When I realised that finding accommodation in the Netherlands and actually moving there would be much more difficult than I had originally imagined, I had to change my plans a little. The Netherlands had been the country where I wanted to start a new chapter of my life. Paradoxically, finding a job was not really the problem. Even though I have only around one year of experience as a truck driver, quite a lot of companies contacted me and showed interest. The real problem was housing.
Since I was staying with my cousin near Brussels and still had some time, I told myself there was no point in trying to walk through a wall. If I was already in Belgium, I could at least see what possibilities I had here.
First I Needed to Clear My Head
On Tuesday morning, however, I woke up and told myself that I was not going to do anything that day. The forecast showed around 25°C, sunshine and probably the last really warm day of the year. After everything I had been dealing with in the Netherlands, I simply needed to switch off and think about something else.
So I decided to drive to the Belgian coast, to De Haan. I parked my car and walked to the beach. It was sunny and warm, and at that moment I could not have done anything better. I sat down, looked at the sea and simply did nothing for a while. Then I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers and started walking along the beach. The sea water was washing over my feet, I was collecting shells and watching other people enjoying what was probably the last warm day of the year, just like me.
It really helped me a lot. After all the phone calls, applications and housing problems, my head was suddenly clear again.
A peaceful moment on the Belgian coast in De Haan was exactly what I needed.
Fourteen Applications and One Interesting Company
I did not want to drive home the same way through Bruges and Ghent, so I made a small road trip around Belgium through Kortrijk, Mons and Waterloo. The more I drive here, the more I realize how different the road network is compared with what I was used to back home. Belgium is very well connected and I enjoy driving here, although in my opinion the Netherlands is still one step ahead.
When I got back in the evening, I started looking seriously at my options. My filter was simple. I wanted to return home every day, I did not want to drive at night, English had to be an accepted language, I did not want refrigerated transport and ideally I was looking for domestic transport. Most importantly, I still preferred applying directly to a company instead of through an employment agency. In the end, I sent applications to around fourteen different transport companies across Belgium. Most of them were in Flanders because that was where I found more positions where English was accepted and where the work matched what I was looking for.
I worked on it until around one in the morning, and the very last company I applied to had something unusual in its job advertisement. They said they could communicate in Dutch, French, English, Polish and even Slovak. When I saw that, I thought: “Wow, I’m really curious what will come out of this.” On Wednesday morning I woke up, opened my email and found a message from exactly that company:
They immediately invited me for a personal interview in Turnhout on Monday at 10 a.m. That felt pretty awesome.
Turnhout as a Place to Live?
Turnhout was too far from my cousin for daily commuting, so if I started working there, I would realistically have to move. I therefore decided to do exactly what I had done before in Tilburg. I would go there myself, have a look around the city and, most importantly, find out what the housing situation was really like.
The route took me around Brussels and Antwerp, so of course there were traffic jams, but nothing terrible. When I arrived, I found a street where I could park for free, left the car there and walked into the centre. Turnhout pleasantly surprised me. The city has fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, but it did not feel dead at all. The streets were full of people of different nationalities, locals and tourists, and the main square was really beautiful. Overall, I felt very comfortable there.
I originally thought I would find plenty of real estate agencies in the centre, but it was not that easy. So I had a kebab, walked around for a while and eventually found a larger real estate agency with an office a little further away.
And Then Came the Catch 😂
And that was where I finally got the answer to the question that had brought me to Turnhout in the first place. Apartments for rent actually existed, and after my experience in the Netherlands, the prices were quite a shock. For roughly the same amount of money that often got me only one room in shared accommodation in the Netherlands, I could find a whole apartment here. On top of that, the properties advertised online were actually available.
At that moment I thought things were looking really good. Turnhout is also close to the Dutch border and has bus connections to Tilburg and Eindhoven, so even if I lived in Belgium, the Netherlands would still practically be around the corner. But then came the important “but”. The woman at the real estate agency explained that to apply for an apartment, I would need to prove my income, and she mentioned at least three months of Belgian payslips.
And suddenly I was in another vicious circle.
In the Netherlands, I could find a job but I could not find housing. In Belgium, both the jobs and the apartments existed, but I needed a job to get an apartment and I needed somewhere to live to be able to work.
A paradox!😁
Still, I did not consider the day unsuccessful at all. I had gone to Turnhout to get information, and that was exactly what I got. At least I now knew where I stood before Monday’s interview. If the company was interested in me and the job involved returning home every day, I would have to find some temporary solution. For example, during the first few months I could sleep in the truck during the working week and return to my cousin for the weekends until I had enough employment history to rent a normal apartment.