Leslie Hodgin
This story is based on an interview with Leslie Hodgin, a 55-year-old marketing consultant who moved from the US to the Netherlands with her husband, John Lyman, 52. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Until 2026, I was living in Richmond, Virginia, with my husband and our cat.
My dad was in the Army, so I grew up all over the world, but Richmond is my adopted home. I lived there for about 10 years.
During that time, I got an offer to move to Seoul, South Korea, for my marketing job. My husband, John, and I were dating at the time. We got married one week before moving to Seoul for two years.
After the contract ended, we returned to the States. I love Richmond, but it did feel small after I had been in Korea.
Some events happened in both of our families that made us want to move abroad again sooner rather than later. My dad died. My husband's mom died. We had a couple of dear friends pass away. It was all very quick. And it made me think, "What are we waiting for? We don't have promises for tomorrow. Now is the time."
We don't have kids, so that wasn't holding us back. We had some money in the bank to move, which I know is a privilege. It was like, "Let's just go and live our lives. We shouldn't just keep hoping for someday because there may not be someday."
John had gone to graduate school in the Netherlands, so we'd visited before. Through my work in advertising, I also had a fairly large network of people living there.
There's a visa for Americans called the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT) that allows freelancers and entrepreneurs to live in the Netherlands. It made the country seem like a great choice for us.
Leslie Hodgin
My husband works for himself, so it was easier for him to pick up and go anywhere. I started my own consulting business and left my agency. I knew there was an advertising community in the Netherlands, and I planned to freelance if my consulting business wasn't doing well.
My husband's dad is in his 90s, and my mom just turned 80. Moving far from them was probably the hardest part of the decision. I have a little guilt for that, but they're excited for us. I've promised my mom that I'll be home for any big family and important events.
That's a hard thing to do, but we felt it was right for us not to put our lives on hold.
We moved in January. We did it in six months. We'd sold our house about a year before moving and were living in an apartment.
We decided to sell almost everything we owned to keep costs as low as possible. We shipped a half-crate over, which is quite small, so we had to get rid of a lot of stuff. We made close to $12,000 selling everything and used it to pay for the visas and help with some of the moving costs.
When we moved, we had nine suitcases, including a large piece of art. It was the largest oversize item that would fit on an airplane, and we had a special museum-packing company pack it. And our cat, of course, came on the plane with us.
Leslie Hodgin
We live in a two-bedroom apartment. It's an old, old building, but the apartment is newly renovated and has a patio.
We do feel lucky that we found a place because there is a housing shortage, and it's quite hard to find housing, particularly if you're American or from another country and you don't have Dutch income. We had to pay six months' rent upfront to secure our rental.
It still feels surreal that we live here. My husband and I will frequently look at each other and say, "Oh my God, I can't believe that we're here." I never want to lose that feeling.
Business seems to be going really well. I also already knew some friends, but I've met so many amazing people through social media and made some great friends with our neighbors.
Leslie Hodgin
We love the sense of community. I appreciate the social contract that people afford each other in the Netherlands, from the opportunities the government provides to the respect and trust they show each other in general.
Recently, there was Open Monumentendag, or Open Monuments Day, with over a thousand monuments, churches, houses, farms, and historic places across the Netherlands open to the public for free. They do that every year, and it feels so special. It seems like every other weekend there's a festival.
There are always challenges. I'm very slow to pick up the language. Most people speak English, but I feel like I need to be better.
Moving also costs a lot more than you plan for. Even if you've tried to pad all the numbers, it still costs more than anticipated. Because our work was quite slow earlier in the year, we were like, "Gosh, what have we done?"
Our cost of living is fairly similar to what it was in the US. We don't have a car, so we don't have that expense. We would be paying double the rent in New York City for this same apartment.
I feel alive again. I felt a little stagnant in Richmond after living overseas, and moving has opened a lot of doors for my creativity.
On social media, I've documented trying one new thing a week. It's gotten us out to meet people and have some interesting experiences.
Leslie Hodgin
There's a risk in moving abroad. You have to get yourself over the hump, and you have to be brave.
Believe in yourself. If there's something you want to try, like moving overseas, going on a solo trip, or taking a cooking class, take a chance on yourself. You're never going to regret trying it if it doesn't work out. If you don't ever put yourself out there, you're going to look back in 20 years and be like, "That would have been great. Why didn't I give that a shot?"
O vice-presidente e candidato à reeleição junto com o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Geraldo Alckmin, chegou para votar em um colégio em Morumbi, na zona Sul de São Paulo, às 12:10 deste domingo (25).
Ele veio acompanhado de sua esposa, Lu Alckmin, do candidato ao governo de São Paulo derrotado nas urnas, Fernando Haddad, e de Simone Tebet, Tabata Amaral e Marina Silva.
Após a votação, Alckmin disse que está “muito confiante devido ao movimento que viu nos últimos dias”.
“Mulheres, homens, a melhor idade impressionante a presença de todos nas ruas. Ficamos muito confiantes, animadíssimos, pois cresceram as redes cresceram as ruas e nós vamos garantir a democracia que é onde o povo é ouvido” disse aos jornalistas no colégio Santo Américo.
Alckmin citou que dia 25 de outubro é o dia Nacional da Juventude e também o dia Nacional da Democracia, e elogiou a presença jovem no segundo pleito.
“O futuro começa hoje, e ele se chama juventude. Os jovens geram um grande exemplo, ocupando as ruas de maneira espontânea, alegre, dando um exemplo de amor ao próximo”, disse.
Segundo ele, as eleições estão com um sentimento semelhante ao do movimento Diretas Já, no final dos anos 1980, quando milhares foram às ruas em defesa da democracia. “Nesse segundo turno vimos no Brasil inteiro cidades pequenas no interior e capitais, todo mundo nas ruas defendendo a democracia que é interpretada hoje, pelo presidente Lula.”
Ele também repudiou os ataques violentos contra apoiadores do presidente Lula ontem, em que a vereadora de Montes Claros do PT Iara Pimentel, e o engenheiro Marcelo Rocha, em Santos, foram agredidos.
“Foi um ataque covarde apenas por manifestarem sua opinião política”, disse. (Ana Bottallo/FOLHAPRESS)
The post Alckmin vota em SP e diz estar confiante na defesa da democracia appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.
Emily Pogue
After living as digital nomads for nearly two years, my husband and I decided to move from the US to the Netherlands.
We'd visited several times and fell in love with the walkability and bike culture. Plus, I have a connection to the country, since my great-grandparents were Dutch.
With the help of a real-estate agent, we found an apartment remotely from the US, signing a yearlong lease in the city of Utrecht before ever setting foot in the home.
Emily Pogue
Since the process of finding an apartment abroad can often take months, we chose to search remotely from the US. To make things easier, we hired a Dutch real-estate agent with local connections who could view apartments for us in person.
The prep work was much more intense than I was used to. In the US, I've leased apartments in three different states, and the extent of the application typically included filling out a basic form and sometimes completing a background check.
That wasn't going to cut it in the Netherlands.
Our agent gave us a long list of materials to prepare, from 12 months of bank statements and links to our LinkedIn profiles, to a "get to know us" letter, which included our hobbies and photos of us. Then she went looking.
Rentals often get snatched up within a few hours or days, so my husband and I were regularly waking up at 4 a.m. in Colorado to read our agent's emails about the new listings each day.
When we finally found one that checked all our boxes, we asked her to schedule a walkthrough. Luckily, she recorded a video for us to review, so we didn't need to wake up early for this part of the process.
It was during the walkthrough, however, that we learned Dutch apartment listings aren't as detailed as the ones we were used to in the US. When our agent arrived, we discovered the listing had omitted several important pieces of information.
Emily Pogue
For example, there was a fully fenced-in back garden, complete with a shed, picnic table, and blackberry and rose bushes. The kitchen had a dishwasher. And there was a washing machine hidden away behind a cabinet door — and a dryer (which is not as common in Europe).
Score, right? So we jumped at the opportunity, put in our bid, and jumped for joy when our offer was accepted.
Emily Pogue
We arrived in the Netherlands a few weeks later, traveling directly from the airport to our rental. When we unlocked the door for the first time, hoping we'd fall in love with our new home, it was … freezing.
Turns out, the heat had stopped working, and the rental company couldn't send someone to fix it until the next day. So, we spent our first night in the Netherlands at a hotel.
Thankfully, the heat was fixed the following day, and then we could start unpacking. This is when we began to notice some of the more nuanced differences of a Dutch house compared to an American one.
The first thing to get used to? The alarmingly steep stairs (a hallmark of skinny, tall Dutch houses) which made moving furniture up to our second-floor office feel like a Herculean feat.
We also learned to accept moths and gnats as houseguests, since Dutch windows don't typically have screens. However, with no air conditioning and a 100-year-old house that was built to retain heat, we definitely want to keep those windows open.
Overall, aside from a few stowaway insects and some hot days, we've been very fortunate with our rental. I particularly love the neighborhood and how we can walk to a grocery store, bakery, or park within five minutes.
Emily Pogue
Although finding our rental was a whirlwind process, I've found the most interesting parts of living here have come from the cultural differences between American and Dutch neighborhoods.
For example, shortly after arriving, our neighbor invited us to the neighborhood WhatsApp group. If you need to borrow a drill or lose your cat, you send a message to the group.
It's very active, and joining the group helped me feel like I was part of a community before knowing anyone here. Although I've heard of similar groups in the US, I've never been invited to join one.
Ordering packages is also very different. Back in the States, packages would be left by my door. In the Netherlands, however, they aren't left unattended.
Instead, the delivery driver will start ringing the neighbors' doorbells until someone is home. Then, they'll leave a digital note about which house has your package.
One place I didn't expect to feel such a contrast is the sidewalk. On sunny days, my Dutch neighbors bring out their dining room chairs, park them on the bricks outside their front door, and enjoy a cold drink. Sometimes, it'll feel like an impromptu block party — and I couldn't be happier to join in the festivities.
After leasing an apartment across the world, sight unseen, would I do it again? I sure would — especially if I could hire a real-estate agent to check out the home in person.
The quirks of our apartment and neighborhood are all part of the experience of living abroad, and although I may not have expected them, I've now grown attached to these cultural differences.
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