Alright, I'm 20 years old and currently living in the US. My dream job is to live in Amsterdam and work at a coffee shop. At first, I never really thought about it and was joking about it with a few friends a couple months ago. But currently, I've been thinking... Why wouldn't it be a realistic dream? I've thought of all the things I need to actually get it done, and maybe in 2-3 years I could actually maybe manage to do it. I work at a shitty job (vendor for Coca-Cola), I dropped out of school because I just can't handle sitting there for hours and hours studying, and I really don't have anything going for me here besides my girlfriend and some family spread around the country. I’ve been a waiter, customer service representative, cashier, done a lot of construction jobs, salesman for Sprint. Oh yeah, and I smoke a lot of weed. K I thought about it, and three major things I would need to actually make this a reality. Now this is where I need everyone's help. 1. Money. I figured if I saved up a good 25k or so, I could easily move there. Get a hotel for a couple weeks and find a job. 2. Learning Dutch. I'm currently enrolled in some Dutch classes and hope to read/write and speak fluently in a good two years time. 3. A worker's permit. I read that anyone could go and apply for a job in The Netherlands, but after three months time would have to apply for a worker's permit. Besides those three things, is there anything else I would actually need to make this possible? I thought about things like...actually finding a coffee shop hiring, job security, scams, permanent residency, etc… Is there anyone out there that has done this or know anyone that’s done this (or in the process of doing this)? Remember, I haven’t done anything stupid like sell all my shit yet, this is just an idea that I’ve lately been thinking really hard about. If anyone out there has any info for me that would splatter my dream, please let me know. I don’t want to commit myself to something that can’t be done or isn’t likely to be done. Thanks in advance!
What you intend to do is very hard,for starters right now in the Netherlands there is a very anti immigration sentiment and moving to work at a coffeeshop will be extremely tough. The Dutch are tolerant about their drug laws but dont really celebrate them. So going to the tax office and explaining what you were coming to the Netherlands for to get a work visa would likely get you a flat out no. Its a pain i the ass to get a work visa when sponsered by a Dutch company,with no sponsorship its even tougher. So to answer your three major things ill try my best. 1. cash 25k have you looked at the Euro/Dollar exchange rates? The dollar is doing absolutly horrible versus the euro,your 25k usd will = 19k Euros, then comes a hotel which will begin your daily drain,if you come even during non tourist season it still will be alot, youll need to pay your hotel,food,laundry,transportation and anything else while you look for a job. Then theres looking for a job,you will need a remarkable Dutch teacher to teach you well enough Dutch to converse with the locals,the accent is a bitch and lots of words have no basis on latin and can be long and complicated and if you try to speak the Dutch will instantly see you are a buitenlander(foreigner) and immidietaly switch to english making it a bitch to practice. Add being foreign,no real skills,no work visa and no sofi number and no insurance what are the chances a coffeeshop will hire you when they can hire any of the locals? So lets say you do by some chance get hired then you need a sofi number/work visa and insurance which are all madatory,then you have to go through the insane beaurcracy which is their immigration process. For starters they will give you all the docements in Dutch, you screw up oe thing on a document and you have to do it again and the kicker is that alot of these documents have fees which you have to pay even if you screw up and have to redo you have to pay as well but normally this process is handled by Human resources who are native dutch and understand the pain in the ass the system is and that will be a furthur drain on your 19k euros. The theres insurance which will be more money as well. Sofi/work visa and insurance can run into the 1000's of euros. So lets say you manage to get past all of that and still have money,then theres housing,youll need a place to live in Amsterdam and housin is expensive, on average i paid 1500 euro deposits on every place i lived in Amsterdam and my rent averaged 466 euros and thats with roomates and those expenses i manged to get fairly because the HR lady kept a look out for people who tried to rip you off as foreigners. oh and did i mention the Dutch immigration process is damn slow. 2. The language as i mentioned before the language is a bitch and if you intend to work a Dutch busniess for any period at of time you will have to know Dutch well,at first they will accomadate your english but that only lasts for awhile, your american and unless you have prior knowledge in Germanic based lagauges it will be a bitch to learn. Especially since most Dutch people will speak english to you the second they see you fail at any attempt to speak it. With the complexity of the language in form and especially pronounciation makes it a damn tough language. Reading it as well will be tough and youll need to be a good reader to fill out forms correctly. 3. well ive answered that in 1 and 2 but i can assure you as a non skilled/non sponsered migrant worker it will be near impossible to get a legal work visa/sofi number and insurance. and finally if you manage to overcome all of that comes the part or living in another country. Your first few months will be your cinderalla period but that eventually fades. The Dutch are nice and friendly whenn you visit but they are a very closed,private and cold people. Making friends in the Netherlands is tough,most Dutch people have their closed circle of friends and it is unlikely that they will let you in easily, think you will make friends and their friends will all talk to you in english? nope. Even if you do manage to learn Dutch it still doesnt mean people will accept you. If your girlfriend comes along it will be tough for her as well, women in general have tough times making friends with other women here as well if not more so then men, trust me the social system is way different in Holland then the US. After your cinderalla period ends you will be very alone in a country full of stangers and no matter how good the weed is and how well it tastes that becomes normal to you and youll want more out of your life. Amsterdam can be a depressing city,even with a Dutch girlfriend i found myself very alone in the 2 years living there. If you can manage all of this think it over. Theres the image of Holland you might have and then theres the reality. But if you want more information try here www.expatica.com
JO420, you're the first person I found who actually gave me a response that was so, I mean, so helpful. Didn't know that, that was extremely useful info. I've been to Amsterdam once last year, I didn't notice any anti-immigration sentiment. But I guess that was because I wasn't immagrating there. Also good to know...I guess it's like applying for a green card in the US Language is no problem, I'm already in my first few weeks and it's pretty easy. But I'm also middle-eastern, so any language that isn't standard Chinese or Mandarin is pretty easy. I know arabic fluently, and french fluently. Dutch is between those two difficulty wise. Someone's a sad little panda... All in all, you've pretty much changed my girlfriend's mind, but I'm still lubricated on the idea.
Well the anti immigration sentiment is something which you would see over time, for example their former immigration minister Rita Verdonk was quite a polarizing figure here as the immigration minister and while she was in power she pushed for alot of measures to tighten immigration to the Netherlands and in the recent election another canidate who ran on a very anti immigrant policy named Geert Wilders was recently elected to their parliment. second you mentioned you were of middle eastern descent,well alot of the immigrant antipathy has been against immigrants from the countries from the middle east. It really heated up a few years ago when a fil maker named Theo Van Gogh (yes hes related Vincent) was shot/throat slit by a young kid of middle eastern descent who was angry about Theos film which was critical of islams treatment of women. Even since then theres been much tension in this country between native Dutch and people from muslim backgrounds. So that could be an issue as well. As for me i dont regret living in the Netherlands but i did get to see both the good and the bad but my experience seems to be in line with quite a few expats from various countries who have lived here and alot of the things i mentioned about Dutch culture and its people come from personal experience and from the mouth of some of the few Dutch people i know. Before you try to do this research it and think it out.
My parents are from the middle-east. I was born and raised in the US. You couldn't even tell if I'm arab or not by looking at me. Most people think I'm either Russian, French and oddly Hispanic. And I'm not muslim. I think there's tension between any country and Islam. In France they wanted to make muslim women take off their hijabs for some stupid reason, forgot what. Ever since 9/11 (and before) there's been a lot of tension between arabs/muslims and most of the world. I don't think I'll be going...after JO420's post, my girlfriend completely changed her mind. Now she thinks Amsterdam is a cold-harded dark country that will spit on you every chance it gets. I'm still open-minded. Just seems like JO420 had a bad experience living there and now despises the country. I've been there for a few weeks. People are nice, scenery's nice, and I don't have to sneak around dealer to dealer trying to get some buddah.
Let me put this as simply as possible for you...... It is not going to happen so you might as well put some effort into getting on with your life. You would need to have a specialized skill of some sort to get any kind of legal work in the Netherlands and i think you have misconstrued the info provided by JO regarding the Dutch. They are freindly and nice but you will find it hard to break into their circles, but no more so than other places in the world. Its never easy for immigrants per-se to fit in with the locals. Everyone who has been to amsterdam wants to do what you have stated but in reality it is a lost cause. My advice to you if your are serious is to go to school (if you can't take it then please get used to the shitty jobs you have had as there is along line of them in front of you) and get a specialized skill, learn several european languages, and then pray that you can find a company that will sponsor you and get you legal work. Do you have any idea how many people from around the world want to move to Holland and how few actaully are allowed to? Kinda like the US my friend if you could just move here and become a waiter or something that any moron could do then it is not going to happen. That and you would need about 4x the amount of $$ you have as the best way to move their is by having or creating some sort of buisness that will employ locals and provide a value to the country\area. Sorry to be the one to reinforce the obvious.....you will not be employed in any coffeshop.
Well put skyhigh, I just laugh at these threads about moving and living in Amsterdam.......to be so young and naive. These are what we truely call "pipe dreams". Like there's a big need for stoner american drop out immigrants without a skill.
Hey Tempus, I understand the urge to move to Amsterdam as do lots of people on this board. You wrote that you've only been to Amsterdam once, why not try a few more trips there and see if you really feel like you want to move there? I go to A'dam in November during Thanksgiving week. I don't celebrate Thanksgiving anyway so why not? Each year I take off 4 days from work and spend 10 days in Amsterdam. Try this for a little while, see if it cures the urge. The advice given above about the education path to living in Amsterdam is a good idea too.
I don't know why some people here think I'm just going to hop on a plane, fly out there and live my life. I doubt everyone put as much thought into as I and my girlfriend have. Thanks father, I'll keep that in mind. Apparently telling from your writing you haven't gone to college either{Unless English isn't your first language). So I guess you have a shitty job as well... You have no clue about my life, neither what kind of work I can actually do here. But thanks for the update about the long road of shitty jobs. Because, you know, I just sit on my ass after work and twiddle my thumbs. Figured since I'm a US citizen it'd be a lot easier to move there, than let's say if I were from Mexico. I don't know about The Netherlands, but the US has different immigration policies depending on where you're moving from. Thanks, because that was so fucking obvious to the dumbest of all dumb asses... Again with the assumptions. It's easy to sound wise on the great internet, huh? Big dog!
Sky high i never said the people were not friendly nor have i said i dislike the Netherlands, all i was merely mentioning what i saw as reality,ive met many people from the states who have told me they want to live in Amsterdam and besides coffeshops know nothing else about the country. I was just trying to inject a little reality into this topic and the reality is that Amsterdam is a tough place to meet good worthwhile friends and if you go there with misconceptions about life in general besides coffeeshops you might not like it there. Hell even my Dutch girlfriend has told me even for the Dutch its hard to make friends in Amsterdam. Holland is tough to get in and just as tough to fit in. But as you mentioned your dead on about the path to getting there,you have to be in a highly specialized proffession. Thats the only way i got in. I just happen to be one of those few expats who enjoys going to coffeeshop but if it wasnt for my proffession i would have never lived there.
