

I thought I have already been abroad enough to not be shocked by having people from different nations around me, talking other languages than I speak, but the change from Utrecht to Amsterdam was much more drastic than I expected. Already in my office, I have approximately 30 different nationalities in my immediate surroundings, but at least there everyone speaks English. However, on the street, surprisingly, not everyone does. The majority of course does, but the Turkish shop assistant in the grocery shop just around the corner will know only the most basic words. Just like the smiley Chinese ladies in massage salons - I think so far Dutch words spoken with a Chinese accent is my favorite combination.

Weather

As soon as you start working full-time, weather on weekends for example becomes crucial. Not daring or wanting to go outside because of crappy weather on a Saturday, ruins your whole next week. That's why the square by my office is crowded with colleagues at lunchtime during a sunny day. Or in fact any park in Holland at any time of the year will be overcrowded as soon as there is sun for longer than 5 minutes.

I think I could keep on listing stuff for this section... it's a constant ongoing process that I am afraid will never end because there are always new things. My last intention is to bore anyone to death, so I will just pick out one thing. There is this miraculous ability of Dutch  people that they can bike while wheeling their luggages next to them on the pavement. I tried that once, but after faling over 3 times I give up. However, at least I figured out how to transport for example moving boxes:

So, this is what it's like to be an expat in Amsterdam. For me. For now.

p.s.: For those of you who have been desperately waiting for me to mention the word porn: my article from my thesis is in progress - but any further development in that will deserve its own blogpost of course! :)