Really Though?

Someone I love described a quote from dear old Abe as "everything" that the "greater man believed in." Of course not being able to let that go, I posted another of Abe's quotes, which didn't contradict the first, but certainly undercut the way it was being used. Vague? Maybe. Because neither quote is the point.

The point, rather, is that this person I love responded by posting the following:

You run to another country and still feel you have the right to say what happens in your homeland. Sooner or later those of us who are actually contributing can sit on their keesters will say enough is enough.

So why did I "run to another country"? Well let's examine that.

I worked well over a decade in social services. My employer paid for my health insurance, to the tune of over $600 a month out of the employer's pocket. When speculative real estate crashed the economy, counties cut services to abused children. The non-profit company I worked for, which provided services to abused children, was forced to cut their programs.

I have a wide variety of skills, so I became self-employed. That turned out to be a great choice for me, as over a decade of trauma had left its mark. That mark, however, in addition to health problems I've had since infancy, require that I have routine health care. As an ordinary responsible person, I applied for health insurance to cover that health care. I was turned down on the basis of "pre-existing conditions." No, "OK well we can insure you but it will cost xxx." Nope. Just, "You're not eligible for coverage."

So what are my choices?

• I could pay for my routine care out of pocket. Except that I couldn't do that without earning at least $200,000 a year. 
• I could use emergency room care as basic care. A lot of people do this. Even if you can't pay, they can't actually turn you away, leaving myself and other taxpayers with the extravagently high bill.
• I could just slowly (or quickly in the "right" circumstance) die.
• I could explore my other options.

My other options, because I have a very dear friend in NL, included moving to Holland. I was able to enroll in and begin paying for health insurance even before I had my residence permit. My health insurance costs less than 100E a month. I get excellent, full care, with a strong emphasis on preventative care. Because everyone in the country has insurance, because the general health (and exercise) conditions in the country surpass those in the US, and because the emphasis is strongly on preventative care, the numbers work out and the company is able to make a profit even with my pre-existing conditions and potentially (not actual but potential) high care costs at such a low premium.

So I moved here for completely selfish reasons. Plus there are a zillion things I love about the society, but all that aside....

The US Government still considers me a part of the country. I have the right to vote, and the duty to pay EXACTLY the same taxes I did when I lived in the US. OK not exactly, I escape state taxes, but I could have done that by moving to Nevada, for heaven's sake. So anyway....

If the US government says that I have the same fiscal duty now that I had when I lived in the US...

When did I lose my right to comment on US society?

Sneeuw :)

Perfect snow.

Lots of work.

*smiles happily*

Classic

What it means to live in a country with history dating back to the dawn of man:

"Holland wasn't always known for its flowers. That only began in the 16th Century."

For those of us who always mix up the numbers, that's the 1500's.

The New World was still new to most Europeans. (The Norse had been there, done that, got the t-shirt.) In 1500 Columbus was arrested by the Spanish government. In 1503 DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa. In 1517 Martin Luther pinned his note to the church door. (The note said, "Now hang on a minute!" only in German.) You know, the 16th Century, that stuff that so did not happen yesterday by any stretch of the imagination.

Except in Holland. The oldest Dutch city (Voorburg) was 12 years past its 1500th birthday in 1500AD. The second-oldest city, Nijmegen, didn't get around to turning 1500 years old until 1505. Those are cities that are still around. Tools discovered in Holland date back some 370,000 years; human remains as old as 40,000 years (that's pre-homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens neanderthalis) have been discovered.

So to the Dutch, it's perfectly reasonable to say, "That only began in the 16th Century."

Kinda blows your mind if you didn't grow up with that span of history acknowledged in your society.

Election Day

Election Day here in Holland. I don't get to play along. *sad face* I can vote in municipal elections after five years' residence, but only Dutch citizens get to vote in the general elections. And they do. Voter turnout runs between 75 and 80% for Dutch general elections. (The 56.8% US turnout in 2008 was the highest since 1968. Multiparty system, I'm telling you.)

"Normal" elections are in March on a Wednesday. By "normal," I mean at the end of the four-year maximum term. Parliament (the Tweede Kamer) decides the exact date for the election. This also applies when, as in this case, the ruling coalition loses its ability to lead. That happened in spring, although Parliament has continued to function quite normally in the meantime. "The government has fallen" doesn't mean quite the same thing here.

Elections have to be held with a lead time of around 3 months, to allow for arrangements for non-resident Dutch citizens to vote as well and to allow time for political parties to register candidate lists for the election. Since the government fell in April, that would put elections in the summer. Summer elections are avoided because too many people are on holiday then. That moved them along to September. While elections could have been held last week, Monday 10 September was a big day for NL, as that's when the National budget had to be sent to the EU, so here we are.

As of 8 September, VVD and PvdA would each capture 35 seats of the 150 seats available. This represents an increase for both parties, from 31 and 30, respectively. PVV would drop from 24 seats to 19, being passed by SP who would increase from 15 to 21 seats. The remaining seats would be shared by CDA, D66, CU, GL, SGP, PvdD, and 50 plus.

Nice letters. Who are they? VVD, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, while far left of the American Republican Party, is towards the right in Dutch politics. They're essentially Libertarians. PvdA, the Worker's Party, is a Democratic Socialist party, pragmatic socialists who look for ways to make the ideas of a social society work in the real world. PVV, Party for Peace and Freedom, is a quasi-socialist party whose central idea is that the enemy of peace and freedom is multi-culturalism. SP, the Socialist Party, is just that.

But wait, none of those is more than half of 150. That's the idea. The party with the most votes has the first chance to form a coalition that does account for more than half of the 150 seats. If they can't, then the second-largest party has the opportunity to present a coalition capable of governing. Mind you, the poll numbers I've shown are four days old.

This is an election about the question of whether austerity on the backs of the populace should be the primary method of paying for the debt created by the cascade triggered by fraudulently rated American bank derivatives, or whether education and healthcare should be preserved at the expense of the wealthy, or better said, where the proper balance is between those two approaches. VVD puts the balance point solely on austerity measures and even cut taxes on the wealthy. PvdA is left-of-center toward preserving social infrastructure. SP is is the polar opposite of VVD on this question.

Today, the voters will speak.

Boerenrock!

Yes, it's the moto-cross and music festival that can't decide what it is. Half the posters said Boerenpop and the other half said Boerenrock. There was no Pop in the house. What the heck am I on about?

Boerenrock is an annual moto-cross/music festival, the Drenthe/Groningen version of which is held the last weekend of August, when Dutch summer promises a charming mix of rain and sunshine: warm mud. I went because van Dik Hout was going to be there, and I love them a lot. And because my friends laughed, which made me determined to go. :)

Held near the border between Drenthe and Groningen, Boerenrock was unique. The festival pass was just 65E including camping and all-access. All access meant we got to walk around in the drivers' area. Well, we had to, really, since we had to pass through the drivers' area to get from the camping to the festival area. Anyway....

Camping: My friends lent me their tent and sleeping bag and bedroll. Was perfectly dry and snugly warm,  so yayy on that score. The neighbors accidentally cracked the daylights out of one of my tent poles while putting up their awning, so boo to them, but it didn't affect tent operations. Most of the campers were late-teen/early-20's, hard-rock fans, with a couple of old farmers [boeren = farmers] thrown in. Leaving the tent to use the restroom in the early morning hours was a bit of a risk, as there were always groups of youngsters sitting around shouting, "Gooiemmmmmorgen, buurvrouw/buurman" [Good Mmmmmorning, neighbor(woman/man)] at anyone leaving a tent or camper at any time between 3am and 9am, when they all went to bed.

The old farmer next door was complaining the first afternoon that farmers plus music should equal a party but it wasn't a party when they wouldn't (according to the posted rules) let you bring in booze or food. This did not prevent any number of people from walking around with fifths of whatever, nor the ever-present smell of BBQ, so I'm not sure what he was on about, exactly.

Farmers: Popeye legs. That will be my lasting impression of farmers. (Along with some interesting highlights listed below of course.) On Saturday it was raining off and on but warm, so many of the guys put on shorts. It was only when the crowd gathered for music in the evening that I noticed that every single guy had Popeye legs: amazingly exaggerated calf muscles. Well-developed calf muscles are one of the key features that separate human anatomy from apes'. The anatomists at UC Berkeley will tell you that Cal Bear people are more human than Stanford Cardinal people because there are more hills in Berkeley and therefore better-developed calf muscles. Holland is not a hilly place, but Dutch farmers are extremely human. Must be all the walking in clogs, which brings me to....

Clogs: They wear them. Really really. I only saw guys in clogs. Apparently they were wearing their fancy dress clogs, though, because they were all wearing them with their fancy dress black socks. [Insert shudder.] Socks aside, clogs have been around forever because they work. By all reports, it is easier to walk in the mud in clogs than in any other type of shoe. So there you go. Those guys who did not wear clogs wore mid-calf pull-on boots. Even with shorts.

Highlights:

• Two 20-something guys in jeans with pink thong panties over their jeans, simulating sex with their guy friends, who all bent over for it with a laugh. 
• The "Ik ben homo" song, sung to the tune of "We are sailing." The verses were: Ik ben homo [I'm gay], Jij bent homo [You're gay], Wij zijn homo [We're gay]. Everyone sang along.
• Mosh pit for Stil in Mij. You'd have to hear the song, but Stil in Mij is a slow, romantic song about having no words for the emotions you're having about your love interest. One of the great songs from van Dik Hout. Crowds often sing along. This crowd moshed. Go figure.
• Beer. So. Much. Beer. The music was played inside a circus-sized tent conveniently served by eight bars inside the tent. (And two more outside.) 
• Clean toilets. In spite of the beer, the toilets remained amazing clean. It helped that there were many of them [32 women's and 32 men's in the main area serving a crowd of a couple thousand; 5 women's and 5 men's in the camping area (plus showers) serving 400 campers] and that they were serviced every 5 minutes or so. Thumbs up to the festival organizers on that score.
• Cups. How do you serve 50k or so beers and not have a single plastic cup on the ground? You pay 2E per 20 cups, and the little kids run around picking them up. The parents are happy because the kids are occupied; the kids are happy because they get money to buy sweets and soda and play games; the place is happy because the ground remains continuously cup-free. Brilliant.
• Trekker trek. [Tractor pull] Now this is hick as all get out, but it turns out to be fun to watch! There was every kind of tractor from high-tech, Star Trek-looking things to 25-year-old-plus tractors with car engines. And there was a ton of mud. Oh, and beer. Yep, fun to watch.
• Gronings. NL has a number of dialects. Because cities and villages are so old, they develop individual accents and even distinct languages for each town and region, and the Eastern part of the country is influenced by German, while the Western part of the country is influenced by English plus every other language the very-international West comes into contact with. I can read Gronings just fine, just as I can read Drents, but I hadn't actually heard anyone speak this dialect. It sounded like a cross between Dutch, German, and mush, to my untrained ear. Nary a consonant to be distinctly located, so near as I could tell. Just wow.
• Terrible kibbeling. Holland has some of the best fish-and-chips-type fish in the world, sometimes. And some of the worst. Viskramen (fish stands) are ubiquitous. The quality is a gamble. I got all excited at this one because the young man was cutting the fish and battering it himself. Sadly, it was not completely cooked and the breading wasn't all that crunchy. They do get a +1 for their spices, but as my friend said, "What do farmers know about fish?"
• Amazing sausages. Now what farmers do know about is sausage. And they shone. The sausage of the day was a light-tasting, white sausage, grilled over charcoal and wood, with a thin skin that crisped right up around the sausage. To die for.

Tons more. Fireworks. Hard rock. Local bands recording videos. Raining pijpstelen (pipe-stems, the Dutch version of cats'n'dogs). A guy in a dress with a hag-mask on a tiny bike winning his division in motocross. The 7-year old on a teeny little ATV owning the mud track like he built it. Girls love my big rooster t-shirt.

And with all that I've broken the highest rule: What happens at Boerenrock stays at Boerenrock.

4Daagse'ing it

Yep, that's me and my trusty bike, somewhere around kilometer 53. That was early on Thursday. By Friday noon, 100km had rolled under my wheels and I got a gold medal! My medal was not real gold, I'm sorry to say. But I did complete the Zuidlaren Fiets4Daagse. The Zuidlaren FietsTocht Club hosts this event. They're very nice, and a good number of them appear to have been adults during WWII.

Tuesday (Day 1): It was pouring rain Tuesday morning, but it stopped just before 10am and off I pedaled to the start point, which is just a couple km from where I'm staying right now. Because the start point was in a cantina, I (wrongly) assumed there would be a way to use my bank card to pay the entrance fee. Yeah, no. So I rode over to the village (a couple of km further) and back. Returning, I was trying to get something out of my pocket as I entered the building and stumbled over the threshold, which was at least a meter tall. OK not a meter, but it was tall! Anyway, spectacular stumble-thud-smack onto my knees, which ached until the following morning. Off to a great start.

Once the 25km group split off from the 40km and 60km groups, I realized I was on the route used only by the 80-plus'ers and the family with the boy with Downs Syndrome. Nice. I suck. But, but... I was working this week and only had a couple of hours a day to spend riding! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I hadn't taken water or anything with me, and got a little dizzy about 2/3 through, but I stopped for a bit and was able to finish. On the bright side, I survived, and the rain held off until I was done.

Wednesday (Day 2): After a good night's sleep, the knees felt much better and off I went bright and early-ish. I prepared a little better for Day 2: I took a soda with sugar (which I never, ever drink) and a big bottle of water. Small sips of that soda turned out to do a world of good, and I felt great all day. I also followed my carefully laid plan of NOT falling on my face. There was a heck of a wind all day, and the ground was soaked from the rains the night before, but it was dry. There were some lovely villages (Glimmen and Annen), and I even stopped for a while to eat an apple. And the moment I got home, the skies opened and the lightning scorched the earth. Or something. It rained a lot.

This was also the day we rode through Schipborg, and I'm riding along, minding my own, and a woman riding towards me grumpily says, "Het is afgelopen de zon." Now, I can generally understand Dutch speaking by this point, but it takes a second to percolate into meaning. "The sun's gone." Oh. I was wearing sun glasses. Mind you, it was only just past noon, but it was overcast. Either way, however, I'm going to wear my sunglasses. Think of them as bug-and-wind glasses, if it makes you feel better; I got tired of getting bugs in my eyes and bought sunglasses. Get over it. [Insert mild insult of your choice.]

Thursday (Day 3): The weather was lovely on Thursday, just a mild wind, and by this time I prepared like a pro. A large bottle of water and a small bottle with water plus 1 tablespoon of honey plus 1 teaspoon of sugar. That's a lot less sugar than the soda, but enough to keep my blood sugar up. Worked perfectly. On the other hand, Thursday was the inside-joke day for the event planners. Balloo is a very pretty place where I will avoid going again, at least on bike. You see, Holland is flat. Have I mentioned that Holland is flat? It's almost entirely seabed and reclaimed marshland, with protective dunes and dikes all over the place. But, for the most part, flat. In Drenthe, a lot of it is above sea level, but still flat, except for the Hondsrug (Dog's Back). This is a sandy ridge that stretches 70km in length and rises 20m above sea level. Twenty meters! That's like... OK, for California, that's flat. For NL, that's nose-bleed elevation. And the marvelous event planners took us over every single hill within riding range, I swear. I was cussing (quietly, because I was surrounded by... very mature people on electric bikes and I didn't want to offend them). But I made it.

Friday (Day 4): Friday was an absolute treat. The route was flat, the sky was lightly overcast, the wind was a gentle whisper, and in addition to a bunch of lovely, tiny villages, we went to Molen de Wachter. This is a windmill/museum, where they still bake bread according to the old local recipe with raisins and serve it in thick wedges with hand-made butter. To die for. Also nearly died from the big pile of decomposing cow and/or pig poop we rode within 1m of. Good golly Miss Molly what a stink! The ground is mostly sand here and needs a lot of fertilization. So the farmers from here kindly haul away the pig poop from the farmers down south. Everyone's happy. Except us as we rode past and nearly fell off our bikes. But it was all-in-all an easy ride on Friday, and we all got gold medals!

100km over four days. Happy I did it. Next time: 160km.

History of the 4Daagse


The 4Daagse began in 1909 as a primarily military event that was part of a whole fitness craze in the Netherlands in the early 1900s. Four-day events were regular things. I guess they had longer weekends than we do now. The very first 4Daagse was a 150km military march with 306 soldiers and 10 civilians, all men. They didn't complete the entire 150km because Friesland was in a terrible state, weather-wise (Those are the guys who managed to muck up the Elfsteden Tocht this year too!) and Rotterdam was having an inconvenient outbreak of cholera. But the Queen (Wilhelmina) was pleased and decorated the soldiers with the Four Days Cross. The 4Daagse had been born.

In 1925, the event moved to Nijmegan, where it has taken place ever since. The first woman participated in 1919, and in 1928 (the year the Amsterdam hosted the Olympics) delegations from other countries joined in. "The forty British participants of the Road Walking Association were divided into four groups according to social class, all of which won a group prize."  It was a different world. Or not so different, but more open about it? Anyway.... The marches were disrupted by WWII, but have otherwise carried on merrily since 1925. (Source)

Today, 4Daagse events are held all over the Netherlands, in walking, biking, and swimming. There's a charity aspect to it now; banks and insurance companies sponsor walkers and money is raised from entrance fees. But mostly, the 4Daagse events honor the value that Holland continues to place on physical fitness. Go Holland. (How 'bout them field-hockey women?)

They All Look Like That

About time Holland got world-wide props on the front page of Yahoo's "news" site! For? For having the most attractive team at the Olympics:

It's true. Google them sometime.

The odd thing is that in Holland, these are fairly typical young women. The country is overflowing with attractive blondes. Dime a dozen, even. 

And they're tall. The Dutch are, on average, the tallest people in the world. And somehow they've added height without adding breadth, so 20-year-old 6'-tall willowy blondes are positively commonplace. 

OK I'm an utter failure at "becoming Dutch" in this category. But hey! I stand out. :)

Death Squads! a.k.a. Socialized Medicine

I've been in Holland for eight months (with health insurance that I've had since before I even had a residence permit, at 1/6th the cost of what health insurance would have cost me in the US even if I hadn't been turned down for actually needing insurance) and finally dragged my butt to the doctor.

Now I had already noticed how my friend would go see the doctor and be back home in 20 minutes, but I think I subconsciously assumed that was because he'd been going to the same doctor for years and had an express line or something. Not so.

A bit of background is that I've had asthma since I was two years old, and it's gotten worse as I've passed through peri-menopause. The past half a decade I was routinely in the emergency room for breathing treatments, a couple of times per year at least. As a result, staying on top of my control meds has become a priority for me. (God Bless QVAR.) So it was running low on this med that drove me to the doctor's office.

Last Thursday I went and registered as a patient at the local doctor's office (Local equals a 5-minute walk from the house.) and called on Monday to make an appointment. "We're sorry, we can't see you until... Wednesday." *insert Scooby noise #1* So... I'm a new patient and my first appointment is in less than 48 hours. OK then.

I showed up bright and shiny for my appointment this morning, right on time (4 minutes early), and was called by the doctor herself, who walked out to the waiting room to come and get me, at precisely my appointment time. *insert Scooby noise #2* Waiting time: 4 minutes. OK then.

We did a lightweight medical history, the lovely doctor-type-person checked my vitals, looked in the computer for the medications needed for my prescriptions (turning her computer monitor so I could see exactly what she was doing), faxed them directly to the pharmacy next door, and told me that I'm completely healthy. *insert Scooby noise #3* My blood pressure had been creeping up over the past few years. Gone. Perfectly normal. Length of visit: 20 minutes. Cost of visit: 0E.

Off to the pharmacy next door. Handed them my insurance card. Had a seat. Waiting time: 5 minutes. Cost of prescriptions: 0E. I'd run out of Scooby noises by this point, so I just walked out with prescriptions in hand, shaking my head and smiling.

Yep. That's right, Mr. Santorum. Death squads. The evils of socialized medicine right here, in action. Thank you Holland, for not being what the fear-mongers want the world to believe you are. I love you!

Banks

A question that was e-mailed to me after yesterday's blog has prompted this one. The question referred to the evils of socialized banks.

So what's the issue?

Basically, ABN AMRO was nationalized after the US loans failure that challenged that bank's existence. This was a private bank with history dating back to 1765, but like other European banks, one that invested heavily in US bank "securities". When those securities turned out to be worthless (essentially being bundles of mortgages that the US banks knew would never be repaid), banks all over the world that had invested in these were shaken up.

As a result of these struggles, ABN AMRO, the second-largest bank in the Netherlands, was nationalized (purchased by the Dutch government) in 2010.

An apparently American idea is that government owning banks is evil. I find few other sources who have a problem with it.

The Dutch government paid nearly 17 billion for ABN AMRO in order to prevent its failure. Now other countries which shall remain nameless have simply given that amount of money to banks to prevent their failure. In exchange, those governments got... criticism. Oh and the banks didn't fail. And that's about it.

But while the Wall Street Journal put ABN AMRO's fourth-quarter 2011 loss on the front page (this loss was largely due to the bank's participation in bailing out Greece), less screaming was made about the profits the bank made in the three previous quarters.

Overall, the nationalized bank made a profit of 689 million euros in 2011.  The private bank lost 414 million euros the year before.

While even the Dutch are complaining that the bank is not growing as fast as they hoped, it's still a lot of money the government has gotten back off a saved bank. (!)

So where's the evil? Apparently, the fact that these profits are going to the government (who spends these profits for the benefit of all the residents of NL) instead of to private stockholders (who would spend these profits on another Caddy for the multi-Caddy-owning wife) is a problem.

I must admit a level of stupidity here that I'm not used to: I can't find the downside.

OMG

omg omg omg

Unemployment! It's.... 6%?

Hmm.

OK Yes I know that I owe you guys both the step-by-step how to move to NL blog and the "This is my town" picture blog... but...

In case Americans don't know it, the world watches. The world watches when Santorum calls Obama a "snob" for wishing that every American would seek one year of post-high-school education. The world watches everything America does. Not necessarily in admiration, but always with intense curiosity.

No of course they don't all see you as lab rats. Maybe a little. But not entirely!

In case you haven't gotten the memo, US banks made loans that made Greek bankers look respectable. To cover these loans, they had to stake their own net worth against them. So if the loans fail the banks fail. Except ... not. Banks used to have to have the net worth to guarantee loans they made. But then came "leveraging." Which is basically imaginary money that allowed banks to loan out up to 50 times as much money as they had. Mmmmm derivatives. Yeah. Imaginary money.

Anyway, these banks then bundled the loans they knew would never be repaid and sold them as ordinary securities. All over the world.

What got banks in Netherlands, England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany in trouble? You guessed it. Those securities. Don't lose any sleep; they worked it out with their banks, generally at a profit to the government, like the 400 billion the Dutch government got back off of one bank last year, after paying for that bank's support role in the Greek crisis.

But since the whole world is feeling the effects of the US banks' madness, of course we're all suffering equally, right?

Just this morning I watched an alarmed news anchor announce a 6% unemployment rate.

[Insert Scooby noise.]

Now half the Scooby noise is just for fun and half is because the US would be throwing a huge party if the unemployement rate dropped to 6%.

But the other half (Yes I am aware of the basic rules of fractions and that I have just made one and a half out of a whole. I do not care; it is my blog and one of the halves only counted for fun so nanananana.) is that my dear US friends continue to kindly inform me that socialism simply does not work. It's a defunct idea of the last century that has been proven to be wrong wrong wrong and can not work.

Hi. My name is Gayle, and I live in the socialist country Netherlands. Netherlands has been socialist since the late 1800s. Yet it continues to land in the top 10 countries in terms of quality of life, year after year after decade after century.

Could someone please let me know when this whole socialism "fad" is going to prove to be devastating to Netherlands? I want to make sure I get out in time. I'm still American at heart, after all.

So...

Those of you who know me generally know that when I'm stressed or anxious I get quiet. Applies to blogging as well apparently! Those of you who know me very well have already seen my Facebook status. For the rest of you:

Hierbij doe ik u het origineel van mijn beschikking van heden toekomen waarbij uw aanvraag tot het verlenen van een verblijfsvergunning voor bepaalde tijd is ingewilligd.

In other words:

I am hereby notifying you that my decision regarding your application for a residence permit is in the affirmative.

*passes out*

It was a very stressful couple of weeks leading up to this.

The same worker had written a letter which said that she needed my Chamber of Commerce registration and an account statement from my business bank account with the opening balance shown. Oh, and she needed these in two weeks, and she would make her decision then with or without them.

The registration with Chamber of Commerce registration I had in hand, but the appointment to open the business checking account wasn't until the day before the deadline. My very special person phoned up the worker who had written the letter, who said, "Oh thanks for calling. No problem, I'll extend it a week and if you need more time after that just call me back." Except that she said it in Dutch and charged 10 cents per minute to say it, of course.

Once we had the account opened, then there were lots of gymnastics between financial institutions to actually get the funds transferred into the account. This involved scanning in some documents and uploading them to a website, that the website then refused to accept because they were "too large." And that response led to massive frustration because the file size was clearly within the stated limits for the file! It turned out that what the program meant by "too large" was that the pixel size of the scanned in document exceeded the expected measurements because the document had been scanned in at 300 dps and the program was only expecting 72 dps. Did they say that anywhere on the website? No! Grrrr. And that was an American website, before anyone blames the Dutch for giving me more run-around. :-)

[To be fair I had the same problem with a Dutch website scanning in a photograph a few days later, but with my experience with the American site, that was solved in 60 seconds.]

Anyway, all sorted out. Sent. Approved.

I had to laugh at one note in the notice of approved application that I received from the IND. The worker noted that I will be sent an invitation letter to come pick up my permit. And followed with:

...verzoek ik u deze brief af te wachten en niet tussentijds contact op te nemen met de IND.

...I ask that you wait for this letter and do not contact the IND in the meantime.

Once I have my pretty pink pasje in hand, I'll put up the step-by-step instructions for getting a residence permit as an American. In the meantime I owe you all a post about the town I'm living in and I think one about liability insurance is in order as well.

Tot zo!

And What Are You Doing Here, Exactly?

I think I mentioned the other day that I had an appointment to go to Werkplein Baanzicht, about the Inburgering Verplicht, or the duty to take a course in Dutch language and/or culture in order to live here.

The appointment was Wednesday and off I went with my trusty companion I like to call "my very special person." :) The person we had an appointment to go see had the misfortune of sharing a last name with someone in a very rude song. (The Dutch love their rude songs. This one is about a woman with very large breasts.) So the evening before the appointment we prepared by surfing the net for recordings of the rude song in question. That got us into a nice, friendly mood.

The man with the unfortunate name was very nice. And very tall. He talked a little bit about the inburgering verplicht, and asked a little about what I was doing in Netherlands, how long I planned to stay, etc., and then more or less asked why I was in his office.

Ummm... cuz you sent a letter saying I had to come to your office. Yes that was, more or less, my answer.

So the long and the short of it is that:

• There's no duty for inburgering before the IND hands me a residence permit.
• In my case, as a resident under the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, there's no duty for it anyway.
• If I would like, as a person with no duty to take the inburgering cursus, to take the course anyway as a freebie way to get a language course under my belt, well I should have come last year before the budget cuts.

The nice man with the unfortunate name looks forward to hearing from me when I have my permit from the IND and he'll see what he can do, have a nice day.

Monday I have an appointment with Kamer van Koophandel (Chamber of Commerce) to register my business and Wednesday we have an appointment with the bank to open my account. Apparently, you don't just walk into the bank and open an account. Who knew?

Another W000h0000 Day

Yayy. Of sorts. But I'm yayying anyway. I'll take what I can get.

So those of you following along with the adventure know that I went in mid-December to the gemeente (local government) for my first inschriving (enrollment, letting the government know who lives where so they can ensure appropriate and adequate services are provided for the populace).

The very nice man at the gemeente said I should expect to hear from his office in a week or two weeks with my burgerservicenummer (like a Social Security Number). That's the number that I need to get health insurance--which I need for the IND (immigration), and to complete the registration of my business with the KvK (Chamber of Commerce)--which I need for the IND, and to set up a bank account--which I need for everything.

And there's been no word. (Insert scowly face.)

On Wednesday, I got a letter from Werkplein Baanzicht letting me know that I have to come see them next Wednesday because they have to determine whether or not I'm required (at this time) to complete an inburgering cursus (social education course covering basic language, history and customs of NL). That letter had a "kenmark" noted on it. A kenmark is a unique identifier, but it can be something as simple as a customer number from a business.

But still no word from the gemeente.

Today, however, I got a letter from Social Verzekeringbank. For the purpose of retirement, that's like the Social Security Administration. They let me know how to check at any time on the balance of my SVB Pension. And they casually inserted at the top of the letter: "Burgerservicenummer." With a number. My number. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

So while I haven't officially been notified by the official in charge of notifying me of what my BSN is, I have one and I know what it is!

So today I made an appointment with the KvK to register my business (on the 16th), and next week I'll open my bank account and talk to the Werkplein people. (As I understand it, I am not required--due to the terms of the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty--to do an inburgering cursus in connection with my residency permit, only if I later decide to become a Dutch citizen. But I'll go talk to them.)

Partytime in Me-Ville.

Liberal?

As the US begins in technical earnest the run-up to the Presidential elections, a tiny tutorial on the Dutch political landscape. This grew out of an interview I saw with the Premier-President Rutte, who is a very likable person (open to discussion, calm when challenged, well-spoken, good sense of humor, reasonably good listener) and conservative. The interviewer said to him, "So you're the first Liberal Premier since 1918...." and I thought, "Hmmmmmm?" (Insert Scooby sound.)

Rutte is certainly not the most right-wing figure in Dutch politics, but he's pretty far over there. So why did they say Liberal? After a lengthy explanation from my very-politically-savvy very special person and looking stuff up online (Wiki forever), here's the run-down of the major players, sorted by size with the largest first:

• People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD):  Sort of Libertarian (hence, "Liberal" in Dutch). Pro-private enterprise, pro-personal freedom, in theory. Center-right.
• Labor  Party (PvdA): Social democratic party pushing for inclusion of everyone. Equality is utopia; everyone getting some of what they want is ideal. The state exists to serve the needs of the people. Center-left.
• Party for Freedom (PVV): Anti-muslim, extreme right on foreign affairs. Socialist on economic issues. Extreme right and left-of-center all in one bundle.
• Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA): A pro-religion (not only Christian religion) party that believes the government's role is to help out, but that most of the work of society is to be done by people and the church (mosque, synagogue, etc.). Supports the "integration of minorities" (read: Thou shalt speak no language but Dutch). Center-right but less right than VVD.
• Socialist Party  (SP): More left than PvdA on social issues. More right than PvdA on foreign affairs and working with minorities.
• Democrats 66 (D66): #1 priority is democracy. Huge supporter of direct democracy at all levels for all institutions. Liberal on abortion & euthanasia, left-wing on immigration, right-wing on economics and environment.
• Green-Left (GroenLinks): Green environmentalist, left-wing, multicultural party.

With five other parties represented in Parliament and 43 registered parties not represented in Parliament, there are also, of course, every imaginable flavor of other political stances that one can picture.

The party affiliations are important because each party in Parliament votes all its seats together. Debate in the main body of the Second House is generally a conversation between the leaders (or a representative or representatives) of all the parties, with each leader representing the discussion he or she had separately with his or her affiliates before the combined discussion and continuing to get input from his or her affiliates as the discussion progresses. No one has enough seats to get their way all the time. Rather, the operation of government is a continuous flow of alliances and negotiations, lengthy debates and compromises. The goal is for as many people as possible to get some of what they want. Although elections are scheduled every four years, the Second House can also decide to dissolve itself, if the coalitions on which it is based become unable to function, in which case the elections come sooner than four years. This makes it critical for the parties to play nicely together, as bringing the political institutions to a grinding halt for political purposes only leads to the dissolution of the Parliament and all the legislators having to answer to their electorate. (Insert pointed look directed at the US Congress.)

So Liberal Rutte. That's actually, Libertarian Rutte, in English. Which solves the mystery. The Dutch have not had a Libertarian Premier since 1918. At that time, the Premiership was a rotational role, the chair of the council of ministers. Since 1974, the position has been held by the leader of the largest party in Parliament. The actual function of the Prime Minister wasn't laid down in the constitution until 1983; the Dutch have a Queen, after all. Living Prime Ministers include Piet de Jong (4 years representing the now-defunct Catholic People's Party), Dries van Agt (5 years, CDA), Ruud Lubbers (12 years, CDA), Wim Kok (8 years, PvdA), Jan Peter Balkende (8 years, CDA), and the current PM Mark Rutte (since 2010) (VVD).

A note to the Presidential candidates: The Dutch are watching the American elections closely. They find President Obama to be self-possessed, mature and imposing; he is widely respected in NL. Do try to be Presidential if you would earn the respect of the people of this very politically savvy ally of the US. You're free to say otherwise for the purposes of pandering, but the current President has set a high bar in the arena of international respect.