Oost West Thuis Best: The Netherlands Feels Like Home

I’d been living here about eight years when the realisation struck me, taking me by surprise; suddenly the Netherlands feels like home.

England Feels Familiar But is No Longer My Home

Heading back to England these days, seventeen years after leaving, feels like walking back into a house I once lived in.

The kitchen is in the same place it always was. The living room, albeit with a different shade on the walls and a new carpet, bears a resemblance to the room I once kicked off my shoes and relaxed in after a hard day at the office. And yes, the bathroom is the same, yet the unfamiliar shower curtain bugs me and there are toiletries littered on the shelves that I do not use.

It’s like walking into a garden that triggers back fond memories of English summers, BBQ’s with friends and lazy afternoons on the lawn. However, I never planted that row of conifers, and roses blossom where I used to keep my patio chairs.

oost-west-thuis-best_-the-netherlands-became-home Oost West Thuis Best: The Netherlands Feels Like Home It has an air of familiarity, but it’s definitely no longer my home. It’s like seeing the shell of a house you lived in, knowing the inside has been completely refurbished.

Like a House Somebody Redecorated

Every time I go back to England it feels like entering a house I once lived in, only someone came in and redecorated in their own style. Somebody splashed colours on the wall and rearranged the furniture, planted new shrubs and flowers and erased the little touches that made it my place.

I know my way around but it is clear I don’t live there anymore.

There Are Things I Miss

When we drive through the rolling English countryside I realise I miss hills and a green, lush landscape.

When we pass a traditional English pub, tucked back on a country road tempting the passer-by with Sunday roast dinners, I cannot deny happy memories flood back, and the desire to have such a stop-off on my doorstep again is overwhelming.

However, despite the memories, when I am back in England I feel like a visitor. I have a past there but no present. Nor a future.

People I love live there but I no longer have a base there. And I probably never will.

When we get into our car and make our way back to Dover to catch the Eurotunnel over to mainland Europe, or head to Harwich to get the ferry back to Hoek van Holland I know I am heading home.

Over to You

Have you reached the stage that The Netherlands feels like home for you? Does your birth country still feel like home? Or is home two or more places? What makes it home?

9 comments

Jax Hayton 31 May 2018 6:41 pm

I love this, we’ve only been here 2.5 years but this is how it feels, especially since Brexit, I think I would miss it more if I felt welcome.

EM 1 June 2018 4:29 pm

16 years in Austria, but to me it’s not ‘home’ even when some things back home in America are also now different and unfamiliar. And for me Austria can never be home as to fully participate in it (voting) I’d have to give up my American citizenship (because Austria doesn’t allow dual) and I am not giving up my citizenship. Plus I just don’t get the mentality here (such as repealing the public smoking ban that was going to FINALLY come into place here.)

I think I’d have a difficult time with the lack of vacation time back in the US but everything else I think I could adjust back to quickly!

Amanda van Mulligen 1 June 2018 4:33 pm

Interesting – no dual citizenship allowed under any circumstances? The Netherlands is difficult about it but it is possible in certain circumstances. And smoking bans indeed- huge issues here around bars when the ban came in to protect employees……

I guess our personal interpretations of what home is will also be a huge factor in whether a host country feels like home.

Ruth Lampitt 2 June 2018 3:35 pm

I totally identify with that feeling you described when I visit England. I am English and England has my heart, but it no longer feels like home. Then again, The Netherlands doesn’t feel like home yet either. My home is a tiny space where I live with my Dutch partner, I hope the country itself will feel like home in the future. When and how did it start to feel like home to you Amanda?

Amanda van Mulligen 2 June 2018 5:18 pm

I’d been living here for about 8 years. Friends and family in England moved about, or were temporarily abroad, and when I went back it was to places I had little connection to. I became more familiar with Dutch ways and things than with English ways I guess. That’s when the tables turned.

Not having to think too hard about the words when I speak remains the one thing I miss about being in England.

Miss Footloose 2 June 2018 6:09 pm

I understand completely the way you describe your feelings when you visit England. I feel like that when I visit my family and friends in the Netherlands, where I grew up. It’s my country, but I haven’t lived there for decades (my husband is American). Actually, having lived in 6 or 7 foreign countries, I don’t really know where I belong…. I live in France now and am very happy here, and it’s home because that’s where we live and have a house and friends, but it’s not where my roots are, and we’re still foreigners in most ways.

Daan Kusen 6 June 2018 12:14 pm

I’ve always lived in the Netherlands, but I have yet to find a “real” home. Since 2010 I have only lived places for maybe a year or two, maybe three.

Amanda van Mulligen 6 June 2018 2:47 pm

It’s an interesting topic – what makes a place home…..