The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows, not even in the Netherlands

Just like everywhere, there are legal obstacles in the beginning when one wants to settle down in a new place. Permissions, insurances, identification papers; all the necessary documents which are crucial to start a New Life.

There is an assumption about where one wants to get work, one will find work.
Today the Dutch reality crushed that belief into a thousand pieces. Even though almost everyone in the country speaks English fluently, the possibilities to find a job without speaking the national language are severely limited.

Now believe me, after writing motivational letters so intense that even the Queen of England would hire me as her personal bodyguard after reading the memo, the only thing I kept hearing here is:

“Sorry, the applications must be submitted in Dutch. To apply for the job, the applicant must be an efficient user of the Dutch language”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been rejected from a restaurant because I didn’t speak the language, I could already pay rent.
Plot twist: I applied to fill positions as a dishwasher, but I was not aware of the fact that I have to talk to the plates in Dutch to achieve maximum efficiency during the cleaning process.

I wouldn’t get so hyped about it, since this is just my 12th day here, but under the past 12 days I didn’t spend a cent on anything that’s not essential for my survival, yet I’m already 1100€ in debt.

At the time when this post is written, the Hungarian minimum wage is moving around 390-400€/month, while in the Netherlands the current minimum wage is more than 1600€/month.
That’s over 4 times the amount of the Hungarian wages, which obviously applies to the cost of living.

Western Europe – Eastern Europe
1:0

Just to give you a context of my current financial situation:
When I received my permission to open a bank account, I walked 50 minutes to the bank, just so I could save 2€ on the bus, which is 4€ back and forth, guess who can afford an extra 30 slices of bread now? 😉

Jokes aside, I’ve reached out to the expat community in the city and I’ve received plenty of suggestions about where I could look for a job.
I went to 13 places today, 3 of them might be able to apply me from next week, so fingers crossed fellas.

We are going get over every obstacle, no matter how hard the circumstances may seem at the moment. Let this be in an example to those who are in a similar situation to prove that no case is lost until you consider it lost.
See you soon and hang in there,
Erik

02.02.2019 – Day 12

When life says no, you say next.