Moving to another country is always a big challenge. Many people take, at least once, the risk to get out of their comfort zone and travel the world. I want to tell you my story in the second time coming to the Netherlands and the differences I found with the first time I lived here.
"But as some things change, other things remain the same, for example, the weather. This is a nice fact that, with all these changes I'm facing, the only thing I know for sure is the weather, or at least, it doesn't surprise me any more."
The first time I decided to move to the Netherlands was to study a masters in urbanism. I traveled from Bogotá, Colombia, a city of 8 million inhabitants, to the 100 thousand inhabitants city of Delft. It was an amazing experience. When I arrived, pretty much everything was arranged by the university: housing, registration at the municipality, bank account, health insurance, even the time and space to meet new people, drink beers and make friends...it was so easy to settle in. This is the first big difference I found when I came for a second time to the Netherlands: that as a student everything comes in a silver plate, but as a professional in the search of a job, hard times come ahead.
The second difference I found is meeting new people. When I was a student, from day one I was making new friends. All the time, at different activities organized by the university and other scenarios, I was meeting people from all over the world, and this dynamic kept going for the next two years and I was able to create a great network from this experience. But coming back feels a bit different, since I no longer have those spaces to meet new people. Nevertheless, I am lucky to have my good friends around, and is always nice to have people you already know with whom you can laugh, talk about life and remember good times. I hope that as time passes by, I will keep on sharing with new people.
But as some things change, other things remain the same, for example, the weather. This is a nice fact that, with all these changes I'm facing, the only thing I know for sure is the weather, or at least, it doesn't surprise me any more. I was reading that in average, it rains 197 days in Amsterdam in a year! Weather in the Netherlands carries away an extreme uncertainty. But the beauty of this uncertainty can be found on the limited sunny days/not so chilli days, when everybody goes out to the park, to the streets, the cafes take their tables outside and it feels like a big celebration. In the beginning I didn't understad why all this gibberish...but after many rainny-gray days, you only need one sunny day to feel like taking the day off and going out to enjoy the pleasures of nature and life. At the moment, I'm still waiting for that day to come, very soon.
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