Briefly, please could you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m an Englishman in his late 20s, who moved to Holland in the summer of 2001 to start working in the computer games industry as a designer. During the last year I have been writing my own blog, Invading Holland about my adventures in Holland. Since I can be quite accident-prone at times, I usually have a lot to write about. Before I moved to Holland, I worked in the theatre industry, but I really wanted to be a Ghostbuster, when I was growing up.

I like the cartoons on your Invading Holland blog. How long have you been drawing cartoons and what inspired you to start drawing?

I drew a few a couple of years back just for fun. I only did three comics, but they were based on my time at college and a few of my friends there. I have those old comics on my blog along with a few other early drawings. It was not until a few years later, when I started writing my blog that I thought about doing them again. I get a lot of fun out of drawing them.

Do you use your drawing skills professionally?

I don’t get to use my cartoon drawing skills professionally, but one day I would like to develop my cartooning more and maybe do something like a weekly web comic. Sadly at the moment I don’t have enough time, but one day I will.

Why did you move to the Netherlands?
It was never really planned, it just sort of happened by accident.

I’d spent some time trying to get a job in the computer games industry, but I was not having much luck until I came across a rather strange and cryptic job advertisement in a British gaming magazine. It had no address, no phone number. In fact it had very few details. All it really had was a dot com email address. It might have sounded like I could have ended up falling victim to a gang of black market human organ dealers using a games company as a front, but I took the chance.

Imagine my surprise when I was offered an interview and found out it was in Holland. They offered to pay for my flights and I would have time after the interview to do a little sightseeing. It was a free day trip. I was not thinking about the fact that they might actually offer me the job….. which they did.

Six years later and I’m still here. Plus I still have both my kidney’s, which is a bonus.

Do you speak Dutch and do you think it’s important to speak the local language?

It certainly helps, but in Holland it is not completely necessary unless you are in a small village somewhere. When I first moved to Holland I was not sure how much of a language barrier there would be. I knew very little about the country or its language. I started reading a phrase book before I arrived, but I later found out, I was pronouncing everything from it horribly. Luckily for me it turned out the language barrier is only small, almost un-measurable. There is a lot of English language culture here from TV to books. One of my Dutch friends even learnt to speak English from watching the A-Team as a child. However I have yet to hear him say, “Pity the fool.”

You work in Amsterdam, what do you like most about Amsterdam?

I personally find things are much more laid back and calm compared to life in London. I would have to say that is the biggest appeal for me.

Is there anything you do not like about Amsterdam?

Sometimes things can still be confusing, because Dutch is a hard language to learn. However, since I have been here for six years, I don’t think, I can legally complain about that since I should have learnt the language by now.

It’s also worth mentioning that Dutch customer service is not the best in the world to put it mildly.

Why should travellers visit Amsterdam?

At the very least they should do so just to experience it. It’s an amazing city. I think part of what makes it amazing is some of its strange contradictions. It’s a very beautiful city with lots of history and culture but then it also has places like the red light district and is well known for its relaxed laws on drugs. I think, it is these contradictions that give the city its character.

If a visitor had time to do or see only one thing in Amsterdam, what should it be?

It might not be everyone’s kind of thing, but if you come from a reserved country you should take a look around the Red Light District, because it is just so surreal. You will see a lot of other tourists (even families) taking a look around (and I mean just looking).

If a visitor had time for only one meal in Amsterdam, which dish would you recommend?

I would recommend eating at Febo, but only for the novelty. It’s a fast food place where they place different kinds of burgers and Dutch snacks in automats.

Kroket is worth trying, but if you want a nice one, Febo is not really a good idea on second thought.

Note

Anni Poulsen: Head on over to Stuart’s blog, Invading Holland, for some seriously funny stories and cartoons. You won’t be disappointed!

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Technorati Tags: travel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, View of a Local

However, a new European website, meteoalarm, aims to alert locals as well as travellers of possible extreme weather occurrences in Europe.

The site is centred around a symbol- and colour-coded, easy-to-scan map of Europe, which indicates where in Europe severe weather is expected to strike within a 48 hour period.

So-called “Awareness Reports” provide detailed country and city-level information about the predicted weather for all the participating countries, which are:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Cyprus
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

Meteoalarm, a joint effort between the 20 European countries, is an initiative from Eumetnet, “the public European weather services network within the World Meteorological Organization” (source: meteoalarm).

While I’ll need to wait till tomorrow, before I can check any warnings for Sunday, the UK does not have any severe weather warnings at the moment, so it looks like I’m good to go for a 10-mile walk on Sunday.

Technorati Tags: travel, Europe, weather