The Netherlands: First Impressions

We finally made it. It’s been about a month and I’m gonna share my first impressions of the Netherlands with you.

This is my personal channel where I talk about my life: How I started producing true crime content, what the process of moving to The Netherlands is, how I overcame struggles in my life stemming from childhood abuse, and I will also put up some music. If you want to learn more about me, this is the place. If you’re interested in my other channels you can check them out here:

https://www.youtube.com/@thisisMONSTERS

You can also follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JileswithaJ

Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel! Well, we made it. We currently live in  the Netherlands. I had been planning   to start updating this channel much sooner,   but my office hadn’t been set up well  and I keet getting things to improve it,  

So I’ve finally gotten it to a place where I can  record and have the quality be fairly decent. We were on a nonstop flight from Seattle to  Amsterdam on December 1st. We dropped our   pets off at a fancy pet spa the day before we  flew out. Our pets flew on a different flight  

A few days later. We flew on Delta, but the only  airline that will fly a snub nosed dog like our   French bulldog is Lufthansa, which is supposed  to be the most pet friendly airline in the   world. Their flight was from Seattle to Frankfurt,  Germany where they have a special pet lounge. Then  

The next day they flew to Amsterdam where they  were seen by a vet and cleared for me to pick up. When we got in, we stayed in an AirBNB that  I had booked for a month so we had time to  

Find a rental. It was north of Amsterdam  and the area was a little more rustic. So,   as some of you might have seen in my social  media, the internet there was extremely   unreliable. We looked at a few different houses  in a few different areas and ended up settling  

On one in Utrecht. It’s about 45 kilometers  or 28 miles southeast of Amsterdam. It’s a   great location with lots of shops really  close by. We can walk to three different   shopping centers in 10-15 minutes and once we  get bikes, we’ll get there in 5 minutes or less.

Our house is 3 stories with the living room,  dining room and kitchen on the 1st floor,   the bedrooms on the 2nd floor and an extra room  and a laundry room on the 3rd floor. That extra   room is this office and I’m here right now with  more moving blankets to help with temporary  

Acoustics. The only real problem with recording in  this room is that it has a vaulted ceiling which   would be cool if it didn’t create a ton of echo.  So, I added some cargo netting at ceiling height  

And then I can use that to add material that will  deaden the sound. Then, of course, I needed to   fill the room with other stuff to reduce all of  these perfectly flat, reflective surfaces. And the  

Floor is a hard surface as well so I grabbed an  area rug which also cuts down on echo. It’s still   a work in progress. Right now I’m trying to deaden  the sound while also letting enough light in, so  

This recording might still be dark and echoey,  but little by little, it will get better. The good news is that I got the internet hooked up  here and it’s lightning fast. The wifi is great,   but the house is wired with ethernet cables in  the rooms so I was able to connect my computer  

Directly to the router and I get almost 1  gig download speeds and 100 mb upload speeds.   Uploading videos is the fastest I’ve experienced  out of anywhere I’ve lived. And the internet alone   is about half the cost of what I was paying in  the US, plus there are 3 or 4 different companies  

I could have chosen from so it’s not a monopoly.  Shit, in Washington State, Comcast has a monopoly   there and since I had a commercial space as an  office, I had to get “business” internet which was   about $130 a month. The “residential” internet  I had at our house, from the same company,  

Had the same speeds and was about $100 a month.  Here, the internet at this speed is about €60 a   month (which is about $66), but is 50% off for  12 months. And, if I decide I don’t like this  

Company, I can switch to another one. But so  far, so good. I had some trouble when setting   up the home install kit because how they install  cable here is a little different than the US, so  

They sent out a tech for free and he took care of  everything. So, I’m very happy with the service. After being here a couple of weeks (which is  now about a month), I wanted to talk about   the differences I immediately noticed. First  thing that really hit me was the difference  

In driving. We booked an airport shuttle to take  us to our AirBNB since we had all four of us plus   our luggage and I didn’t want to rent a big van  to use for a while. So the day after we got in,  

I rented a car and had to figure out the roads  here. My wife and I got international driving   permits before we left, but they don’t teach you  anything at all about the driving rules in the   country you’re traveling to. It’s basically just  a piece of paper you pay for. Driving here kinda  

Feels like a free for all. People seem to drive  wherever they want and just kinda make room for   each other. Now, it likely feels like that more  to me being new here and I’m sure the Dutch people  

Follow all the proper rules. I don’t want it to  seem like I’m saying that anyone here is breaking   the law, but there are a few one way roads that  I’ve been on where people were driving the other  

Way and the cars in front of me just squeezed  by and everybody moved on. There are a lot   of different lanes too. There are lanes just for  bikes and some that are just for buses. Some roads   get closed down just for pedestrians at certain  times of day, so it can initially be confusing,  

But I got used to it pretty quickly. Of course  there are some road signs I can’t read because   they’re in Dutch, but I have the speed signs and  stop lights and stuff down pretty well. Where we  

Live is surrounded by places that are walkable  and bikeable, so we won’t need a car very much.   I ended up getting a short term lease on a rental  car for a few months until we decide exactly what  

We need for a vehicle. We have an immigration  service working on finding the right school for   our kids, so we’re waiting on that and we aren’t  opposed to getting an electric car, but we need  

To find out if we will be able to charge it as  our rental doesn’t have a setup to charge a car. Also, when it comes to driving one of the first  things I noticed was that there are almost no  

Trucks. While we were being driven from the  airport to the AirBNB I looked around on the   highway and was shocked that I didn’t see  a single pickup truck. There are commercial   trucks which are more large semi trucks or  commercial box trucks, but very few personal  

Trucks. Since we’ve lived here, we’ve made it  a little game of announcing when anyone sees   a personal pickup truck and I think we’re up to 7  now. We walk around the neighborhood and there is   not a single pickup truck in anyone’s driveway.  A few blocks away there is an old school Jeep  

Wangoneer parked on the road, but that is  the only thing that is like a pickup truck   or large SUV. Where we lived in California, it  was a gated community and within that community   about 50% of the vehicles were pickup trucks or  large SUVs. Like full size, 4 door, full bed,  

Large pickup trucks were some many peoples’ daily  driver. None of them were dirty or had tools in   them or had construction materials. People  just drove them to the office and the grocery   store. I already thought it was crazy before  coming here, now it seems even more insane.

The next thing that was immediately noticeable  was the food. The food tastes so much better.   The same foods we could get in the US are  better tasting and have less additives.   The refrigerators here are much smaller and  people seem to go shopping more frequently  

Because there aren’t as many preservatives  in the food. In the US, people go to Costco   and stock up on a month’s worth of food,  but in order for that food to stay good,   it needs preservatives. The largest grocery  store near us is really big by local standards,  

But it’s the same as an average size grocery store  in the US. Here, you buy food more often but it’s   fresher and more natural. The meats in the US are  gray and less flavorful, and here the meat is a  

Rich dark reddish brown and full of flavor. It’s  because US meat is pumped full of antibiotics and   fillers to increase quantity so companies can make  more profit. I immediately noticed how much better   a lot of things taste. The eggs, which don’t need  to be refrigerated, taste so much better. Coffee,  

Even just the store brand stuff off the shelf is  way better and chocolate is richer and creamier. Also, savory foods like spaghetti sauce  and soups are way less sweet. The Dutch   definitely like their sweets. There are  pastry shops and treats everywhere. Hell,  

The most well known Dutch food is the  Stroopwafel. But sugar isn’t added to   everything else. As Americans, we just got  used to how much sugar was in everything,   but once we got here it was so obvious that  a lot of savory foods were not sweetened like  

They are in the US. Juices are straight up fruit  juice instead of a concentrate mixed with sugar   water. I’m a fan of lemon iced tea and if  you buy a Lipton lemon iced tea in the US,   it’s way sweeter than they are here. Same  with any type of lemon-lime soda. I bought  

A 7-Up and it was more like lemon-lime sparkling  water than a soda. The sugar is reserved for the   treats they eat. And they do so much walking  and biking that they can afford to indulge. One thing that really got me right away  is that doors swing the opposite way in  

Commercial spaces. So, I went to a couple of  places that I thought were closed because I   grabbed the handle and pulled and the  door wouldn’t open. It turns out that,   unlike most commercial properties in the US,  the exterior doors open in. And no, there was  

No sign. Of course, the public toilets usually  cost money which isn’t a problem for me. Some   give you a voucher that will take the price off of  your bill if you buy something at the store. The   most noticeable difference is that the stalls are  completely private. This bathroom, which I made  

Sure nobody was in before I took pictures, has  full doors like a bathroom in your home. Not all   public bathrooms have that, but the doors are  all much more private than the ones in the US. Overall, people all seem to mind their  own business a lot more. In the US,  

You could be in any public place and some  stranger will start chatting you up. Of course,   I don’t want it to seem like being friendly  is a bad thing, but there were times when   people would make political comments that  I didn’t agree with or a joke that I didn’t  

Find funny. Then what? I’m going to get into  a debate with some stranger while in line to   buy groceries? You just have to awkwardly ignore  them and a lot of those people weren’t able to   take a hint. It was just weird. Or, when paying  for something, the cashier would start asking  

You how your day’s going or what your plans are  and I really don’t want to have a conversation.   I’m not doing anything exciting. I’m grabbing a  coffee and going to work. But since they asked,  

You have to answer or else you seem rude and it’s  just not comfortable for a lot of people. Here,   everybody just seems to leave you alone. You’re in  line at the grocery store? Nobody says anything.   You’re walking down the street. Nobody says  anything. It’s much more comfortable for an  

Introvert like me and even more so since I don’t  really speak Dutch. I can understand a few things   and respond in common instances, but if some  stranger just started talking to me in Dutch,   I would have no idea what they were saying.  I apparently give off some sort of happy,  

Approachable aura because animals and babies  seem to love me, and people in general seem to   immediately feel comfortable around me, but that  aura doesn’t match what’s going on in my head. I   don’t wish ill will on anyone, but 99% of the  time, I just want to be left alone. Obviously,  

With this vlog, I’m working on putting myself  out there a little more, but baby step. From here, I’m getting back into working  on This is Monsters full time. I have had   to put Sinister on hold indefinitely  and maybe someday will revisit it,  

But right now, I want to focus on This  is Monsters and then use my spare time   to work on this Vlog. I love traveling. I  love new experiences and I hope to be able   to share the one’s I will be having in the  near future. I also want to start building  

This channel up enough where I might be able  to use it to raise some money for charity. I   posted on social media a while back that I have  a big announcement and it’s still coming. I’m   working on a few ideas that I hope will lead  to something fun this spring. So stay tuned!

Thanks so much for coming to my channel. If  you guys have any questions about me personally   or about my new life in The Netherlands, leave  them in the comments. If you like these videos,   hit subscribe and you can continue on this  journey with me. Thanks so much and be safe!