Should I move to Amsterdam?

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Wade wrote:
> http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/
> 
> Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about
> emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam?
> 
> I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very
> civilized.
> 
> Extra Python connection, besides the obvious one: Is "gezellig" related
> to the Zen of Python? (
> http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6351024471/m/2041067571/r/3901049571
> )
> 
> -- Wade Leftwich
> Ithaca, NY
> 

Well I dunno, I was born in Germany moved to the Netherlands and been 
quit around in the country.
Personally I don't like city life, however from where I live I am within 
  the hour in the center of Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht, if you add 
half an hour I'm at the heart of Amsterdam. While coming back at home at 
a small but flourishing village.

Of course this is all done with public transport and/or bike, not 
without reason.
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.

By the way, the big cities are notorious for losing your bike fast.

That doesn't mean that public transportation is good, no actual since 
the public transportation is commercialized it sucks too. But it beats 
the hell out of being in the traffic jam every day for at least an hour 
wherever you want to go, not entirely true, between 11.00-15.00 and 
21.00-05.00 then it's clear enough to switch lanes.
Just don't plan to get anywhere special with public transportation 
after 2300h.

Still you might want to go earlier if you go by car, perhaps then you 
can find that one parking spot close enough to your destination that you 
don't need to take the bus/tram/metro after all to finish the last 5 miles.

Well politics, in the Netherlands is like politics in the rest of 
Western-Europe North-Atlantic-coast countries, excluding UK & Ireland.
Most of the time these politicians are social caring about everybody in 
the country including non-voters, non-payers and fanatic-believers 
of-whatever-you-can-imagine. Although that social caring is mostly out 
of a dark personal agenda or plain dumbness.
In the Netherlands even the most right-winged (of any mattering size) 
parties are still liberal socialist in the US viewpoint.

Somehow I think that if you want to become a politician you have to be 
able to shutdown at least 75% percent of you brain while making 
decisions and reactivate them when you have to find an excuse for the 
misstep, well at least the last part is true for the Netherlands, from 
what I see of US politics even that is not a requirement.

In the Netherlands we still have (but watering away) tradition that 
people are responsible for their own deeds and do not sue some unrelated 
company when spilling hot coffee or microwaving your puppy or washing 
you baby in the wash machine.

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.

We had some very difficult years but the economics is picking up again 
and because we made some serious budget cuts in social security and 
public health it is on a more stable bases then that of Germany and France.

The only serious downsize is that in the Randstad the house prices are 
too high, the only way you can buy a reasonable row house house (3 
bedrooms, average room = 4x3 meters) in a not too bad side of the city 
is when you and you partner work full time and are not planning to raise 
your kid(s) all by your self.

Still I don't want to live anywhere else, Holland is big enough to find 
some country side with a slower pace of living (but still having adsl), 
if you prefer that like me. And with a bit of searching you can build up 
a social and work environment not filled with shallow and/or dumbed down 
people.

All of the above is of course my viewpoint YMMV.

-- 
mph