Welcoming a guest of honour to This Expat Life today: retired ambassador Kees van Rij! 

Kees was a Dutch ambassador to Turkey, Spain, Greece and Brazil, and was also posted in Brussels, Peru and South Korea. I met Kees in Brazil, where we worked closely together on the topic of deforestation in the Amazon during the Bolsonaro administration - and this is when I learned a lot from him and his strong experience in diplomacy.

In this extra long episode, Kees talks about what diplomacy really is about (it's not like The Diplomat show!), the 24/7 ongoing work as an ambassador, what it's like to take decisions on your own & on the spot, and how a political conflict affected his personal life. And of course, we also talk about expat life.

I absolutely loved hearing Kees's stories and I hope you do too. As always, let me know what you think of this episode!