Coming to the Netherlands has been one of the most exciting adventures in my life. And it still is. I don’t know exactly what I expected when I first came here. Meeting new people, discovering amazing places, learn, have fun, these are things we all think about when we face a situation like this, when we leave our home countries and take the decision of starting a new life anywhere else.
It has been a month since I arrived to this wonderful country and I can say that I am more than satisfied and happy with the things I am discovering here. Reality has successfully overcome my expectations.
Organization and caring
This is something that caught my attention in first place. Here, everything is so well-organized, the streets, the houses, people’s routines, the classes, the way university works… There is always commitment, people do what they say they are going to do, they care about you and they always try to help you out if they can. Normally they always have an smile on their faces and although it can seem a minor detail, for someone who has just arrived from another country, it means a lot.
Going out
When I analyze the way people go out in the Netherlands I can find some differences between the way we normally do in Spain. Spanish people normally go partying at 12 or 11 p.m. and they come back home at 6 or 7 a.m. To be honest, I prefer the Dutch way of going out. Why do you go out at 12 if you can do it at 9 or 10 and, apart from spending more hours outside, you can also come back home earlier and sleep more the next day?
Eating times
Perhaps this is the main difference I found here when it comes to compare how we do it in our country. In Spain we have breakfast at 8 or 9 a.m., we have lunch at 2 p.m. and we have dinner at 9 or 10 p.m. Here people have lunch at 12 in the morning and my first question when I discovered this was: how am I going to eat a hamburger at that time? I just can’t! Dutch people are still surprised when it is 10 p.m. and I say that I have to leave because I’m going to have dinner.
The Netherlands is an amazing country, full of great people and great places and I am looking forward to continue discovering both of them. Let’s see what the future brings.
