Expatriate community: Newcomers Handbook
May 6, 2006
Graciously offered by the Maastricht-based International Women’s Club South-Limburg (IWC) for Crossroads’ readers: the Newcomers Handbook.
- IWC Foreword
Welcome to Limburg! We hope these tips will be of help to you in settling in this little piece of the Netherlands. Our aim is to give you a few pointers based on our collective, practical experiences in this area.
This handbook was put together in 2002 by an English and an American IWC member, so some of the tips and information may or may not apply to you. There are of course a number of useful guides available about living in the Netherlands, but be warned – Limburg is not like Amsterdam!
Some things you will immediately notice are the innumerable dialects from village to village, the Limburg pie (yummy), incessant lateness (at least 15 minutes), the all encompassing Carnival (pre-Lent party time) and an obsession with window cleaning…
Go to the Newcomers Handbook.
A revised version of the Newcomers Handbook is expected in September 2006.
The Newcomer’s Handbook notes that subscriptions to the International Herald are “pricey and not necessarily timely, as they may arrive by mail”. This is not the case, as IHT subscriptions cost €32 a month (this works out to €1.60 per issue, a considerable savings over the newsstand price of €2.50), and they are delivered by courier, into your mail slot, early in the morning on the day of publication. Our paper arrives at 6:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and it’s great to be able to have a quiet half hour to read it at home before the rest of life kicks in.
Perhaps this comment could be deleted from the Handbook, as it is misleading and may prevent people from enjoying a good general English language newspaper. Moreover, it is a link to the rest of the world. Although we are here by choice rather than circumstance, and feel it is a privilege to be able to live here, we would feel far more isolated without the international paper.
Thank you for this useful piece of information Barbara. I will forward it to the International Women’s Club of South Limburg.