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Comment by angiolillo | Hacker News Reader

> the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrate

As a US citizen who has daydreamed about moving to a Dutch city like Ultrecht I'm curious what they found, and how it feels to be an immigrant in the Netherlands.

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I live very close to Utrecht and I adore the city. We literally have kids in groups biking to the canal with fishing rods.

Sounds lovely. Our kids enjoyed the local bikepacking trips we did this summer, perhaps our next will visit the area. (In the off chance you have personal recommendations for bike touring companies/routes, let me know.)

I’m afraid I don’t but that sounds very nice!

It's not so easy to do. You can't just daydream about it. A friend of mine spent 18 months just with the paperwork. He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy. The people are definitely friendly and welcoming, but the legal system makes it hard. And the businesses know this so they underpay because they can.

What visa takes 18 months?!?

I have a general sense of the difficulty based on preliminary discussions with an immigration lawyer, but the Netherlands seems like one of the easier routes we're considering.

The reason it's "daydreaming" is that we're not yet ready to give up on New England, but I'd still like to start getting our ducks in a row in case there's a rush for the exits and we have to move quickly.

> He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy.

Sounds like what we're looking for.

it pays less but it's very nice.

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