About

This is a website to bring together those who have connections to both Australia and The Netherlands, through my own perspective of living as a dual national Dutch Australian.

Who am I?

Hi, I’m Renée Tentori (previously Veldman-Tentori), a dual national Dutch Australian. I’ve spent the last 2 decades living between the two countries.

Born in Brisbane, Australia, I met a Dutch backpacker many years ago on Fraser Island and we were married for 15 years.

During this time we welcomed two little Dutch Australians to the world, (one born in each country!) who we now co-parent here in Den Haag.

All four of us now hold dual nationality and I feel that my life is likely to always to be split between the two countries in some way.

I started this blog in 2010, and writing over 500 articles since then has helped me make sense of that in the past, and will no doubt continue to help me find my place and identity in the future.

Though I desperately miss Australia and my family on the Sunshine Coast, I have also come to settle into a good life here in The Hague.

Despite it being incredibly expensive, and being very limited by leerplicht, I try to travel back to Australia every year or two.

Perhaps I’ll will live there again in the future once the girls finish school, though suspect I may always end up missing one of the countries/family & friends there.

So I try hard to make both Australia and the Netherlands feel like home. This website and community are a part of that. Welcome. Welkom.

Are you a Dutch Australian?

There are many thousands of Dutch Australians out there, are you one?

You may not have dual nationality (in fact this is relatively difficult) but a Dutch Australian can be anyone with a connection to or interest in both countries.

Some emigrated to Australia many years ago, or a lot more recently.

Or you may be an Australian living in The Netherlands.

There are many marriages between Dutch and Australians and couples/families often spend parts of their lives between the two countries.

You could also be from The Netherlands and studying or working in Australia short or long term.

Perhaps you’re a second generation Dutch Australian looking to connect to your heritage.

No matter what your specific situation is, I find it fascinating to discover and celebrate the links between our two countries and you can find many examples to explore on this site.

A note on language

As I’m a native English speaker, this website is written predominately in English.

I have followed an integration and Dutch language course and am fairly fluent in het Nederlands – I can read and speak fairly well and am happy to have emails and website contributions in het Nederlands.

However if I was to write this website in Dutch it would be very difficult for anyone to understand or for me to express myself very well.

I do hope to improve my Dutch language skills though so look out for posts on this topic.