Preparing

After getting enrolment letter from the university, you will have to prepare for your departure. for some people, it is really hard to pack up for one year or more traveling (studying) period and some other tips. Here are some of those.

1. Get prepared for some rain shower everyday!

The Netherlands is well-known for shitty weather. However, if you prepare it well, you can survive from the storm. Basically everyday (mostly), it rains a lot. Someday might be sunny and hot as fuck but mostly rainy and windy. So how do you prepare for these weather conditions? Buy yourself a good water/wind proof jackets, you will wear this almost everyday in a year. Even in the summer, sometimes it rains too much, the temperature goes down really quick, making it like 16-17 degrees, and it is pretty damn cold. One more to add, probably best for you to get waterproof shoes and backpacks also.

[Image: http://www.netherlands-tourism.com/]

2. Prepare your legs for some cycling!

Everyone in the Netherlands has a bike or two. The bike to people ratio is almost 1.5 per one person so this shows that there are lots of bicycles in the Netherlands. If you are a poor student and have to travel to school everyday? Don't hesitate to buy a bicycle here. You can get the bicycle from lots of different Facebook second hand markets (ex. Second Hand Bikes Amsterdam), costing from average €50-150. Cheap one might break easily after a short period of time, but normally, bikes around €100 are good enough to ride everyday to school. If you want something faster than bike, you can also ride scooter on bike lane! But be careful, some bikes on Facebook might be stolen, eventually when you buy it, you might get in trouble with the police if they stop you!

Another way is to get it from shops. There are hundreds thousands of bike shops in Amsterdam, and generally in Holland everywhere, you can get nice decent condition bike for around €80-200. These are 100% not stolen so it's safe.

[Image: www.freedomtreks.co.uk]

3. Make sure you bring debit cards and enough cash

When you first arrive here, you will have to use either debit cards or cash before you can get a dutch bank account. Make sure you bring debit cards that works in overseas, better if you can get low commission rate cards. However, some stores don't take Visa and MasterCards. For example like well-known supermarket in the Netherlands, Albert Heijn (AH), they don't take Visa and MasterCards, instead, they take cash and Maestro cards. Every dutch pin cards(debit) are Maestro, so it would be dope if you can bring Maestro debit cards from your country too.

[Image: cdn.gobankingrates.com]

These are few really important things that you need to prepare for your journey to the Netherlands. I hope you guys enjoyed it and let me know in comment below for question and suggestions!

Next post will be about finding accommodations in the Netherlands.