Well long time no see! How have you been? What have you been up to?
Me? Well I’m going to tell you good friend! Sit back, and grab a tea, coffee or whatever, this is going to be a long one!
Amsterdam: A housing crisis
To those who follow this blog know that I have been away in the wonderful city of Amsterdam to intern on my placement year. Out of the hundreds of applications to internships (and trust me, I applied to so many I lost count), one company in particular got in touch in May wanted me in Amsterdam! I can’t begin to tell you just how happy I was to get an internship let alone an internship abroad! Due to start on the 1st September 2018, I worked hard at a full time job during my summer to get enough money and also to find accommodation in Amsterdam.
This was my 1st hurdle.
Due to being in the UK at the time, I couldn’t go to viewings and that made me less likely to get a place as an applicant. Other places wanted only Dutch people in the spare room/ flat or for a year+ which I wasn’t there for that length of time. I was up against other students at the local universities and other international Erasmus Students. I got in contact with the universities there to ask if they had any available accommodation but there is a wait for their own students of around a year+!
The only place you could freely browse for a room would be on Facebook market place or add yourself into pages for Expats/ internationals or Student pages. Other sites for spare rooms (such as Kamer.nl) asked for you to pay just to respond to an advert about a room not necessarily get the room, which would get expensive. I ended up posting pictures of myself with information about myself to see if anyone would respond to my ad.
Which someone did! I was so happy that with a week to spare, I would be coming to the Netherlands to come to view this room and start my professional journey. Keep in mind that the Dutch equivalent of council housing has a 20 year wait list for desperate families so the fact that I found a place with a week to spare after emailing my internship, CGE and other people I felt so, so, lucky.
Room number 1
All packed up, I travelled to Amsterdam! At €500 a month this room was amongst the cheapest in the city, close to work and in an adorable Village outside Amsterdam called Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.
The family was from Pakistan and had 2 sons my age, we got on very well. The family was friendly and welcomed me into their home. The room was clean, big for just myself and what seemed to be perfect. But they failed to tell me about the mosquito problem they had so, I ended up as a walking buffet for the little pests. They also didn’t allow for me to invite anyone in the house and also if my boyfriend came over once a month for a week he was also not allowed in the house at all so when he did come over for his birthday in October, we had to pay for an Airbnb (But I was happy to not be mosquito food and also the Airbnb host was a cat! A CAT! I can’t lie, I loved it!).
As I started to become ill and not being allowed any friends over, I made the choice to look again and leave to a place that allows me to have visitors.
Room Number 2
Diemen. No it’s not Die-Men it’s pronounced much more like Demon. This was my Second (but very temporary) room.
The house was much more international, there was an Italian family, Australian couple (in their 20’s) along with a Latin American Woman also in her 20’s. Everyone was so friendly and at the same price as my last place, I was happy that I could be friends with more people and invite whomever I wanted to my room! Down side? This place was illegal and a HMO… Yep well done Chloe! Guess you could say I was desperate. The family where heavy smokers and this played heavily on my Asthma and they would argue a lot so where separating.
I began to get really close to the other international people, the couple (Ally and Bryden) and the Latin American (Roxanna) started to hang out a lot more. We even went out together to bars or restaurants to hang out (also to get away from the cigarette smell). Then tensions between everyone was high. Roxanna moved out to be with her boyfriend and this sparked a rebellion inside me. I thought about how I was being treated by the mother of the family, I was becoming more frequently ill I needed to take a stand and know just how my health is more important. I decided to move…again. But this time I wasn’t alone. Ally and Bryden came with me and we found a new place.
Final place!
After putting myself 1st, myself and the Couple found a flat right behind Dam Square which was more convenient. Granted there was a few issues here too, there was a mouse problem (we even found a rat skeleton in the cupboard) but we had been through worse. I began to feel like me again. My boyfriend came over to the flat, we had people over and met more and more amazing people. It was slightly more expensive by about €50, it was worth the small expense!
Life in Amsterdam is expensive
Yeah I’m not going to sugar coat this part, it’s expensive. Food alone could set you back a fair bit around €30 if I needed to get a lot of basic foods such as fruit, bread etc. Eating out is a luxury, just a main meal can be €12- €15. Setting myself a budget was tricky to stick to. I gave myself €50 a month and from this it should pay towards my travel card if I need it (OV Chipkaart saves you a lot of money itself) along with any eating out/ experiences I would have liked to treat myself too (because this girl had it tough!).
So, you have to be clever at where you go, what you do. Many times, I was invited to go out to a restaurant with people but would just have a glass of tap water and the free after dinner mint with the bill. I would stock up on food at lunch time at my internship because it was included! Towards the end of my stay, I found this vegetarian/ Vegan restaurant which re-used unwanted food and for a main and desert, you could pay as you feel! So if you have no money, Taste before you waste is the place to go!
At my internship, Larissa would bring in the occasional Dutch treat such as Tony’s chocolonely chocolate and other pastries for me to try out.
Wait what?
Chloe! What is this negativity?! I am shocked! Well it’s just my experience! It might sound all negative, doom and gloom, but hear me out! Sounds silly, but I’m a great believer in Karma everything happens to you for a reason. My reason? To build myself into a stronger person and stand up for myself and strive for the best outcome either in my work or my personal life and growth. My hardships has helped to shape me into the more grounded person I know I am now. I feel if anyone else was in my position and in a foreign country alone, they would have given up and come back… but I’m one stubborn woman (I guess that’s the Aquarius trait in me!).
But don’t let the hard times get you down! (Sounds so much easier said than done) But if you’re suffering, know you’re not alone. My internship Larissa was such an amazing woman, she helped me as much as she could (I even referred to her as my Dutch mum!). The people I met slowly helped me gain more confidence in myself and the situations I was in forced me to take stand for what I saw was wrong. I’m writing this now in the UK at home with everyone I love and care about and you know what? I kind of miss the hardships! At the time maybe not so much I admit, but it grows on you, the hard times are for the best and my best is yet to come! I feel ready for the deadlines and stresses of final year fashion (even though I thought I would never be ready!).
Learning to overcome life!
Well after all these issues, how did I overcome these hurdles? Let’s be honest for a second, life never goes the way you want it to go. After months and months of planning and budgeting, all if it could just be thrown out the window within a split second.
To overcome the struggles I had to deal with, meant I had to make rash quick decisions. I only managed to do this with the support of friends and family back at home who believed in me and that they trusted me to do the right thing for me. I could also trust the opinion of those around me in Amsterdam who where there for me to be a physical shoulder to lean on. But let’s not forget the most important thing you need, time with you. Sometimes I would take my bike out to ride out into the beautiful Dutch country side and just take time to just enjoy the beautiful country and let’s not forget getting lost in a hobby or too helped me a lot with making the right decisions for me.
If you find yourself in a similar situation as my own, you’ll find that you learn more about yourself you didn’t even know. I found I had more of a drive to fight for what was right for me and became more vigilant with future projects. I suppose I’ve grown up! Look at me with this new-found independence!
What I should do if I could redo it again
What should I do if I could redo my experiences again? Well, sounds cheesy but I wouldn’t redo my experiences! I believe that everything happens for a reason, maybe my reason was to shape me into a stronger more independent person to push for what’s best for myself and not let other people walk over me for their own gain. Okay, let’s imagine I HAVE to change the outcome of my accommodation for the placement year. I would have tried to find someone to buddy up with to get a flat with which would have been easier to find than just a room. Perhaps a fellow intern or fellow student from the UK or local Universities. I also would have extended my search larger to out side of Amsterdam to find a room easier and much cheaper than being more expensive and harder to find in the city.