Tjitske was born in 1973 in Hoogeveen. She came to Norway in 2004 with her partner. She has a degree in hotel management and has done many different kinds of hotel work. She has also worked in outdoor recreation and in a clothes shop. It is important for her to live in Norway where there is plenty of room for everyone and people do not have to be too close to their neighbours.

They came to Ringebu and took over a restaurant at the railway station in the centre. The building was in poor condition, but they viewed it as a challenge. After four years, they sold the restaurant and began working at Fagerhøy camp and mountain lodge. They liked this place in the mountains so much that they moved there. She worked as a chef at Fagerhøy. When she had a child, she stopped working full-time. Now she has two children and works at the lodge only as a substitute.
Living in a mountain lodge, the couple have a limited social network, but Tjitske thinks that when children start school, they will get contact with other parents.

Tjitske is so used to a peaceful and remote environment that when she visits the Netherlands, it is almost a culture shock for her, especially because of all the people who are stressed and focused on themselves. She and her husband are planning to move to a more central part of Sør-Fron in a few years. It could be tiring for the children to have to travel a long way to school every day. So they think it would be better to live in a village. Sometimes it is also a good thing to live at some distance from one’s job and not live and work in the same place.
There are just a few things she misses from the Netherlands, but she misses them less as time goes by. Norway has fulfilled all Tjitske’s expectations.