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231923192319
>> No. 2319 Anonymous
19th November 2012
Monday 4:14 pm
2319 ITT: moving abroad
Right, I'm not aware of a similar thread in /map/, although I don't doubt I'll be informed of my foolishness...

As someone who has spent most of the last ten years living outside of the UK, in three continents, feel free to bung me any questions you have about making the move.

I'm currently based in the Netherlands (thank you mods for letting us post again), and am quite familiar with the issues and get-outs required in living and working away from our septered isle.

I'm on here frequently enough to keep an eye on this thread, so if you're a nonce you should be in luck.
Expand all images.
>> No. 2320 Anonymous
19th November 2012
Monday 4:45 pm
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>>2319
What do I need in terms of qualifications to be able to move to the Netherlands quite easily? (And eventually citizenship)

I guess job prospects in Amsterdam for someone not fluent in Dutch aren't too great? (No, my interest is not based on the coffeeshops.)
>> No. 2321 Anonymous
19th November 2012
Monday 5:24 pm
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>>2320

Sorry lad, cooking dinner at the mo...be with you when I can, as that will be a reasonably long response.
>> No. 2323 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 7:06 pm
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>>2320

Qualifications? None. EU and all. You do need to register an address as soon as you can (tax, healthcare and stuff). all yu need to do is hop on a train and arrive in AmDam.

loads of work for English speakers at the moment, but if you're looking for something other than (well paid) hospitality or call centre work I would advise hitting some Dutch language tapes. It's not difficult, it really isn't.
>> No. 2324 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 8:38 pm
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>>2323

I will add that the language is especially easy if you know any German. Dutch is a mental mix of English and German. And...Den Haag is a better city than Amsterdam IMHO.
>> No. 2325 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 9:01 pm
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OP and >>2323 here, but not >>2324.

TBH, Amsterdam is okay, especially if you're in the East. Utrecht, however, fuck me. I ache to live there. Or Leiden.

Only been to Den Haag on business, but I know their are a lot of good companies and institutions based there who would be fine with English speakers.

Also, I know a really fucking lovely bar in the centre...
>> No. 2326 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 9:04 pm
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>>2320

Not OP, but:

You need to have a PHD in being able to deal with living in one of the most boring countries and with some of the most antipathetic people in the world.

I know I'm not the most personable cunt in the world, but every other country I've lived in I've managed to forge some kind of lasting friendship - despite this the dutch always seemed to me, beyond workplace platitudes, to be entirely distant and unknowable.

And as far as learning dutch, well first off there's no 'need' as everyone from the postman to the bin man to the bum in front of the supermarket can speak perfect (or near enough) English. Secondly, if you want to try to learn dutch simply for the integration, forget it. As soon as anyone hears you mispronounce dutch in the slightest (and you will), they'll switch to English immediately. I actually got ripped into verbally one time for trying to speak to a barman in dutch - in most countries that'd be considered friendly, in the Netherlands it's considered a waste of everyone's time. Go figure.

That said, if you do want to learn the language then they BBC with dutch subtitles (no license fee, either!) and that's how I learned most of what I know.

Sage for rage. Sorry :(
>> No. 2327 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 9:27 pm
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>>2326
Hi Phil.
>> No. 2328 Anonymous
21st November 2012
Wednesday 9:38 pm
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duhduhh.jpg
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>>2327

Our survey says...
>> No. 2329 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 2:29 am
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>>2326

OP here. Yes lad, and the reason you are not me will be displayed below.

>You need to have a PHD in being able to deal with living in one of the most boring countries and with some of the most antipathetic people in the world.

Wtf? Try leaving the house more often.

>I know I'm not the most personable cunt in the world

Ah...problem solved.

The Dutch are about the most sociable people in Western Europe.

You work in a call centre, don't you? I bet you work as a Nike help desk worker. seriously lad, if you're still living in the same country as me, hop into a canal.
>> No. 2330 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 5:30 pm
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>>2329

Seriously mate. Amsterdam is literally the size of a postage stamp. You can walk from the Amsterdamse Bos all the way up to central station in about 45 minutes on a good day. I was utterly in love with Amsterdam for the first six months.. but once you realize that the city is literally the size of an area covered by a single borough of London and that you've literally walked / seen / done the entire city despair will set in.

Also the food is awful. Awful. There are literally two good restaurants in the city and I won't name them in case the dutch food police stomp ion there and force them to serve the same overpriced sub-par faux-french fare than seemingly every other damn restaurant there seems to serve.

> I bet you work as a Nike help desk worker.

I bet that sounded better/more intelligent at 2:30am than it actually was. Lad.

You're wrong, of course, but in return I'll make a guess about you: Either you've been living in the Netherlands for less than six months and are still youthfully optimistic about it, or you're used to places so mind-numbingly shit that any city, any city in the world, would light up your life like a kaleidoscope. Or you're just a twat.

Sage for off topic rant about kaasland in a travel / relocation thread.
>> No. 2331 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 5:43 pm
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>>2330

Dunno lad, I spent 18 months here, went back to the UK for a year, then returned about 9 months ago. Amsterdam can be shit if you don't know any Dutchies, but after that it's fine. Avoiding the backpacker circuit is advisable.

>I bet that sounded better/more intelligent at 2:30am than it actually was. Lad.

I will happily admit that my previous post did sound a shade aggressive. Sorry. However, I do know someone working at a Nike customer service call centre. In Sloterdijk. My mirth was audible. Money's goof though, I'll give her that.

I've also spent the last ten years living across the world, London to Beiruit via many destinations. I happen to quite like Amsterdam. That it is small, but with a million odd people, plus many more millions living within 30 minutes makes the culture hear both top-notch and easy to get to.

I could be a twat however. I always keep my mind open to this possibility.

If you fancy meeting up for a beer, let me know. There are a few nice bars around Centraal I'm always happy to pop into.
>> No. 2332 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 5:44 pm
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>>2331

Sorry for the typos, have seen them, but really can't be arsed to report the entire thing. The pub beckons...
>> No. 2333 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 5:48 pm
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>>2331

> Dunno lad, I spent 18 months here, went back to the UK for a year, then returned about 9 months ago. Amsterdam can be shit if you don't know any Dutchies, but after that it's fine. Avoiding the backpacker circuit is advisable.

I guess that's the rub. I did make plenty of friends, but for some reason none of them were dutch, despite working with them. Everyone definitely is friendly enough to your face, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was being looked down on in some way. Maybe I just look like the dutch Jimmy Savile or something.

> If you fancy meeting up for a beer, let me know. There are a few nice bars around Centraal I'm always happy to pop into.

Top lad. We can get shitfaced on belgian beers and then hope into one of the canals together. Like proper Brits.
>> No. 2334 Anonymous
22nd November 2012
Thursday 5:54 pm
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>>2333

Ah, so we share similar experiences then!

First year in Amsterdam was pretty lonely - most people I would meet would be here for one week, tops. Thankfully work had me all over the Netherlands meeting and working with the Dutch, which made it okay.

I come back to a network of several hundred people, many of whom have now moved to Amsterdam, who fucking love me (fuck know's why) and I'm having a whale of a time.

Anyway, if you're still here and fancy a beer, let's arrange it. If you don't turn out to be a total bellend, and come to the same conclusion about me, I'll happily link you to some of my social group.
>> No. 2335 Anonymous
25th November 2012
Sunday 7:32 pm
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>>2334

Bumping because I want to get shitfaced and "hope" into a canal.
>> No. 2359 Anonymous
29th November 2012
Thursday 1:17 pm
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My plan for the future is:

Go to university and do a BSc in Mathematics with a year in France. I'll come out with a Bachelors and fluent (or close enough) in French.

I'd love to live in France, It'd probably be Gay Paris because it seems it's the business centre of France, but I'd live anywhere really. But also I could live in Belgium or Switzerland too.

Good idea?
>> No. 2365 Anonymous
6th December 2012
Thursday 6:32 am
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I passed through Amsterdam a few years ago on holiday and can honestly say I hated it. As soon as we crossed the German border everything instantly doubled in price including the petrol, though I do wonder if the recession has changed this. We frequented a number of bars, every one of them a dive and after being given some hash by the only nice person I met there ended up being awoken by a Moroccan pimp kicking me in the ribs since I'd collapsed in the street his girls were working. Come early morning I had to bus it back to our campsite and I'll readily admit their bus service is excellent but I left the place finding it very impersonal and full of foreigners. For the record I'm not some chavvy loudmouth who went out looking for trouble and didn't sample the eerie and disease-ridden 'delights' of the red light district but the experience was crap to a fault. All the surrounding countries were much better and didn't repeatedly try to murder me with maniacal cyclists.
>> No. 2366 Anonymous
6th December 2012
Thursday 10:16 am
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>>2365
I took a college trip to the 'dam (maybe six years ago now) and it was genuinely less interesting than that time me and four others accidentally got a flight to the middle of the German countryside and spent the night wandering around sleeping villages and huddling in building sites for warmth until the airport re-opened.
>> No. 2367 Anonymous
6th December 2012
Thursday 10:37 am
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>>2334
>Anyway, if you're still here and fancy a beer, let's arrange it. If you don't turn out to be a total bellend, and come to the same conclusion about me, I'll happily link you to some of my social group.

Just saying, this is one of the nicest things I've ever seen a .gs user offer to another. Please don't make him into a skin suit.
>> No. 2368 Anonymous
6th December 2012
Thursday 10:39 am
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>>2366
>it was genuinely less interesting than that time me and four others accidentally got a flight to the middle of the German countryside and spent the night wandering around sleeping villages and huddling in building sites for warmth until the airport re-opened.

Can I hear this story please
>> No. 2370 Anonymous
6th December 2012
Thursday 11:17 am
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>>2368
Okay, I'll try. This was some time ago and my memory's a bit fuzzy.
A group of us from a soulseek room (It's a file sharing thing not a dating service despite the name) had a few get-togethers in London, but the guy we all were closest friends with happened to live in Dusseldorf at the time. Being intrepid teenagers, we decided to go and stay with him for a few days, so booked some flights to Dusseldorf. It started to look a bit strange as, his phone was off and we couldn't get in touch to warn him that we'd mistaken Dusseldorf airport for Dusseldorf Weeze, which is actually fucking miles away from Dusseldorf. We landed and left the airport just as it was closing for the night (apparently that happens in some places). There was one taxi waiting around but the price he quoted us to get to our friends house was more than we were carrying on us altogether, so we said no and waited for another one who might be cheaper. Mates phone was still off. No other taxis turned up, there were no buses, there was no built-up area around the airport it was in the middle of the countryside. So we stole a trolley to carry our stuff and just started walking to keep warm. We went through a few villages and ended up resting in a group huddle in a half-built house which was somehow keeping out the damp fog.
The walk back actually quite nice, as we had somewhere warm to sit to look forward to. It was a very cold, foggy walk with mostly trees and scrub-land to look at. Eventually our German friends dad turned up to collect us, it turned out our friend had not slept at all the previous week, turned a little psychotic and slashed his wrists with broken glass at his nan's birthday party or something earlier the night we were supposed to arrive. His parents who were lovely let us stay in their furnished attic until we could go home, and even took two of us (Myself and the girl of the group who he had a closer relationship with) to visit him in the observation ward he was being kept in, a one-bedroom with with a huge one-way mirror. I remember this bit quite vividly, he was tied down to the bed with arm restraints (not that it had prevented him from breaking his hand by twisting them violently in the straps. He seemed fairly lucid when speaking to us as a group but the whole time we were talking he was aggressively tearing at the skin on his thumb with his index finger (on the unbroken hand, of course). I don't know what he spoke to the girl about, but when it was my turn to speak to him he just paraphrased the end of Fight Club
>Everything in heaven is white on white.
>Everything in heaven is quiet, rubber-soled shoes.
>I can sleep in heaven.
Apparently he has no recollection of this now.
Lovely chap though. Finishing his Uni course, living with his long-term girlfriend, as far as I know there haven't been any other similar incidents.
Anyhow, then the rest of us went and drank some rather lovely German beer, got horrendously lost and separated on the city rail/tram services, spent the night at his parents again (I think I drooled a little on one of their throw pillows, I still feel guilty about that) then got a lift to Weeze again in time to go home.
>> No. 2375 Anonymous
8th December 2012
Saturday 2:38 pm
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>>2370
I looked up Dusseldorf Weeze airport on Wikipedia. It turns out they were forced to change their name to Weeze airport because they were too far away from Dusseldorf but Ryanair still refers to it as Dusseldorf Weeze Airport.

Also on google maps the aiport pretty much sits right next to the Dutch border.
>> No. 2376 Anonymous
8th December 2012
Saturday 3:48 pm
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>>2375
Seems to be a Ryan Air thing. I vividly remember getting Ryan Air flight to "Frankfurt Hahn", which is basically pulling the same scam as Düsseldorf Weeze: it's nearly 80m west of Frankfurt proper. Since then, whenever I see a seemingly viable flight to a double-barrelled airport name I just stick "Frankfurt Hahn to Frankfurt" (or the equivalent) into Google maps to make sure it's not too far off the mark.
>> No. 2385 Anonymous
14th January 2013
Monday 9:17 am
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Anyone know anything about living in India?
>> No. 2386 Anonymous
14th January 2013
Monday 11:32 am
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>>2385
You buy your water from men with baseball bats.
>> No. 2387 Anonymous
14th January 2013
Monday 11:38 am
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>>2376
Yeah, Ryanair do this because the landing fees at these airports are much lower. For the passenger, it will often be worth the extra money to fly with another airline to another airport, once you account for transport from the airport to the city. One of many reasons I always avoid Ryanair.

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