Well, first a big sorry to my millions (?) of readers for going M.I.A. for so long.
Since we decided to come back to Europe, our motto in the family has been “quality of life”; we (happily) gave up a lot of money (the retention offer from the old job was impressive) to be closer to family and friends and have a better work/life balance.
TL;DR: best decision ever, we love Amsterdam and life is great
Longer version:
With our move to Amsterdam, we expected to save on a lot of stuff, the bigger contributors being 1/ Our decision not to have a car, 2/ School for our son is paid for by my new employer, 3/ Health insurance costs here in NL are a fraction of what we paid in FL.
We then decided to invest some of the above savings into the apartment, as we assumed we would be living inside much more than we did in Miami (we do).
DW found a beautiful 100sqm* apartment in one of the nicest parts of town: everything is close, one of the most beautiful parks of the city is 5 mins walk and every other family owns a Porsche and at least a couple Rolex watches.
In retrospect, it has been a fantastic choice, and we could not be happier.
We are absolutely loving Amsterdam.
The positives we were expecting are more positive that we thought, while the downsides aren’t as bad as planned.
Positives:
1/ It is truly an international hub: the UK committing suicide in 2016** has helped for sure, but the city has both a vibrant expat/big corp AND a cool local startup/small company environment that make for interesting people and cool vibes.
2/ The city is small, flat, and public transport is excellent: this is a huge plus for us, as smaller cities are more walkable, more livable, less trafficked. They also, crucially, allow for car-free life, which we always loved (and not only for the savings).
Another massive plus for us is that the airport is really close to the city: this morning I had a flight at 830am, left my place at 7, got to the airport at 7.20.
Super convenient to go see the family in Italy or friends around Europe.
3/ The food is way better then I remembered: before moving back, the last time I had been to the Netherlands for more than 1 day was sometime in 2009: I still remember in terror landing at Schiphol Airport at 6.40am, going to a bar, ordering an espresso, only to see a local guy sitting next to me drink a cappuccino paired with French fries and mayo.
While there may still be a few barbarians that do that, the supermarkets have been a revelation: the fruits/veggies selection isn’t as varied as in Italy but the quality is very, very decent.
Dairy products are straight up excellent: milk/yogurt/butter are better than in Italy, and you can see there’s a real cheese culture here.
I found a Rotterdam cheese aged 100 weeks sold in any supermarket that I would not hesitate to have go head to head with any Italian or French product.
Beef is either bad quality, or very very expensive, but we only eat it twice a month or so, so not a big deal. Chicken is excellent. Fish wise, there is very little variety but the quality is good.
Bakery products (breads, crosissants, etc) are nothing short of fantastic: cheap, of excellent quality, and available everywhere.
The restaurant scene is good enough for the relatively few times we go out: I’ve already found a couple pizza options, three ramen spots (two of which would fall into the “very good” category even by Japan standards), and great Sichuan mini-chain. For reasons unclear to me, there’s tons of Vietnamese restaurants and the Pho tend to be good to great pretty much everywhere.
Negatives:
1/ The weather isn’t Miami or HK, but so far not much worse than our hometown in northern Italy.
I mean, the last time we saw the sun was probably a month ago, so it’s not exactly Southern California, but a good combination of layers and appropriate clothing can go a long way.
2/ We assumed Amsterdam becoming so attractive for global corporations and expats to have had a (potentially big) adverse effect on the affordability of the city for the locals, so we were prepared to face at least some sort of resentment.
Plus whenever I happened to be in an international environment and someone asked “what are the most fun and welcoming people in the world?”, I can say “the Dutch!” is usually not the first answer that pops out
We have faced a few episodes of rudeness, but in general people have been super kind, polite, respectful.
On average, Dutch people have many qualities that both DW and I admire and fit well with our way of living: frank/direct, curious, very pragmatic and all-substance/no fluff. A big win.
Claro, you don’t find the same warmth that is found in Spain or Central/South America, but that does not necessarily bother us***
DS is loving the new school, and DW has started looking for a job.
The ideal for us would be if she could find some sort of part time in her field of work, as it would allow her to get back in the workforce (I think it would be great for her morale) while still being there for the kid (I cannot be relied upon as I travel so often).
Work/life balance has been way better than what I had in my last job in the USA, so we are all grateful that things played out as expected on this front.
I still work relatively long hours (avg day in the office is 830 to 630) and I travel extensively (been away from the fam 6 weekends since May already), but being in a big company means there are redundancies and many people taking care of the more day by day operational stuff, which means that once you’re off, you’re off.
For example, I took two weeks in the summer and only had to send a few emails and get on a couple emergency calls throughout the whole vacation, nothing compared to the constant grind I had before.
Maybe my bar was very low, but a fantastic improvement for me nonetheless
Our investments are chugging along. I have built a non-insignificant position into the luxury/beverage/food sector, trying to take advantage of the recent selloff.
Bought LVMH, Campari, Brown Forman, Diageo and Nestle. Many at multi year lows. Would have ideally wanted to buy some Hermes, but that stock NEVER goes down ahah.
All in all things are better than 12, 24 and 36 months ago, so we really cannot complain.
We rarely grateful every day for what we have and realize we are extremely lucky.
Happy holidays to all!
*it may sound small for North Americans, but it’s rather big by European big city standards
** not sure you have seen this but there was an article on Bloomberg that pointed out that the stock markets of Oman and another small country had more IPOs than the LSE this year. The UK is spiraling into irrelevance at a speed I did not think imaginable: the Brexit thing could be a great fit for one of those “how it started / how it’s going” MEMEs btw.
***I am aware I’m painting things with a very broad brush so you should definitely take the statements with a grain of salt!
I am though a believer that stereotypes exist for a reason, and personally do not see a big issue with generalizations, provided they do not lead to prejudices. This is the approach I have – I hope I’m not offending anybody.
