The Whisperers

I've just started a book called "The Whisperers" by Orlando Figes. Figes is a brilliant writer and a good historian. Those two do not always go hand in hand, sadly, so it is always a pleasure to read something that is 1) well researched 2)thoroughly analysed and coherently organised and 3) interestingly written.

From a historiograhpical point of view, it is a microhistory but then over a relatively long period of time (30 years) and collected from a very large amount of sources. So perhaps a "microhistoire totale", a history of the ordinary people on a large scale.

The topic itself is of course also very intriguing and very little researched in Western history-writing. There is plenty of work already completed on the topic of the life and mentality of ordinary people under a long-lasting totalitarian regime, but most of that has been done in the ex-soviet states. There are two issues with that: 1)Language 2)credibility/point of reference. These researches usually only consider the rather small scope of specific (nationality) groups and usually concentrate on a shorter period of time.

I'll write something longer once I've read it. Just thought to share some initial thoughts based on the first few chapters...

Fitna

The islamic community is livid (again... or perhaps still) over a 16-minute movie made by the Dutch politician (pictured) Geert Wilders. The movie is aimed at the radical Islamic movements and shows footage of different terrorist attacks, sermons, newspaper headlines etc. Apparently the international community has been more than worried for months about this movie, both the Dutch and various other governments having approached the guy asking him not to publish it.

Yesterday though it was posted on the Internet and by now hundreds of thousands of people have seen it. The Dutch security institutions have been on "Red Alert" since 7 AM yesterday morning. Not that I could notice anything on the streets yesterday... except of course the belowmentioned traffic mishap. There have been serious threats of terrorist attacks and people fear it might be an even bigger uproar than the Danish cartoon fiasko.

Mr. Wilders' intention is to draw attention to the islamification of Holland as well as the rest of Europe. Supposedly there are now close to a million muslims living in Holland.


I must say that the muslim women (at least - you usually can't tell by looking at the men) are indeed visible. However, most of them seem to have conformed to the Western world instead of the other way around. In fact, when I first arrived in the Netherlands I used to try very hard not to stare. The thing is, Estonia is 99% white. I was 13 when I first saw a black-skinned person and that was in Paris and I was awed... I mean I'd seen them on TV but never for real and there they were all walking around casually. Amazing! Anyway, when I got to Amsterdam, I could look at all the foreign-looking people for hours. I was especially fascinated with the way most of the muslim girls dressed - not at all as you can see on TV: all in black, covered from head to toe in flowing burkas. Although there are some of those around as well. But mostly what I could see was a mixture of following the restrictions of religion (covered head, only hands and face and feet exposed) but still following the current fashions. Jeans with short skirts/long jumpers on top, all kinds of colours and jewellery, biking to work with the fashionable trenchcoat's belt flippering in the wind. If anything, I feel more resentment in the society against "the Polish plumber" than against muslims. But then, I am a bit biased with that so...

So maybe Blondie there shouldn't be fearing for Holland's islamification but should concentrate instead on accepting Islam as it is in the mainstream. The mainstream of it is most definitely not harmful to anyone, it's the extremes that always cause trouble. Duh! He does imply that also in the movie and has said so in several interviews but the Islamic world is feeling hurt and insulted and stereotyped.

All in all, it's one big vicious circle: being hateful towards people causes them to be hateful towards you and all that.

I do understand the politician's fears as well. It is excruciatingly hard to see that kind of change sometimes and I'm sure that if the trend was the other way around - Western people "taking over" the Islamic culture... hmmm... isn't that what's beein going on for the last decades in ever increasing speed?

Openbare vervoer

Every morning and evening it takes me at least an hour on the public transport to reach work/home. 20 minutes on the tram from home to Central Station, 20 on the train to Schiphol airport and 20 on the bus from Schiphol to Schiphol-Rijk. Plus, of course, the time spent on waiting and walking to the next unit of transportation.

The dutch themselves are often annoyed at their public tramsport, mainly because of too many delays. I must say though that considering the demands and density of the people I find the public transport to be more than adequate and even though there are indeed often delays with trains, trams and buses (and, I'm sure, subway trains) it does seem to at least function regardless.

I could never really understand how all these delays come to be. But this morning on my way to Central Station, some time between 7:12 and 7:25, the tram had an accident. This white painter's van apparently didn't see or didn't turn fast enough and the tram grazed it a little bit. No one was hurt or even thrown about although it there was some hard breaking involved. However, the tram had to stay at the scene of the accident until furhter notice.

Luckily for me, this happened somewhere between the Magna Plaza and Central station so it was just a short walk. Unfortunately for the people at the complaints department of the OV, this happens to be the merging point of several tram lines and during the 3 minutes I was considering whether to stay in the tram see if it goes on or take the walk a whole 3 trams were already stuck behind the one I was in. And by the time I got to Central Station (maybe... 7 to 10 minutes later) there were a LOT of people there waiting for the trams which were all stuck. during the morning rush hour.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There are often little screens in the trams with current news. So that people wouldn't get bored or something, I guess. And every now and then I see a news item that goes something like "man hit by tram" and I wonder... how can a person not see or hear that a tram is coming? It's big and makes noise, for heaven's sake! So for a while I assumed that maybe it's the drunk tourists, just wandering about on the streets and not paying attention to traffic. For good reason actually because once a tram I was in almost hit one of those.

But now I have a different theory: it's the dutch themselves. They do not seem to have any fear of moving vehicles if they're not bikes. It is true that the chance to be hit by a bike is higher here than the chance of being hit by anything else but that doesn't mean that people can just cross the streets wherever they want and at the tramstop when the light is red and you SEE and HEAR that the tram is about to leave but you need to catch the other tram on the other side of the street so you make a dash at it and hope that the tram driver nearer to you has awesome reflexes.

But then, I come from a country with the highest rate of death caused by car accidents in Europe (at least) so I have a right to be afraid of moving things. To me, it's only rational to assume that if it's bigger than me and hits me, it will hurt me very much.

think... think!!!

Things to do when friends come to visit:

1) Give them a map of Amsterdam and tell them to amuse themselves. The map is necessary so that they don't get ALL lost. Seriously, during the first month I was in Amsterdam, I managed to get lost 3 times. On the way to the local store...

2) Tikibad. No one is ever too old to have some watery fun. And indoors it doesn't matter that the weather is horrible.

3) introduce them to the wonders of satesaus. Yumm!

4) rush hour on Kalverstraat. just so they can't whine about the concentration of people at any other time.

5) Pancakes with bacon and syrup and possibly cheese. (can you tell that it's almost lunchtime for me?)

6) Terrasje pakken. That one depends on the weather but not as much as you'd think.


Any other suggestions?

Language post #1

The Dutch language is arguably one of the hardest languages to learn to pronounce properly. For me it's relatively easy as Estonian is also a language with many diphtongs (compound-vowels) and overall weirdness.

The Dutch g/ch I find no harder to pronounce than the French r. Just takes a little practice to get it in with other non-vowels though... Like in the words "Schiphol", "Groningen", "groot", "glimlach" (awesome word for "smile", by the way, it sounds anything but that) and so on.

The double a like in "maar", "Maastricht" (also a wonderful g/ch word) and "kaas" was a little bit more difficult. It sounds like a cross between a (like the British-English "vast") and ae (like the English "bat"). A truly strange sound. Sounds like a crying baby but quieter.

What I have serious problems with, though, is the grammar, especially in the sense of word order in sentences. I've only learned German for half a year and only because I had to and the English grammar is no help at all. Dutch is like a crossover between English and German- it has German grammar and English vocabulary. I never have any idea which words belong together in a sentence and when trying to speak I always sound so awkward to myself, coming up with sentences that in English might sound like "flower see must you to". And the Dutch are usually so busy complimenting me on my pronounciation that I have no idea if what I've just said makes actual sense or not... It is getting better now though. I think, anyway.

There are several Dutch words that do not exist in other languages. Such as "beleg". That means everything and anything you can think of that goes on bread. "Gezellig" means something more than nice, it means a nice time and place, often with other people. "Knus" means a space that's tightly packed with things and/or people but is still gezellig.

Another funny Dutch word is "lekker". Now, that is a very common germanic/scandinavian word that literally means tasty. But the Dutch use it in combination with the most bizarre things. For example "lekker knus" and "lekker feestje" and late at night you can hear the half-naked ladies in the tv commercials promise a "lekkere ereksie"...

Stormwinds

There's a storm warning out today, with wind speeds up to 110 km/h. Britain has had horrible weather since Monday already (and you can tell because they're being very quiet with ordering) and there's also a storm warning for France, Norway and Sweden. Brrr.

Most depressing though is that it's the same weather here since October already. around 10 degrees Celsius and windy/rainy. Bah!

Vennas

My brother was here this past weekend on a karate competition. Unfortunately he managed to sprain both his ankles before actually having a match (was warming up and landed badly) so we got to make fun of him for being a cripple etc.

But I also got to impress Sander by introducing him to the reigning World Champion, a friend of my brother's and a fellow Estonian all in one person.

There's a weirdness with Estonians and sports. Meaning that Estonians tend to be good at some individual sports like cross country skiing, chess, karate, judo, sumo-wrestling, decathlon and so on. I suppose it has to do with the difficulty of finding a certain number of really GOOD sportspeople of the same sport from a population of 1,3 million...

Sushi

I had some really good sushi this Saturday. Were out celebrating my and Sander's birthdays (both in January... being celebrated on the 1st of March, shows how wonderfully organized we are, right?) with Anneth and Richard.

The restaurant was, according to Dutch standards, spacious - meaning that there were two storeys and about 15 tables and even a little bit of room for the elbows. The service was slow because it was high time on a Saturday evening and the place was packed and they only had 2 waitresses. But the food was EXCELLENT. They even served something called grill-sushi, which was a cross between deep-fried-FEBO type stuff and sushi, altogether really nice.

ah yes, the yet unimagined joys of deep-fried sushi... and green tea ice cream :) Life can sometimes be really good


In other news, Medvedev seems to have won yesterday's presidential elections for Russia. Wonder by how much, 70 80 or 90%? Ah, the good old times of communism coming flooding back...

Healthcare in a wellfare state?

Even though The Netherlands is not "The" wellfare state like Sweden or Finland, it is "A" wellfare state that is often used as a glowing example of how things should be run in the healthcare system.

But foreigners, especially if you happen to want to settle for a while and perhaps even work, beware! The Dutch healthcare system was relatively recently privatized, which was supposed to create competition on the market and eventually provide the people with better quality-for-your-pay medical care. Everyone chose a health insurance provider and all was good. The problem for foreigners - like me - is that from the moment you are registered to live in the Netherlands (which is necessary if you want a legal job and get a social-security/ID number aka burgernummer formerly known as sofi-number. Registering to live is relatively easy if you're a European citizen, all you need is your passport and a legal place to live = rent contract or some such) you are OBLIGED to have a DUTCH health insurance. This, of course, no one tells you.

All information is in Dutch, which is how it should be seeing as this is the official language of the country. But there are tens of thousands of foreigners here and tens, if not hundreds arriving every day who do not have the slightest clue about the language. Of course they will learn as soon as they can, but the moment they get themselves registered I very much doubt that the majority can understand Dutch. Therefore it would only make logical sense to have at least the information that health insurance is reqired in the major languages of the World available at the immigration office... But I digress.

When I registered to live in the Netherlands I was asked if I have a health insurance. I said yes, I have an Estonian health insurance which is valid in all of the EU and showed him the card and everything. The official guy said "Good. Sign here..." During the whole process of making sure everything was in order with my stay in the Netherlands no one mentioned to me that I would need a Dutch health insurance. And I asked: "I have done this this and this. Is there anything else I should pay attention to?".

Fast forward half a year during which, being from EE I couldn't find a job that didn't involve scrubbing floors. I'll write about that some other time... Anyway, as soon as the laws changed allowing people from the New EU states (except Bulgaria and Romania) to work according to the same regulations as all other EU citizens, I was literally whooshed off my feet and within the week found myself working at an office near the Schiphol airport. And this is when I found out that I was legall obliged to have a Dutch health insurance. So I applied for one.

A few days later I got a letter saying that they want to fine me for the time I wasn't insured. The amount was my monthly insurance cost times 6. And my monthly insurance cost was just over 100 euros. Very expensive, if you ask me but this is Western Europe and everything is expensive here. This is just about the least you can pay per month. So 600 euros just for not being informed that I needed a Dutch insurance. At that time my Estonian insurance was still 100% valid and I thought I was completely insured for any emergency. I hadn't been ill and hadn't needed any medical care whatsoever and they just take my money. Splendid. I sent a complaint stating my ignorance and didn't hear back from them for months.

Fast forward another 4 months. I received a letter from some agency or another saying that they had received my complaint from the health insurance company but had sent it back to them because they don't deal with complaints of that nature. oooookaaayy... Fast forward 2 more months. I get a letter from my health insurance company (in Dutch, of course. But luckily it's now been a year that I've lived here so I understand the letter) saying that ignorance does not save me. Yeah, whatever. By now I'm so fed up with the whole thing that I just want to drag it out some more for them so that in the end they've spent more than my measly 600 euros on administration and work-costs. I'm feeling vindictive. So I send a letter saying that I don't want to pay it in one lump sum but in parts, please.

A few weeks after that (that is, this past weekend) I fill out my tax report. Because like all people I want my money back. Turns out that because I wasn't employed and thereforemy employer didn't pay their part of insurances for the first 6 months I now get 500 euros less back from my paid taxes. Ok, so it's money I had already paid for taxes and never actually *had* but still... Welfare state indeed.

So I can live here but can't work and while I can't work I have to pay a hundred euros per month for health insurance, which I don't know I have to pay. On top of that my non-existent employer, because, remember, I can't work, does not pay their part of the insurance. And the state and the health insurance company combined take my 1100 euros. Which, excuse me, is almost my monthly wage, net.

Morale of the year: never believe the Dutch bureaucracy-officials, they know nothing. Also, don't trust all of the information you fins ont eh official expat pages on the Internet. I checked and there's absolutely nothing on health insurance anywhere. Talk to your (potential) employer about what you need organised. And trying to out-protest the system only delays the inevitable but at least it should give you some time to amass the money...

First one

So work got boring. I have been reading peoples' thoughts and participating in some debates for a while. and then work got even more boring. Well, not so much boring as s p a r s e... Once it speeds up again I expect to post less or not at all. For that matter, I don't know how much I'll post as it is.

The blog is about me me me and living in teh Netherlands. About the nice little things as well as the overhanging power of EuroBureaucracy. As I'm from Estonia (.ee), which is located in Eastern Europe (EE) and am in contact with the Dutch, I've decided to call the blog appropriately. Hopefully it'll turn out to be a handy guide to what to pay attention to should you (dear reader) ever decide to move here. Lesson 1: the Dutch call things "handy" or "unhandy" instead of convenient/inconvenient etc. And it's catching.