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I’m currently living in the Netherlands. Today is King’s Day and the whole country is out partying on the streets (literally, google it), it’s one of the big yearly events.
The living standard is very high, even for European standards. The infrastructure, city design and public transport is honestly probably one of the best in the world. It is so good that it is very common to live in city A and work in city B, because there’s so many trains and they go all the time, often in a-few-minute intervals. I honestly think Dutch cities/villages should be a model for the world. They’re really fantastic, very walkable, pretty, historic, clean, safe and well-run (see also Youtube Channel NotJustBikes). There are lots of small businesses, shops, restaurants, cafés with terraces everywhere. The cycling infrastructures is really as good as everyone makes it out to be and it’s crazy that the whole country has it, not just cities. Generally things are very modern and digitalised. Government services are very easy and all work flawlessly online via your personal digital ID. A visiting colleague from the US described NL as an "advanced society". The Dutch are very organised and efficient and generally quite progressive and democratic. I feel like they’re fairly rational/logical/practical as a people.
As a foreigner coming to NL you get a very favourable tax ruling, giving you 30% of your salary tax free. I think this is to lure in highly skilled expats for the big companies that are here due to favourable tax reasons, but it is not really fair and the Dutch quite dislike this (and the amount of expats earning higher wages and taking up all the housing in city centres). This ruling will probably be abolished in the next 5-10 years. As an expat sometimes one feels a bit of antipathy. 95% of people speak very good English. Often they also speak German.
The climate is mild (0-5C in winter, 20-25C in summer). The weather is quite bad, especially in winter. It can be like 80-90% grey and rainy in the months Sep-Mar. NL is also very windy - there’s always wind. So the winter months can be very miserable. The summer months can be quite nice, although also more rain/grey than you’d maybe want. If you enjoy the great outdoors, I’d say the NL is not for you. Pretty much every square metre is planned, it’s densely populated and small, very flat and generally most of the countryside is flat fields. The coastline is flat beach with some dunes and can be nice, although very windy and the north sea is usually quite cold and without larger waves to surf on.
Housing is a big problem at the moment. It’s simply not affordable for many people, especially in the big cities. There’s a large rent-controlled public housing sector with very long waiting times and a small private sector. Naturally, the private sector prices get squeezed which makes it very tough to find affordable housing in the big cities as a young person. In Amsterdam you won’t find a studio below 1000-1100€/month, so many young professionals live in flat shares.
Of course, you also have the classic European welfare state with all its benefits. And all of that to a pretty good standard in NL.
I could write more, but don’t want to make it too long. Generally, my opinion is that the NL is a quite progressive, international, forward-looking, organised, efficient, rational, urbanised, welcoming country. For me personally the high population density (+small area) and lack of accessible wild nature+scenery are unfortunately points that I think would make me unhappy long-term.
