All posts of jkveenstra

If you haven’t noticed already, the Carnaval is starting tomorrow (5th of March).

Traditionally the cities and villages are renamed during Carnival. Eindhoven is called “Lampegat” (“Lightbulb township”) during the next few days and Maastricht is called “Mestreech” (Limburg Dutch dialect). If you want to know the alternative name of your city of town, check this page.

During carnival a procession is organized, with several floats (praalwagens). In Eindhoven the procession is help on the 5th of march around 13.00. Please check the agenda for Eindhoven on the following website: http://www.federatie-eindhovens-carnaval.nl/ (use Google to translate it). For processions in Limburg please check this website.

I Hope you enjoy the tradition of the South. I invite you to share your pictures. Please post them on our Facebook page.

What is it like to work here? Three expats tell their stories from their experience: as a newcomer, as someone who has been here a while, and as someone who intends to stay.

1. Diego Castaneda

“SABIC is an international company where everyone speaks English, which has made it easy to fit in. I came to the Netherlands especially for this job and I have enjoyed it so far. The atmosphere is open, we all address each other by our first names, it is great! But in order to create a life for myself I have to step out; go into town, meet new people. The SABIC welcoming dinner (held three hours after my arrival in the Netherlands) helped me establish my first contacts. It immediately made me feel welcome. Afterwards I went out and bought a map of Maastricht, where I live. I am starting to find my way around here. But the thing that is going to take some getting used to is the eating habits. In Colombia you will have a breakfast fit for a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a poor guy. This is the way things are in the Netherlands: you will eat breakfast like a poor guy, lunch like a poor guy, and you will dine like a king. Because I still prefer to eat later on in the evening, I have to go shopping in time. If I want to buy a carton of milk at six o’clock in the evening, the supermarket will have run out of milk and I will have to go to a night shop where milk will fetch the price of a nice whisky. I simply do not get it.

Continue reading ›

By Jane Hardjono

A nightmare for some

I had been asked many times why I wanted to leave Melbourne. Why would I want to leave my job and the whole career I had built there? And what about my brilliant friends and awesome family? When I decided to leave Australia four years ago, I was ready to say a permanent goodbye to the advertising industry and do something completely different. I wanted to know whether, as a single girl, I could be really independent. I wanted to stop working for’the man’, be my own boss and become a freelance writer. My destination was Amsterdam. On the way I met a lovely young Dutchman and took a detour via Eindhoven. I never left. Continue reading ›

This blog is about one of Europe’s Top technology regions – and the Brainport citizen in the Southeast Netherlands. The blog will give you an inside view into what it’s like to work, live and study here.

There will be articles from us as well as from expats who live here and organisations – companies and government – that work with the international community throughout the region. What do they like, what are they fond of and what could be improved…  In this first blog article we would like to present ourselves, the persons responsible for Brainport International Community. Continue reading ›