As you may have noticed, we have moved to the Netherlands. My wife, my daughter and myself live in the eastern suburb of Amsterdam. Our dog has found a new home at my parent's house in France, and she is doing fine considering she has now a garden as territory and enjoy French delicatessen.
I lived in the Netherlands a few years ago, and I had great time. There are jobs in abundance, I was sharing an apartment right in the historical center. Life was easy, I was living of coffee, steack, pasta, was never ill, was often going out. My job in IT was fun.
I made the mistake to think that it would be the same again today, head of a family, with different needs.
I have to say that you would never expect of a country so innovative and advanced technologically to see
a level of health care so low. Not only you have to subscribe to a one of the private health insurances which have all doubled their price 3 years ago, but you also have to face totally ignorant doctors, arrogant in a way, but definitely trying to convince you that paracetamol can cure everything, and that they will not prescribe anything else unless you reach a critical state of health, and only in that case, they will then give you super strong antibiotics which will damaged other organs of your body. It is or nothing or maximum dose. Prevention does not exist here. Ask them about advices, they will not give you any you don't know already. Ask them about medicine you know, they don't know what you are talking about. If by chance you get to be sent to a lab for analyze, you will most likely receive the bill rather than the results.
I have heard many things from my colleagues expatriates which are all praying not to be ill here, and if they are, they simply go back to their countries to visit their doctors.
So between Health Insurances which are here to make profit, and useless doctors who do not prescribe anything, you really feel like standing between the hammer and the anvil. Praying indeed is the best option.
About food, this is slightly better than in the UK. But compared to any other countries, you can say without hesitation that they eat badly here. The other evening, I was wandering in an Albert Hein food shop, (supposedly the best super market in the Netherlands and the most expensive too), I was trying to find some decent food to eat and at the same time observing the other customers in the shops, dutch for most of them. The racks were presenting products all under plastic, single dosed, mini dosed (1kg of rice is too much, 250 gr will do) pre-cut, pre-cooked, pre-peeled, meats with various shapes but of the same greyish color, swollen by added water and fat, pre made sauces which transform themselves in puke when you warm them in your pan, customers were taking then putting back items, taking them again because there was nothing else, and they had to eat somehow.
Yet I knew I could still rely on Turkish shops around to buy my vegetables, I was still feeling so deeply upset that, even though my stomach was empty, there was nothing really tempting in this Albert Hein store. Often at such moments, I miss very much Lithuanian food, those thick slices of tasty lards, black bread, Svituris beers (Albert Hein only sells this kamel piss called Heineken), and yes, I even miss those tins of slightly radio active Skombres captured in the Baltic sea.
Child care: To be able to both work, we would have to put our child in a Kindergarden. The Kindergarden system in the Netherlands is not only awfully expensive, one full salary would be used to pay for this service, but this is simply crap. No real meal is given to the children, and they often serve bread and jam for lunch creating very early food disorder. In smaller structures, there is not enough safety, all children with different age are "playing" together all day long. Anybody could just push the door, take a child and go. For both options, there is a waiting list of 1 year, and up to 2 years.
Baby sitting could be a solution we thought, but official baby sitters cost between 10 and 15 euros per hours, and unofficial one starts from 5 euro per hour, the problem is that not only they are not allowed to work in the Netherlands but they do not have even a resident permit. What would happen if they were arrested by the police while taking the child out. What would happen if something wrong happen, they would simply disappear without leaving any trace? Again, this is not a reliable option.
Public transports: I can not say they are not reliable. They are often late but daily you always manage to go from A to B and back. The ticket system is however so complex, that even those in charge of selling it can not explain how it works, and as a result of that, give you the wrong zones, tells you it is impossible to get this and that combined (but you still show them the tickets from the previous month with the combination they say is impossible), and often when they know something, they will tell it to you so quickly that you won't understand anything.
And the list could go on and on. My useless dutch GP told me the other day that Dutch people always complain about everything. I can tell you this is wrong. Dutch never complain about anything, they accept whatever is thrown at them, and eventually, too lazy to fight, they don't care anymore. This is how they managed to have a Health care system very similar to the U.S system, all based on money and profit.
One of my friends told me, it is not because we are expatriates that we have to accept everything. We consider ourselves as guests, we tolerate the Dutch way of life, but accepting it isn't an obligation.
I do not pretend that life is better in Lithuania, in fact, it seems to get worst every passing month, however, there are serious doctors and children are cured efficiently. You can find someone looking after your child without spending a whole salary on it.
Going back to France isn't really an option either as we would have nearly no chance to find jobs. We are kind of stuck in this Netherlands now. There is no perfect society. We still have 7 months to decide ourselves where to go next. The well being of our child is our priority.
