Should I move to Amsterdam?

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Sybren Stuvel wrote:
> Martin P. Hellwig enlightened us with:
> 
>>Personal transportation sucks in the Netherlands, if you live in the
>>Randstad (the area of the above mentioned cities) and you have to
>>travel across the Randstad, you go with the bike and/or
>>bus/tram/metro/train because that is the fastest way of
>>transportation.
> 
> 
> And a bike isn't "personal transportation"?

Yes it is, and it sucks too, or do you find it amusing to ride 15 clicks 
through rain and wind to get to your clients?
Of course you go by car but then it will take you longer.
Byt the way did you notice the "travel across the Randstad" part?

> 
>>By the way, the big cities are notorious for losing your bike fast.
> 
> 
> True. Unless you have two proper locks. In that case your bike will
> last a very long time.

Yes that reminds me that I had 2 quite expensive abus locks on my rather 
cheap bike, the day after a hack was published on the Internet how to 
open this lock without damaging, the locks where stolen but my bike was 
further untouched, that pretty badly hurt my bikes ego I guess.

> 
>>That doesn't mean that public transportation is good, no actual
>>since the public transportation is commercialized it sucks too.
> 
> 
> It's quite good actually. The Dutch Railways (Nationale Spoorwegen, NS
> for short) have a reputation of being late, but it isn't that bad.
> Trains run frequently, and if you have a serious delay, you even get
> part of your money back.

They don't do it because they like the customer they do it because it's 
a law.

> 
> My GF and I just got back from a holiday in Croatia. There, there is
> only a train every four hours, and then you're lucky. The track is so

Croatia is hardley comparible to western europe.

> bad, going by bus is just as fast, except you can buy a ticket on the
> bus instead of having to buy a ticket + reservation in advance.
> 
> On the way back, we used the ICE (intercity express) through Germany.
> It got delayed, so we missed our train to Amsterdam by 15 minutes. The

Aah yes, ICE, always put in a extra half hour if you need to change 
trains, you don't wat to miss reserved trains, no realy you don't want 
to. It is just the same as with airplanes.

> delay was in Köln, because the pope paid a visit - well known to the
> Deutsche Bahn, but still they didn't do anything about it. We had to
> use another train which left two hours later. And we didn't get any
> compensation for this - not even for the reservation for the train we
> missed.

Same as with airplanes.

> 
> We had a delay of two hours. In The Netherlands you would at least get
> a significant percentage of your money back. Not in Germany.

Strange, I very frequently go with rail like transportation across 
western europe and the only place where it sucks more then in the 
Netherlands is the UK or France when they doing another strike. I do not 
account major accidents like flooding, storm or earthquakes.

> 
> After all, I think with the frequent trains (compared to Croatia) and
> reasonable refunds (compared to Germany), the NS isn't that bad after
> all.

Comparing it to Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain, Norway, 
Swizz etc.etc. okay, but comparing it with a former Communistic country?
They still have about 45 years of catching up to do and to there credits 
they develop much faster then the "old" western countries.

I heard that in Swizz public transportation tend to leave on time and 
even arrive on time! Compare that with 12% delayed leaving and 27% 
delayed arrivals of trains in the Netherlands.

A rule of thumb is that as soon as the weathere changes (it doesn't 
matter what from what and where too) you have at least a 15 minute delay 
between the major stations.

> 
> 
>>Just don't plan to get anywhere special with public transportation
>>after 2300h.
> 
> 
> There are night trains between the big cities in the Randstad. At
> least in Amsterdam busses go through the city all the night, every
> night. I don't know about other cities - I live in Amsterdam.

There still alot of people living in cities like Gouda or surrounding 
villages in "Het Groene Hart", and most of them can only get home after 
23.00h when they go by car (or motorbike).

<cut>
>>Most people in here are non-believers or so lightly believers that
>>you won't know the difference between them and the non-believers.
>>The biggest part of the remaining believers are realistic and value
>>life, moral and norms without compromising public safety, of course
>>fanatics are every where in the world including the Netherlands.
> 
> 
> Here in Amsterdam, things are getting more nasty. A
> writer/critic/actor was killed "in the name of Allah", just because he
> excercised his freedom of speech.
> 
> Another man was seriously messed up while standing in his own front
> door opening, just because he's homosexual. In his street, sometimes
> people are shouting "Go away you homo, you're not welcome here. This
> is a Macoccan street!. I'm not discriminating, but Maroccans telling
> Dutch people they aren't welcome in their own captial? I wish _those_
> people would just go back to Marocco.

Yeah that sucks, but this is the work of fanatics and in no way by the 
average, anyone searching for a reason for murder, rape or opression can 
find them in any religious context that doesn't matter if it's one of 
various christian incarnations, islam or whatever mono/multi/none-god(s) 
believes people believe in.

> 
> 
>>The only serious downsize is that in the Randstad the house prices
>>are too high
> 
> 
> Very true. My girlfriend and I are renting a house in the northern
> part of Amsterdam, just above Central Station. We had to search quite
> hard to find that, though!
> 
> Sybren

-- 
mph