I always knew that moving to a new country would be difficult at times, especially one so different to our home country. Some things we anticipated, some things we didn't. So bear with me while I vent a little.
I've found the cold extremely difficult to deal with. Aside from the chilling cold I've found I've been getting quite dehydrated, because I don't feel thirsty and don't drink enough. Dehydration then causes headaches, dry skin, troubles sleeping etc.
We've spent a bit of time going to the shops, particularly the main shopping streets in the city centre such as Kalverstraat and Nieuwendijk. In Australia, we would shop in big centres like Westfield which are a single building with heaps of different shops. Here, the shops are single buildings so you are constantly going into the warm shops (sometimes too warm) and back out into the freezing cold again. Then if you actually want to try on a shirt in a shop, it takes 10 minutes to take off all the layers of clothing, then another 10 to put them all back on again.
The language barrier is also frustrating. Before we moved, I spoke to quite a few people who said that you can survive perfectly fine in the Netherlands without knowing Dutch, and that everyone speaks English. Well, it appears that very few things are labelled in English- public transport, groceries, websites, TV channels, newspapers are all in Dutch only. I find it difficult to have to rely on asking locals to translate for me. However one of the big reasons for this move was to force myself to get out of my (self admitted quite small) comfort zone, so I guess I'm only getting what I asked for.
Despite all these things, I think everything will be OK. Whenever I look down one of the many canals, or stand in Dam Square surrounded by centuries old buildings, I remember just how lucky I am to have this amazing opportunity to experience this new culture.
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