This fall we visited few places in Europe. Each one had something different I liked. I'll start with Holland.
It is a country with a high standard of living, and to me it is more about the the life balance.
Normal Dutch workweek is 4 days (8 hours a day)!
Main mode of transportation by far is a bicycle.
It is simply amazing how quiet the streets are and how ugly parking lots are not at all the part of the landscape. The country is extremely bike oriented – bike lanes are everywhere and cars really respect them. Bike parking is everywhere. People look very fit.
Everyone including doctors and many politicians get to work by bike. Babies ride in special baskets or in carts and bigger kids ride next to parents.
There are cars, but much much less, and mostly smaller cars – no trucks or SUVs.
And even people who have cars don’t use them every day – they still get around by bike and use cars when going out of town.
Dutch housing
Houses are much smaller and are mostly attached to each other.
Many people live in apartments.
The streets are just charming.
Many ground floor apartments, while having large windows, for some reason do not have curtains and I was peaking in while walking for hours.
Furniture is mostly modern and small, with air of space and light (there are tiny charming gardens in the back) Look very well kept and cozy. Small kitchens with beautiful appliances look very inviting. I would love to live in such a place.
Education
The semester for masters costs 1,500 euros per year for dutch students (I forgot to ask about bachelors, as our friend is doing his masters there.)
Since Dutch parents pay high taxes (about 45%) a lot of social things are subsidized – one of them is education. You need certain grades to get admitted to the university.
We pay about 40% in taxes, and do not get these benefits such as government medical care, subsidies college education for us and future children, extended maternity leave, etc… In US only the poorest people get these benefits(and they don’t pay any taxes)– yet the Dutch managed to provide it to all. I do not like it that while paying more taxes we are eligible for no benefits these taxes provide.
Good service/friendly people
Tipping is not obligatory, yet service is better. Service industry people depend mainly on salary and that cost is build in to the price and clear.
Multilingual
Not only does everyone speak Dutch and English, most people know a third, fourth, sometimes fifth language. I started to feel inadequate with my 3.
Tolerance
From light drugs, prostitution, porn, euthanasia, same sex unions.... Whether or not you I find this immoral, I believe that morality should not be legally enforced. That in itself is immoral and is a slippery slope. And outside the more seedy Amsterdam city center there was no visible evidence of these things. Smaller towns where all of it is still legal nevertheless are perfectly beautiful places. There was less pot in the university town in Delft than in NJ suburb.
Thoughts from my vacation experience - the Netherlands - quality of life
November 10th, 2008 at 05:54 pm
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Thanks for sharing your photos! I can daydream about whiling away the hour in a beautiful place like that!
November 10th, 2008 at 08:55 pm 1226350525
i agree with you on your topic of tolerance. sometimes it is better to accept something than always fight it. if something isn't 'allowed' then you will get so many people who will fight for it, or do it anyway.
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November 12th, 2008 at 05:44 pm 1226511842
Food is quite bland, but it is possible to find something decent if you are lucky.
From you experience it sounds like you just stayed in the center of Amsterdam near the red light district. It is seedy there and full of foreigners looking for sex and drugs. Normal Dutch towns don't have that vibe.
Whitestripe, no we did not go to Italy. Just Netherlands, Paris, Bavaria, Austria, Poland and Ukraine.
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December 7th, 2018 at 10:44 pm 1544222661