Living and working in Amsterdam

[ramjamclub]

ramjamclub has moved

Hi,
Just to say hello to the other Amsterdam friends and posters.
On our other forum we got off the topic and it became more general about Amsterdam-Holland.
I'm gonna post some previous posts to get up to speed with you all.

 

[ramjamclub]

What do you miss from england

What do I miss from England after living in Amsterdam for more than 30 years.
I'll start with food as that seems to be what most of us ex-pats miss the most. It's the quirky things only the

British eat.
Fish and chip with vinegar and pickled onions. Piccallily sauce.
Steak and kidney pies (fray bentos)
oxo cubes....bisto gravy.....bovril........marmite..........Salt and vinegar crisps.....pork scratchings
cornish pasties.......jamaican pasties......pork pies......scotch eggs..........twiglets.....cadburys choclate bars
.......kippers......whelks.....real new zealand butter.....english lamb chops.....leg of lamb...shoulder of lamb
roast pork with crackling.
........................................................................anybody hungry yet?.............

Hp Brown Sauce...chipolaters.....sausages....
Heinz Salad Cream........ Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce........ Heinz Chicken & Mushroom Soup...
Heinz Cream Of Tomato Soup.....Heinz Mulligatawny Soup.......Heinz Vegetable Soup....Heinz Oxtail Soup

.......................here's my shopping list........... meet me at Schiphol airport with it...............


Social aspects:
family in the first place......hard to substitute with friends.........
pubs and bitter beer
xmas hats and crackers at the dinner
xmas morning down the pub showing off the jumper you got as present.
queing for anything in an orderly fashion.......does it still apply?
good natured banter in the workplace and shops.
britsh sense of humour and irony
people who take the mickey out of themselves.
belly laughs.......the loud an uninhibited ones.

visual aspects:
The rolling English countryside
red telephone boxes and red double decker busses
indian newsagents where you can buy anything at any time.
london cabs........if I spot one here I always rush over to inspect it.
streets where every door has a different colour.......over here it's so uniform.
Winding country roads.


It's making me homesick writing this all down, good job I can get to england in an afternoon by plane.
The jist of this is, that it's the small things you miss when living abroad. These all add up to being British.

 

[J77]

Stuff "moved" over from derailed thread in drug forum...

It reminds me of Bristol a bit, with coffeeshops

It isnt really 'known' like certain other Dutch cities

I want to go to Leiden uni

Yeah - Leiden's nice - the universities really make it a student town; ie. quite lively - you're right, like Bristol.

(They have a good anthropological museum too.)

i used to work not far from leiden, never really spent much time there. but it always looked nice, and the whole surrounding area is dam nice too.

you'll have an ace time max!

ramjamclub how did you learn Dutch? Did you go on a course and how long did it take you before you could communicate it?

hi max,
Mostly I picked it up from books and dutch people in my vicinity. Girlfriend and workplace.
I left school at 15 and never had languages at school so it wasn't easy.
My english was not grounded with the rules of grammar so that made it twice as hard. It took me 18 months learn enough Dutch to hold a job down.
I have english friends here who after 25 years still can't master the language.
It's very much up to the persons ability and desire to speak another language.
A large proportion of the population speaks basic english here, so it's easy to be lazy and not even try. Since learning Dutch as a second language I have found it easier to learn other languages. Most Dutch school kids have 3 or 4 languages as standard part of schooling.
Max.... Hoe goed is jouw nederlands? Weet je wat dit betekent?
groetjes ramjam

roken is dodelijk

The worst thing about realising you can read a foreign language are the health warnings

ps: I use the CODE books (the new ones) for Dutch.

pps: this stuff should be in my Living in Amsterdam thread in travel, not in the drugs forum

That was about it

 

[J77]

ramjamclub - don't you go to any Britisih stores to get a quick fix of British food?

Like I said, in the other more global thread - my gf even got one on Sarphatipark to order us a crate of Westons cider last summer

And, most Heijns have HP sauce on their shelves - I also get the Heijn back bacon to make bacon butties

Tho' we do rely on friends to send over stock cubes

I agree with your list tho' - especially the bitter, from an old country pub! (and throw in the rolling countryside for good measure )

 

[ramjamclub]

bbc uses holland as good example

This morning watching the BBC news about superbugs in british hospitals.
BBC once again used Holland as a good example. Holland has 1% Britain 40+% chance of getting infected with the superbug.
Last week it was a report about housing projects and a British architect working here in Holland praised the Dutch way of doing things.
I wonder why the Dutch seem to be able to get their act together as opposed to Britain? Is is a cultural thing?

 

[mtbskalover]

Like I said, in the other more global thread - my gf even got one on Sarphatipark to order us a crate of Westons cider last summer
)

that what i missed the most when i lived in canada, or anywhere outside of the UK, a nice cold pint of westons, or a bottle of it shared with my old man over an evening meal.


TOP THREAD TO READ PEEPS!

i no stuff has been moved from drugs, but heres a question to all of you that live there:
coffeeshops, weit, hasj and other drugs. how is it living there? with stoner tourists everywhere in the centrum, does the novelity wear off. how many average people smok, etc, etc. hope you get the jist of what im asking.

 

[ramjamclub]

what happend to my photo's

I was testing how to post photos and now they have vanished.
Who took them off the thread and why.
this questions been cleared up.
I'm going to post some nice pics of amsterdam when I've scanned them.
Watch this space

 

[ramjamclub]

slideshow of amsterdam

"zeedijk" near "centraal station"
click on this link for more....
http://img266.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img266/7370/1172781454nvh.smil

 

[J77]

"zeedijk" near "centraal station"
click on this link for more....
http://img266.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img266/7370/1172781454nvh.smil

I've never used that slideshow feature - looks good.

Are they some of your haunts, ramjam?

btw, mossie season seems to have started - have killed five of the little blighters over the past couple of days

 

[ramjamclub]

hi j77, just discovered imageshack for linking. pretty neat isnt it?
De zeedijk has got some good cafes on it.
Have you seen the 20 poundnote thread?

 

[J77]

De zeedijk has got some good cafes on it.

That's what I'd call Niewemarkt, right?

If so, yeah. Some good bars considering it's very central - I like Poco Loco and Le Monde (sp?) - they do Ij beers in the latter

 

[J77]

Haven't posted for ages...

It was Queen's Day Monday -- and the sun was beating down

Here are a couple of pics:

Stoperaplein -- Koninginnenacht

Amstelveld

...this year's bottleneck

 

[May Kasahara]

So jealous I really want to leave Britain, and Holland has always struck me as a lovely pleasant place.

 

[ramjamclub]

Abcoude was great

Didn't got to Amsterdam centrum this year.
Instead went to Weesp...boring, they didn't even have a free market. So we biked to Abcoude...fantastic time...live music everywhere and plenty of room to wander around.

 

[J77]

Didn't got to Amsterdam centrum this year.
Instead went to Weesp...boring, they didn't even have a free market. So we biked to Abcoude...fantastic time...live music everywhere and plenty of room to wander around.

I stayed away from deepest centrum -- got as far as Amstelveld pretty much -- hung-out on Heinekenplein most of the time, they were playing some good tunes there, and some techno at Gerarddouplein, in De Pijp.

On the music tip -- went to see Skatalites at Paradiso the other weekend -- top gig. Got me thinking about clubs in the Dam. People always ask me where the best clubs are, and I never really have an answer -- possibly because I've never seen the same club culture over here that there is in the UK, with hefty bouncers and the like. Bars just seem to turn into clubs and people carry on drinking.

Paradiso's a sound place tho' http://www.paradiso.nl -- it's in an old church, a bit like Trinity in Bristol -- they have sound djs playing after the gigs finish on Saturdays (and poss Fri), from around midnight. Other places which could be considered clubs are Melkweg -- again, they're also big on the gigs and the 11th floor of the CS building, tho I haven't been there for ages so don't know if it's still there.

Holland has always struck me as a lovely pleasant place.

Yeah -- quality of life over here's lovely

 

[max_freakout]

I*m just finishing exams in London and hoping to get straight over to Dam when everything is finished

Ive been asking asbout this on channels but not had a good answer, are there any newspapers/magazines in Dam that have good classifieds sections to find a flat from? Because the rental agencies that have websites are all pretty expensive....

 

[J77]

I*m just finishing exams in London and hoping to get straight over to Dam when everything is finished

Ive been asking asbout this on channels but not had a good answer, are there any newspapers/magazines in Dam that have good classifieds sections to find a flat from? Because the rental agencies that have websites are all pretty expensive....

Amsterdam Weekly is the free paper (in English): http://www.amsterdamweekly.nl/ (The personal classifieds are always worth a laugh too )

They have classifieds, tho have never looked online.

You could always go to some expat website like expatica but most people seem to go on them asking for accommodation.

How long will you stay for?

I still think, best bet for longterm is to pay the agencies fees -- for shortterm, you're better of subletting; even if you don't have any rights that way.

 

[max_freakout]

Amsterdam Weekly is the free paper (in English): http://www.amsterdamweekly.nl/ (The personal classifieds are always worth a laugh too )

Thanx J77!!!

 

[J77]

The yearly Amsterdam Roots week's taking place at the moment.

Unfrotunately, it's also been pissing it down all weekend.

There was meant to be a big Salsa thing on Heinekinplein on Saturday -- was there when they were setting it up, looked cool but then the heavons opened

And didn't make the Roots Festival in Osterpark yesterday cos of the heavy rain tho' I think it cleared up later cos I could hear the fireworks.

Still, saw the old Timberlake at the ArenA Sat night my bro's driving them around so it was VIP all the way -- my gf loved it

 

[J77]

Here's the Roots 2007 link: http://www.amsterdamroots.nl/index.php?id=56

 

[May Kasahara]

Just got back today from a fantastic long weekend in the Dam, both completely infatuated with it once again, and my mind turned to this thread...we've been thinking seriously about trying to form a plan to move over there at some point, so I thought I would swing by for some tips!

I just love the atmosphere so much, that there is loads going on but in a really laidback way. It seems like it would be a great place to raise kids, much better than Britain in terms of family culture. I love the cleanliness of the streets (god, I'm boring ). I even love the Dutch trains and the way they look big and chunky and designed to do the job, rather than the poncey overdesigned plastic failures that wheeze up and down our tracks. (Mind you, this morning was a bit chaotic at Central Station - no ticket machines working and our train to Brussels cancelled, made me feel right at home.)

Must - hatch - plan.

*sigh*

 

[May Kasahara]

Oh, I also wanted to add that we both really enjoyed the club sandwich selection at De Drie Graefjes on Eggertstraat. Delicious and unusual

 

[jbob]

Just got back today from a fantastic long weekend in the Dam, both completely infatuated with it once again, and my mind turned to this thread...we've been thinking seriously about trying to form a plan to move over there at some point, so I thought I would swing by for some tips!

I just love the atmosphere so much, that there is loads going on but in a really laidback way. It seems like it would be a great place to raise kids, much better than Britain in terms of family culture. I love the cleanliness of the streets (god, I'm boring ). I even love the Dutch trains and the way they look big and chunky and designed to do the job, rather than the poncey overdesigned plastic failures that wheeze up and down our tracks. (Mind you, this morning was a bit chaotic at Central Station - no ticket machines working and our train to Brussels cancelled, made me feel right at home.)

Must - hatch - plan.

*sigh*

Can't help but agree with all that ... It's so civilised. It's all so simply and effectively executed. It seems all so practical and sensible.

(Although, a mate of mine who lives there says that it's a beauracratic nightmare of sorts when you first move over. But still ... )

 

[butterfly child]

Ahhh.. going back to Amsterdam, week after next. Can't wait!

The obligatory viewing of estate agents windows awaits..

*sigh*


Maybe I'll sign up to a language course.. my husband once rashly said if I could learn dutch to the extent I could read a newspaper, we could move over there!

 

[Lock&Light]

Maybe I'll sign up to a language course.. my husband once rashly said if I could learn dutch to the extent I could read a newspaper, we could move over there!

Choose to read De Telegraph then, as that 'newpaper' is written for simpletons.

 

[ramjamclub]

Choose to read De Telegraph then, as that 'newpaper' is written for simpletons.

http://www.telegraaf.nl/ Nearly right, it's called De Telegraaf. Anyhow, see how far you get reading it. A simpelton wrote it

 

[J77]

Telegraaf

Nah -- Metro's what you want to get the real facts from Or, what's the other one, iets (?) that has condensed stories from everything.

btw: Gay Pride thing this weekend, tho' we're off to England.

They had an interesting article on AT5 (Amsterdam TV) about it, saying on the boat/canal parade thing they do, that they don't allow underage or disabled people Least, that's how I translated it.

 

[ramjamclub]

Telegraaf

Nah -- Metro's what you want to get the real facts from Or, what's the other one, iets (?) that has condensed stories from everything.

"De Spits", and the latest free paper "De Pers"

btw: Gay Pride thing this weekend, tho' we're off to England.

They had an interesting article on AT5 (Amsterdam TV) about it, saying on the boat/canal parade thing they do, that they don't allow underage or disabled people Least, that's how I translated it.

I'll check the AT5, have a good time in good old Blighty

 

[J77]

Now the nights are drawing in, I thought I'd have a look in here again.

Have been in Amsterdam for 2 years now -- in one way time's flown by; in another, it seems we've been living here for much longer.

Well, what to report. Maybe some more food recommendations...

Did I talk about Orontes on Albert Cuypstraat before?

Lovely Med/Turkish food -- I may have mentioned it before tho', it is my favourite restaurant -- I'm typing in the quick reply box

And for something different -- and quite central -- Japanese Pancake World (close to Westerkerk) -- it's one of the only places outside of Japan which does proper Japanese pancakes -- it's also very nice

e2a: http://www.japanesepancakeworld.com/

Actually, both these places have high reviews (I think 9s) from an Amsterdam food critic -- Johannes van Dammes (sp?). A lot of places will stick his review in their window. If you see one with a high score, it's a good indication the food will be quality.

 

[ramjamclub]

good to see you back J77