About me

Hi, I'm Tanya. I'm a South African now living in Amsterdam. I'm a mom, runner and writer, and work in content & advertising. Welcome to my blog, where I write about life here, settling in, and riding a bike. Read More

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Are you considering emigrating but not sure where to start? I can give you practical and essential info before you move here. To chat or find out more, you can email me here.

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  • Emigration tips (my advice from Johannesburg to Amsterdam)

    I get asked weekly about emigration – how we did it, how we found an apartment, how we got in, how we found jobs etc etc. Some of them come on social media and others by email, and mostly from people I don’t know at all. It’s quite weird as I started getting asked even before we left South Africa,…

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  • New observations about life in Amsterdam

    School is back, and I feel like I have most of my life and my sanity back too. The BSOs (aftercares) are still closed, but even being able to work until 2.15pm most days until Rebecca comes home feels like a luxury, and we’ll take what we can get. There’s a confusing-to-me spring break next week, which is still taking…

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  • From Johannesburg to Hilversum: the expat series

    This week I feature Lauren Hamilton, who I’ve known through social media and the “mom circuit” for years. We started chatting at the beginning of last year about our plans, and we have shared resources and tips along the way. Lauren and her beautiful family moved to The Netherlands in November, and I’ve been loving following her journey, and seeing…

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  • More snow, crafts, curfews and a visit to the dentist

    I wish i could say that I’ve found my vigour for 2021, but I’m feeling depleted. I blame homeschooling. It’s not the lockdown, new curfew (no being out from 9pm to 4.30am), or the fact that I can’t browse shops or sit down at restaurants (though that would be lovely). While Rebecca is an easy toddler, and she doesn’t have…

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  • Six months in Amsterdam – the learnings so far

    How is it that things in the past can at once feel like they happened like a lifetime ago, and “just yesterday”. That’s how our arrival in Amsterdam and it’s a bit bizarre to realise we’ve been here for HALF A YEAR already. Huh? For the last 3.5 weeks we’ve been in lockdown (restaurants closed in October already), and we…

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  • The airfryer, Peppa Pig and homeschooling part 2

    It’s the first working week of the year and I’m feeling a little meh, much like a lot of you, it seems. No one is really bullet journalling, planning trips for the year, creating vision boards or doing much beyond one president or prime minister’s announcement to the next. I usually start off my years battling to find the spring…

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