@kiliandjfilms

10 months ago

I don't think there is ever really a "better" when it comes to countries, it all comes down to personal preference and situation. Especially when talking about 2 rich western European nations. That being said, as a Belgian who has visited Netherlands pretty frequently for various reasons over the years, these are the most major things i notice: - Infrastructure and Attitude NL simply has a way more modern (liberal) way of thinking, and when it comes to most infrastructure... it shows. When i drive to NL, what i am most amazed by, is how complex the road system gets in some places. I am often met with intersections and roundabout systems that you simply never see over here. (or not to the same extreme) This probably also has a lot to do with me being from the countryside though. Planning of city layouts is a big one too. In NL everything built after the wars, has a lot of planning and thought put in to it. While in BE, for a very long time the general idea was mostly: do whatever you want, we don't care. Leading to a lot of city's and neighbourhoods being very illogically layed-out, and extremely costly to maintain. In fact, many neighbourhoods dont even really feel as neighbourhoods, their just a bunch of existing streets that one day a few people decided to put houses and stores down. And in many cases, that's exactly what they are. You really can drive for hours over here, and have a constant mix of houses and shops passing by, feeling like 1 giant city, but having passed by multiple politically separate "villages" in reality. Above that, you can expect that to a certain degree, 90% of NL citizens have accepted modern liberal social values to a pretty large degree. (excluding a specific set of bible belt area's) Where as in BE, the same can not be said. We too have a generally modern liberal way of thinking, but not to the same degree. You will find way more people here with a mentality stuck somewhere in the 60's. (gay people have an illness, cars need to be king of the road at all times, etc...) Overal NL definitely has a win here. - Cuisine I could be wrong in some ways, but generally i don't have the impression that lunch & dinner have the same "highlight of the day" feel to them in NL that it they do in BE. People over here are very proud of their food, and want it to be a highlight of their day, so, there is a cultural push to make as good food as possible. There are few things, that will make a Belgian feel nationalistic and defensive, but food and drinks are one of them. While in NL, they definitely have speciality dishes and very good snacks (many of which we have imported in large quantities). Most actual dishes don't really feel as something special they are really that proud of. But more as something practical and cheap to make first and foremost. We have these traditional "farmers dishes" too, but they are not where our traditional cuisine ends, where it largely does feel like that in NL. Beer is a similar story, NL has lots of good and great normal pilsner beers, but lacks quite substantially when it comes to stronger speciallity beers. In BE you will find that basically every city and collection of villages, has at least 1 brewery pumping out multiple kinds of specially beers, fruit beers, pilsners etc... Cafe's over here often have entire restaurant style menu's of 20-40 different beers, the vast majority of which are Belgian speciality beers. NL isnt a bad place for cuisine, but it can't match the culture and pride we have around food and drinks. - Politics Oh boy, the level of stability NL has when it comes to politics, is a daydream over here. NL has had the same prime minister for the last 15 years or something. While there is definitely votes being moved around, and parties being formed and sunk, generally, things always land on their feet, and not much comes of it. Over here, seemingly half of our prime ministers of the 21 century don't even make it to the end of their 4 year term. None make it to a second term, doing 3 or 4 terms like Rutte is completely unthinkable over here. A lot of governments have fallen, literally years have passed in the past without a full federal government being formed at all. A significant minority wants an independent Flanders, and has so for the last 60 years. (so you often have large groups of people seeting in a parliament of a country they don't even want to exist) And so on... Yeah, NL is no complete beacon of stability either, but its definitely a more stable country politically. - Cost of living & economy Economically, we are both stable and rich couintries with no overly large problems i sight, no major differences there. But i will say, cost of living is significantly higher in NL. Housing situation in NL makes the one in BE look like a paradise, Cars are also taxed way heavier in NL, gas prices are also insanity in NL, i just tanked E10 for 1,61€ over here, i drove to NL and saw prices as high as 1,99€ by the highway, WHAT?! Healthcare is more expensive and no better then over here. Lots of groceries and telecom are cheaper in NL though, but i don't think it quite makes up for the others being so much more expensive.

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