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?