Translation of pistacho

I have been living in Holland for the last 14 years and I know the mentality very well. Holland is a small country, everybody knows everybody, so if we want to succeed, we must seize the opportunity.
I was in Vancouver five years ago. I was living in Toronto in Canada with my wife. We worked together in the same office, and we were new there, and we did not know anybody. I was also in Montreal.
The course was a bit tough because the teacher always gave lots of homework. We were upset about his behaviour. He was very arrogant towards all the students. It was simply no fun to study there.