“Last summer I traveled with two friends through Eastern Europe. Every time I arrived in a new city I would turn on Tinder kind of as a fun experiment. I was curious just to see what would happen. When we arrived in Ukraine, Maryana and I matched and we started...
“Last year my wife survived cancer. Unfortunately she still battles with her health. Our son gave us this trip from the UK to Amsterdam. We try to enjoy each other’s company as much as possible because we learned that life is really fragile. All that walking is hard...
“I fell madly in love with a Dutch Man 20 years ago. I’m from Montenegro but I think I can consider myself a local Amsterdammer by now. Together with my husband we have this food truck and we sell fries here at Waterlooplein. It used to be my father-in-law’s business...
“When I left Egypt I had never set foot out of the country. My dad didn’t like the idea of his eldest son moving to Europe but I went anyways. I was nineteen and I remember arriving at the Amsterdam Central Station. It felt like a warm embrace. I had very little money...
“Every morning I wake up at 4:45AM just to get to work here in Amsterdam. I’m from the North of the country and I’m actually a carpenter not a construction worker but since to financial crisis it’s hard to get a contract so I take any job I can get. I make long heavy...
“Not too many people know that I am a graduated doctor. Even though I loved studying medicine, the hospital wasn’t the right environment for me to work in. When I graduated, a friend of mine who had just finished his studies in business asked me to become his business...
“Sometimes I see pictures on Facebook where people are on a beach and jump in the air. Because of my physical condition I am not able to jump, so when I see those photo’s I am reminded of the fact I don’t have all the physical freedom I would like to have. However,...
“About a year and a half ago, someone knocked on my door late at night. When I opened it, my mother was standing there with tears in her eyes. She didn’t have to say anything - my father had died. He had a rare heart condition, so we knew, at some point, that he would...
“When I told my mom I wanted to quit my studies she wasn’t mad or disappointed. I explained her that I needed more freedom in order to grow and she understood. I created a plan, I wrote everything down and she promised to financially support me for a whole year. I...
3/3 “Following that incident, Americans were adopting children from the orphanage. Almost everyone got chosen but no one adopted me. In total, I got rejected twelve times. My best friend, number 26, and I had the same name. So when her adoptive mother got a phone call...
“In the late 50’s my dad was on his way to become a successful composer when he met my mother at a music festival right outside of London. She was a beautiful girl from The Netherlands who studied piano and that summer they fell in love. Back then there was no easy...
When I left Syria the war just started. I was twenty-two when I got selected for a scholarship in Spain, Granada to study fine arts. Unlike many Syrians I came here on a visa and so I’m not a refugee. Before coming Spain I used to study art in Damascus and work as a...