dutch – Rachel's Round-up

Getting comfortable at the High Tech Campus

Not long after I had arrived in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, I heard about a place called the High Tech Campus. It sounded cool, a single location with over 260 companies, including start-ups, scale-ups in the tech space, and HQ to some industry giants. It has often been claimed to be the smartest square km in Europe, and possibly the world. It wasn’t too long before I got to go there for a couple of meetings and events. Every time I went it was like meeting a melting pot of internationals. Everyone was open and friendly, and many were from ‘elsewhere’, something that brought a common bond, and English seemed to be the regular language spoken in the events I attended.

Six months ago I started contracting for a company that has its European HQ at the Campus, looking after their Learning & Development function whilst they were recruiting for a permanent replacement. When I started, we were still in work-from-home mode, so it wasn’t until April that I was in at the campus more than a couple of days a week.

Over the last couple of months, I have gotten more familiar with the campus. I now cycle there from home (on my e-bike), a journey of 11 km that takes just around half an hour. My cycle ride takes me into the city-centre and out the other side on the traditionally red cycle paths that line every road. When I get near the campus, my route takes me alongside the river Dommel, green and lush, finally cycling over a bicycle bridge onto the campus itself. It’s hard not to feel energized after such a journey.

One of the campus traditions for my company, and for many it seems, is a lunch-time walk. On my floor, everyone is invited to join the communal walk, regardless of your department, rank or role. We take one of the footpaths and head down to The Strip, which literally is a strip of restaurants and shops which line one of the large lakes that are a feature of the campus, and then circle back, walking over one of the many open footbridges that cross the lake. There are many extra detours available, raised wooden platforms that run through the reeds around the lake, or paths through the wooded areas, with marked routes, handy for ‘walking meetings’ which are easy to do in this setting.

A noticeable difference in working in the Netherlands compared to the UK is the dress code. Jeans, trainers and t-shirts are regular work attire, for men, it seems. The older generation opt for a more professional look with a collared shirt paired with jeans, or maybe chinos to smarten it up a bit. When I was in the UK this more relaxed European style of dressing was considered to be a reflection of a more ‘avant garde’ approach to business, but once you start biking to work you realise that a large part of this style difference comes from practicality.

It has been a nice feeling to get comfortable being at the campus, from those early days observing others wandering round the campus, and attributing them all as smart, techy people, to realizing that I am now one of them. Ok, maybe not so techy, but you know what I mean.

The campus itself is pretty big, so there are campus bikes available that you can jump on to take yourself to the other side if you have a meeting to get to. Even the post is delivered on a post-bike.

I think it’s an amazing place. It has its own sports field, complete with volleyball courts, cricket field, tennis courts and gym. Every Tuesday I join a Boot Camp, with colleagues from Shimano, where a few of us do circuits outside on the field. There’s a creche, and hairdressers. Every year there’s a campus marathon, using the lake.

Boot Camp at the High Tech Campus Sports Bos

Before I moved here I really had no idea how things would work out for me work-wise, but with the High Tech Campus on my doorstep, I really have nothing to worry about.

Why I started a Facebook group for English speaking theatre in The Netherlands

I grew up wanting to be an actress. I loved films and theatre. My parents had the vinyl LP’s for West Side Story, and My Fair Lady and I would play them both over and over. I knew every word to every song.

I did lots of acting as a young person. I went to drama classes, took exams and took part in speech festivals. But I wasn’t brave enough to choose to study drama at school, as I always took the ‘sensible’ subjects. I ended up doing a business degree, although part of me would have loved to have studied English Literature with Drama, or some such combination.

Whilst at Uni I ran the Drama Society, so was able to let loose my creative side there. Once graduated and working, I took every opportunity to work with young people, writing scripts and directing short plays. Some of those I was really proud of and won competitions with. Bringing together a group of people and just the right ingredients of a good script, central message, music, dancing, costumes and lighting, and heaps of humour, to create something truly magical, is something I will always relish.

One of the highlights of the last few years for me was attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and having three days of solid performances, some in the street, some in rooms below bars, some in college classrooms. Being sat metres away from a powerful performance of a one-act Tennesse Williams play in the middle of the afternoon is my idea of perfection.

Most of my life I have lived in proximity to London, being able to hop on a train for a day trip or the occasional evening out. Of course, we’re spoilt with the choice of live theatre in the West End. What I loved about living in the UK (and didn’t truly appreciate how unique it was until I moved away), was the abundance of culture. With a family it was not always possible to go and see everything, but to know of it, to hear it talked about on the radio or the tv talk-shows, to hear interviews with the actors, to hear the stories behind the production. That’s what I loved, and that’s what I missed when I came to the Netherlands. Maybe those things happen here, but I don’t know where. I don’t know what channels to listen to or watch, or what to read to find out what’s going on culturally.

Actually, I love Shakespeare so much, I was a bit worried when I came that there would be no Shakespeare here. Shakespeare is one of those tricky things – so much is in the language, the detail, the poetry of the words. That could not possibly work for an audience where English isn’t the first language. Even my husband who is 100% fluent in English and writes academic papers in English, puts the sub-titles on when we are watching certain things – anything where there are accents, or where the speech is so fast he can’t pick out the vernacular.

So, it was from all of this that I set up a Facebook group, English-speaking theatre in the Netherlands. I wanted to find out what was going on and thought that others would too. In Amsterdam they have a couple of the big production musicals every year, which is great, but for me it’s not just about the musicals. Since setting up the group I’ve learnt about theatre groups like STET the English Theatre, in the Hague, and the Orange Theatre Company in Amsterdam that put on high-quality English language theatre.

We’ve topped 200 people in the group this weekend, and I only set the group up over the summer. We’ve had loads of actors join the group too, people that are interested in performing. And it’s been great to find out how many amateur or semi-professional theatre groups there are here for Brits or English-speakers that want to perform. Actually, this is all really important. When you move to a new country, quite often you’re starting over with zero social circle, you have to create a whole new life for yourself. Many things, because of the language barrier, aren’t accessible, so having something for people to get involved with where they can make friends and have good experiences, is invaluable.

I’m a little bit sad that where I live, in Eindhoven, there does not seem to be quite so much going on theatre-wise in English, or even in Dutch actually! I suspect (and it’s tricky to back this up as statistics on expat numbers in cities are a bit sketchy) that as Eindhoven’s expat growth is more recent, then the cultural offerings in English haven’t quite caught up with the demand. I’m hoping with this group in time we can change that!

And of course, it’s important to say, it’s not that I’m not interested in seeing performances in Dutch. I’m still learning the language, and that would be an obvious barrier to understanding a performance, but of course I am open to experiencing what the Dutch have to offer too. I do think that there are opportunities for some creative thinking around making performances accessible where there are language barriers. I saw a production in London called ‘Once’ – a fabulous musical set in Dublin, and when one of the main characters let loose in their native Czech tongue, a small screen at the top of the stage offered the translation in English. Such an ingenious idea. We use sub-titles for viewing films, so why not in the theatre.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying hosting the conversations in the Facebook group. Sharing things (like the British National Theatre ‘live’ performances that are streamed from theatres to your tv screens) with other’s that will appreciate them and getting to know more about what’s going on in places not too far away from me. Building a sense of community with other theatre-lovers, is helping have my cultural ‘fix’ for now.

And if you’re interested in any of the above, we’d love to have you join our FB community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/englishdutchtheatre

Sorry, I’m English

My most repeated phrase of the last 18 months since living in the Netherlands, often felt like an apology rather than a statement to indicate my Dutch language skills were not quite up to the mark.

Despite my best intentions, learning a language during a pandemic is not easy. Various levels of lockdown, shops and amenities being closed, visits with other people disallowed – all these factors do not help to immerse oneself into a new culture.

My weekly language classes I had started at my son’s school were cancelled in the first lockdown and never reinstated. My son home-schooled for a large chunk of the last year and this, which changed the priorities at home, with well-being and outside exercise to break the day up becoming the priority, not more learning.

I tried an online class, which was good, and I made progress, but these were only available in the evenings, and after busy days running my business (which is entirely online and with UK clients) I found it hard to take it all in.

Frustrating too were the mouth-masks, or ‘mond-kapjes’ in Dutch. Any attempts at conversing in Dutch with shop-assistants through layers of masks and screens went awry. One trip to the orthodontist to discuss a sensitive matter around health insurance was a complete failure when she could not hear/understand me, and I had to go home and get my husband to telephone instead.

I tried to teach myself. I have text-books, story books, apps, audio-books and podcasts. I’ve tried them all. Teaching yourself isn’t easy. On my own I struggle to structure the learning and with no-one to be accountable to other than myself, I drift.

As I’m just a little over 18 months here, I feel I need a system that will work for me. I decided learning for me must be one on one, with a teacher to meet me at my level, giving me nowhere to hide.

I’ve set something up with family members. I speak to a sister-in-law two evenings a week for half an hour (or mostly she speaks to me). She lives in the US and is happy to get to speak Dutch. She’s great as she speaks slowly so I can follow and make out the words. And I can mostly get the gist of what she’s saying. Anytime there’s a word I don’t know she types it into the chat and I make a note of it. So, my vocabulary of ‘regular’ conversational words is growing. I’ve been floundering in putting sentences together in response, so I’ve asked another sister-in-law, trained as a primary school teacher, to help me out with some more structured sessions. So now two mornings a week, at 9am, we work through basic grammar.

From my arrival here to now I feel like I have forgotten more than I have learnt. I feel like I’m going round and round and not moving forwards. But learning a language is one of those things where there is no quick fix. There is no learning ‘hack’ that can take the place of hours of study and practice. Last year I read a lot of books about learning, how the brain takes in information, sorts it and recalls it. My ‘day-job’ for many years has been corporate learning & development. Knowing how learning works does not necessarily make learning easier. But I am aware that I will need structure and a system to learn, and then lots of repetition, and practice at recall. I’m also aware of the importance of ‘mindset’. Thinking that I can’t do it, being afraid to try, not wanting to look stupid and make mistakes – these are all self-limiting beliefs. I am fortunate enough to have people around me where I feel safe enough to try out my learning. It may just take me a little longer.

And in the meantime, I’ll have to keep saying, ‘Sorry, I’m English’.

A Year of Gratitude

A year ago yesterday my son and I arrived in the Netherlands. This was a week after marrying my Dutch husband and enjoying a lovely honeymoon in Sicily. We drove over on the Dover-Calais ferry, the car loaded up with our things. A month later we hired a van and drove back to collect my larger items of furniture and valuables from my house.

There started our adventure, in a new country, a new language, and a new family.

I have since discovered that Eindhoven, like many Dutch cities, is full of people that have left the UK to start a new life. Unlike most others however, we were starting our new life as a newly formed family unit. I have met others that came here for love, not just for work, but unlike them, I’m not a young twenty or thirty-something, carefree with no-one to think of but myself. I was leaving my two grown-up daughters behind in the UK, and (at times) it felt like I was leaving my identity, who I was, my personal and professional self.

That’s a lot of change all at once!

So how has it been? I have wanted to write so many times over the last year, so many thoughts, feelings and experiences. Those early weeks and months were at times intense, as I was dealing with what can only be described as ‘overwhelm’. Seemingly small insignificant tasks take on Herculean proportions when everything is unfamiliar. From grocery shopping, to banking systems, to road-rules, to taxation. Even riding a bike – something I can do – is completely different here.

I was really keen to ‘hit the ground running’ with my business – and made that a priority, networking, talking to people to figure out how I could adapt my business here. I soon realized I had to ‘pace’ myself – I couldn’t master the language, support my son in settling in, re-launch my business, decorate the house – all immediately. So, I prioritized, and some things had to take a back seat for a time.

Of course, family comes first, and we were building a lovely ‘safe-haven’ home where we were happy to be together. Not a day went by that I wasn’t thankful to be married to my husband. Facing any challenge was made lighter by having someone to share things with.

Lockdown came along, but we were all content in our own little family bubble. My language classes got cancelled, priorities shifted, and we played football together as a family most days in support of my son who was not able to see friends at school.

The summer was great – Valentin is a teacher so we took advantage of the holidays taking a road-trip by car through Europe.

The summer break gave me a chance to pause and reflect. And prioritise again. Time to re-start Dutch language classes. Time to make a plan for decorating the house. These things are important to me. I love my work and could happily fill my time working – but with a new life in a new country, it’s about balance.

With the autumn term underway, I noticed I was using Dutch more in everyday situations like a trip to the dentist, and pulling out of a side-road on my bike in front of a car without flinching (yes we have priority when coming from the right). Familiarity. It comes gradually, so imperceptibly it could be missed. But I didn’t. I appreciated those moments.

We are happy here, we are settled. It has been an amazing year. I really like the Netherlands – it is clean, less traffic, very organised. The Dutch are a practical and pragmatic bunch. I love Eindhoven, there is so much opportunity, lots of industry, loads going on – I have found it easy to meet new people. There are many internationals here, people are open and friendly.

Looking back over the year the biggest theme for me is gratitude. I’m grateful I took a leap, marrying someone from another country. I’m grateful for him, every single day. I’m grateful to anyone that has had a conversation with me – at networking events, talks. Feeling seen is the most important thing. I feel seen here, I can bring my whole self to this new life. I’m grateful that my son is doing well at school, that he has joined a Dutch football team where they make him feel welcome. I’m grateful for this new chapter in my life. I’m grateful for new opportunities and challenges (like learning a language) – that I am facing – age 50! I am grateful to all that went before that has led to me being here today.