I did not expect any cultural shock, since New Zealand is a western country. However, there are definitely some things different here. I thought I understood English well, but it is very difficult to understand the weird accent and slang words. Sometimes it seems like we are back in the eighties. They have no central heating, many houses are still heated with wood-burning stoves and the windows are all single-glazed. The first month I was very cold, but it didn't seem to bother the people here. Probably because they are "winter deniers" and even when it is freezing, people just walk around in shorts. As you can see on the main photo.

Furthermore, everyone is extremely casual here, sometimes it even makes me feel awkward. My professor was in full sports outfit at our first meeting and his muddy mountain bike was parked against his desk. He comes to university by bike and forgot to change out of his sport clothes. The traffic here is not really suited for cyclists, so when I told him I had to cycle home for half an hour he was quite worried. He insisted to show me the safe cycling routes and by the end of the first day I was chasing my professor on the mountain bike to go home.

The people here are relaxed and friendly and the work pressure is not too high. At a quarter to nine I am often one of the first arriving at university. So, the Kiwi’s seem to have a healthy balance between work and their personal life. If you ask a Dutch person how things are going, the answer is often: "busy, busy, busy", which actually means: “just the usual”. Here they agreed that everything is good and chill. 

Fortunately, some things are exactly the same. The campus could just have been Eindhoven, as you can see on the photo.