Newly arrived

His Royal Highness Willem Alexander King of the Netherlands is 50! and we are all celebrating him

by Agnès Batllori Benet
April 26, 2017May 7, 2019

Citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands*, vassals of the King Willem Alexander “the first”, let your hair down, dress up in orange from top to toe and celebrate that His Royal Highness is hitting 50 tomorrow Thursday the 27th of April.
If you arrived in the Netherlands after that date of April 2016, you should know that on Koningsdag nothing is bizarre.

(*that includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten)
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Delft mama of the week: Sine

by Tarja Van Veldhoven
April 14, 2017April 14, 2017

Sine invites me to her house for the interview. When we step in the elevator she tells me many of her neighbours are older people.… Read More »Delft mama of the week: Sine

My six insights on The Netherlands

by Daniela Trindade
March 28, 2017March 27, 2017
1 Comment

When one thinks of The Netherlands the first images that comes to mind may be bicycles, flowers, windmills and cheese. In fact, it does make sense and I was imagining exactly these kinds of things before coming to live here, but the truth is I have learnt that this country is way much more than that. As I had never thought about living here, I wrote a quick list with six things that was only possible to understand after moving to this foreign land.

Delft Mama of the week: Masha

by Tarja Van Veldhoven
February 17, 2017February 16, 2017

If you aren’t a native English speaker like myself, when you first start talking to Masha you’ll most likely think you’re talking with someone from… Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Masha

Delft MaMa takes The Hague

by Agnès Batllori Benet
February 7, 2017February 7, 2017

Delft MaMa, represented by a group of kind-hearted volunteers, was one of the 140 institutions present at the largest expat fair in the Netherlands. This annual event… Read More »Delft MaMa takes The Hague

Living in an ex-pat bubble

by Natali Drake
December 6, 2016December 6, 2016

Tis the season to be jolly…and for those that celebrate Christmas it is also the season of over-abundance, over-indulgence and rosy-cheeked children whining to the… Read More »Living in an ex-pat bubble

Bicycles and traffic for the newly arrived

by Tarja Van Veldhoven
October 11, 2016May 7, 2019
1 Comment

It’s the time of the year a lot of people working in sync with the academic school year have just found themselves relocated in the Netherlands. A new wave of people arrives every summer and face similar challenges every autumn after the sparkling, upsetting, amazing period of settling in. One of the things that fascinates and often intimidates most newbies in the Netherlands is the bicycle culture and the unique traffic in general.

I have met a number of newly arrived parents in the last couple of months. They have been equally curious about many things, but especially about things to do with traffic. Can you keep your foreign driver’s license and if so, for how long? How different is it cycling between the cars than on a sidewalk? Where do you get your bike and more importantly how do you lock and store it? What are the general traffic rules?

You can always decorate your bike to make it easier to recognize when you need to spot it in a sea of bicycles.