Perhaps one of the questions which I have been asked most often lately is why I came to the Netherlands. And I must admit that for the two years that I have spent in the country, this is also the question to which it has been most difficult to find an easy-to-formulate answer, both for those around me and for myself.

I come from a country which has inevitably molded my worldview, to the extent that it has even shaped my dreams. Unlike my parents’ generation, whose aspirations and hopes for the future were orchestrated by the people in power, I was lucky enough to let my imagination stretch as far as it would go in setting my own goals and values. Yet, perhaps somewhat sadly, much of my daydreaming exercise was nevertheless preconditioned by my surroundings.

In Bulgaria, where I was born and grew up, you could not avoid coming across the idea of the West as a Promised Land, where, in my naive and fragile child's mind, even the sun would shine differently. Aware of this exaggeration as I was even back then, I could not help encouraging myself to believe that at least part of this was true. That life does possess color, that warmth does carry a sweet scent, that ice cold does have a glittery radiance, and that day-to-day life could abound in merriment. All those inviting images that I kept on concocting in my mind were nurtured by one single necessity – to find an escape from the reality in which I was trapped, and which was suffocating me to the best of its potential.

Indeed, what could it be that has turned me from Bulgaria: a land with beautiful nature, benevolent climate, wonderful southern cuisine and over thirteen centuries of history? Many of my Dutch friends laugh at my choice to come here, where, as they say, the sky is grey for eleven months of the year, the rain and strong winds can catch you by surprise in any season, and where you had better be a fan of mayonnaise on fries! And while many of them are desperate to go to or even settle down in a warm, equatorial country, I have been happy in chilly Utrecht with my Paradise Found.