On my blog I used to write about all the interesting things I came across after I
in December 2009. And believe me, there were lots of them :)
, which was nice :), but interesting, not so much. I therefore already then decided to
in November 2013 I decided this would remain the main focus. (Although every once in a while you may find the odd blog post about
(in 2020), and moved to Amsterdam (in 2022). Due to all this life had become pretty hectic and busy. I've therefore decided to
Added on Tuesday, 2019-04-09 17:09 UTC in categories Netherlands, Zurich
It's been well over five years we've been living in Rotterdam (save a short return to Prague), and those years have been great. After having lived in Moscow and Prague there was a bit of a reverse culture shock, plenty more travel, and some job changes.
But despite the good jobs, home, friends, etc., we felt more and more something was missing: the excitement of living abroad :) I looked at ...
Added on Wednesday, 2018-05-23 12:24 UTC in category Netherlands
Registering our daughter at city hall
The amount of paperwork we had to go through after the birth of our daughter had seemingly come to an end as we left Prague and went back home to Rotterdam. All that was left was to register her at city hall in Rotterdam, and whatever else was needed in the Netherlands would be taken care of automatically.
Unfortunately, things weren't as easy as they ...
Added on Friday, 2018-04-27 09:47 UTC in categories Netherlands, Programming
Applying for a job
Last year's hiatus from work coincided with the birth of our daughter, which gave us a great opportunity to learn how to be parents, and to spend lots and lots of time with her. And as fun and rewarding as that may be, two things were missing: 1) a challenging and exciting job, and 2) income :P That's why late last year I started applying for jobs.
I applied to most of ...
Added on Tuesday, 2018-01-16 12:41 UTC in categories Netherlands, Programming
We do most of our shopping at Albert Heijn, whose site usually provides quite a customer-friendly shopping experience. The main thing we've been missing, though, is being able to compare products by price per kilogram. Although the price/kg is visible when clicking through to a specific product, it's not being shown on any product overview.
So I decided to fix that :) After a bit of digging ...
Added on Friday, 2016-09-30 16:06 UTC in category Netherlands
My wife and I recently restructured our mortgage in the Netherlands, and had our apartment revalued to get to a lower risk class. This saves us hundreds of euros per month, and maybe so it can for you! ;)
Getting a mortgage
About three years ago my wife and I moved to the Netherlands, and shortly thereafter, in March 2014, bought our very own apartment. We took out a mortgage at ABN Amro ...
Added on Sunday, 2016-02-28 21:00 UTC in categories Netherlands, Programming
After last year's home improvement I felt it was time for something new. A good home is never done, after all, so after browsing amperka.ru (in Russian only) I stumbled upon their soil moisture sensor and instructions on how to automatically water plants (also in Russian only). Pretty neat :)
I figured I could do something similar, but didn't feel like having a water tank and pump next to ...
Added on Sunday, 2015-10-04 10:55 UTC in categories Netherlands, Traveling
Way up in the north of the Netherlands lie the Wadden Islands, enclosing the Wadden Sea. My mom regularly visits one of the islands, Terschelling, and this time invited us to come too.
On the map the Netherlands look like quite a small country, but it still took us about 5 hours to get there: first by train, then by ferry. (It's faster to drive to Paris :P) We hired bikes and off we were:
...
Added on Monday, 2015-09-28 15:39 UTC in categories Netherlands, Programming
After the global financial crisis in 2008, Russia was hit by another financial crisis in 2014: international sanctions hit after Russia annexed Crimea and the oil price went down. Subsequently so did the Russian ruble, which lost about 50% of its value against major currencies. It also started to fluctuate wildly: from a high of almost 100, to a low of 53 ruble to the euro only three months ...
Added on Saturday, 2015-05-02 17:11 UTC in category Netherlands
Last year my wife and I bought a flat in Rotterdam. The flat was a model apartment, so we were lucky we didn't have to do any repairs whatsoever before we moved in. And although we enjoy our flat a lot, there's always room for improvement: home improvement!
Bathroom: dimmer and socket
When we had repairs in Prague, we decided to install dimmers everywhere: they're a great and easy way to ...
Added on Tuesday, 2013-12-10 10:01 UTC in category Netherlands
When moving abroad, especially far abroad, a culture shock is often unavoidable: I e.g. just couldn't get used to Muscovites' apathy, or to the Czech language (sorry :P). But now that, after having lived abroad for a while, we've moved back home, I'm starting to somewhat feel the effects of a reverse culture shock.
The overall feeling I get now that we're living in the Netherlands again is ...
Added on Tuesday, 2013-11-26 22:44 UTC in category Netherlands
The adventure
About four years ago the adventure started: my wife and I moved to Moscow. She's Russian, so for her it was simply moving back home. But for me Moscow had been, still was, and still is, a completely different world. I loved it, I hated it, I loved it some more, and even had my 5 minutes of fame.
But then we wanted to leave, and we moved to Prague. Prague was nice (although ...
Added on Sunday, 2013-01-06 23:00 UTC in categories Moscow, Netherlands, Prague
I already wrote about Russian New Year's last year, but thought it'd be nice to give a bit more perspective. We recently moved to Prague, and this year celebrated the holidays in Moscow, Prague and the Netherlands.
Moscow
First off, Moscow. Besides the New Year's celebration itself, most companies throw a New Year's party somewhere end of December. They may book an entire nightclub, or, ...