Blog: Jolien Buijsse

"Actually, almost anything is possible if you want it badly enough!"

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m all made up, sitting in the car heading to Amsterdam. A cup of coffee to wake up and about another hour and a half before I arrive at Schiphol. It’ll be a while yet, luckily I don’t have a check-in time of 5:50 every week. That would be impossible to keep up from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen!

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about my work week. This week I have no less than twelve flights across Europe and I’ll be sleeping in Bologna, Stavanger, and Bordeaux. It’s going to be a busy week with new colleagues again! Sometimes it can be very tiring, but I always look forward to it! A unique job where I get to sleep in a different city every day and meet lots of great people! As a little girl, it was already my dream to become a flight attendant. But I grew up in West Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, and then the life of a stewardess is literally far from your bed!

I grew up on the edge of a small village with a beautiful garden and all the freedom a child could wish for. It was a safe environment and offered everything I needed at the time. Especially my friends and family. I have always loved living in our region. It feels familiar, it’s peaceful, and nice and close to the beach.

After high school, I went to study Vitality Management and Tourism in Vlissingen. A fun, but way too broad a course, so I had no idea what my specialties were or what kind of work I could actually do. Honestly, I wasn’t ready for a steady job at all. A friend of mine was in Peru and asked if I wanted to visit, and I didn’t have to think twice! We traveled around for three weeks, including a five-day hike to Machu Picchu. I completely fell in love with traveling! I decided to work summers on the Zeeland coast at Breskens and Cadzand to save money and go backpacking! It felt like the world was opening up for me and I really enjoyed being away during the winter, but I also loved the feeling of truly "coming home" in the spring in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen.

That way, I gained a number of wonderful experiences abroad, visited the Galapagos Islands, climbed a volcano in Guatemala, worked for five months on Sint Maarten, and lived for six months in Valencia. Every time I flew home with KLM, it felt like truly coming home and I was so happy to see my friends and family again!

After living everywhere and nowhere, I started to crave a bit more stability. By chance, I came across a vacancy at KLM Cityhopper and decided to apply right away. Soon after, I was able to start and moved to Amsterdam for my dream job!

I traveled a lot back and forth across Europe, but most often between Amsterdam and IJzendijke, where my real home was. Eventually, I decided to give up my extremely expensive 14-square-meter room and was able to buy a house in IJzendijke. And I still have my dream job in Amsterdam, and every week I get to go on a "sort of" paid city trip! I’m very happy that I came back to Zeeuws-Vlaanderen after all. Many people find it boring or too quiet here, but I really enjoy everything our region has to offer!