Kia ora! My wife and I were born in The Netherlands. Ten years ago we decided to try living in New Zealand for two years. At that time we had a 1 yo, we now have two kids.

It felt really good so we decided to stay longer. Fast forward, here we are, ten years later. The pink clouds are definitely gone, but we've learned to appreciate NZ. Obviously it's a beautiful country and it's not densely populated. The Netherlands is 6 times smaller with 4 times more people.

People in NZ are generally friendly and keen to help. Also, people have respect for service people like police, firemen, train conductors, etc. In the NL it happens daily that they are spat on, verbally abused, or even injured. Kids in NL more and more bring knives to school. People randomly throw rocks, bombs, eg at fireman, police, and ambulance people.

NY eve in NL counted more than 200 arrests and counting. People were injured or killed because of fireworks. In every major city police was bombarded with illegal fireworks, multiple officers hurt with hearing damage. Buildings were set on fire, firemen came, were bombarded with fireworks as well.

Talking to other friends in Europe it's not getting better in other countries.

Writing this makes me emotional. Why can't we treat other people like we want to be treated?

NZ isn't perfect, there is crime here of course, but it definitely seems better than the rest of the world at the moment.

I love New Zealand. I've become a proud citizen 2 years ago and definitely now call this home. The Netherlands is now just a place where my family lives and where I can celebrate holidays.

Thanks for reading and I want to wish you all an awesome 2024. Stay strong.