darryn

Tonight someone was speaking to me in Dutch and I didn’t realise it. I just understood as if they were speaking English.

So I had “the moment” on one of my last nights in Amsterdam. Oh! Cruel fate, why do you mock me?

I will really miss this city. There is so much that I didn’t see.

*note to family: the title of this post refers to the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic”, and is not some coded message about my emotional state. So stop worrying.

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Last night Kirsten sat down and announced that she was breaking up with me. The reason given was that we have different priorities for the future: I intend to someday have a family, she does not. Whilst I agree with that assessment, I would have preferred a different solution (i.e. doing it my way).

The universal response has been shock. Our families and friends, and myself, did not see this coming. It always seemed that we were “meant to be”. I have always been aware that Kirsten is very commitment-phobic and values her independence above all else, but I did not expect this.

I have never been the dumpee before, having always been the initiator of a breakup, and I would say that it is a bit easier on this side of the fence. I do not have the guilt of having hurt someone close to me.

I now have less than three weeks left in Europe before I return to Australia for the birth of my first nephew and the wedding of my best friend. The plan was to stay for 2 weeks and then return to NL, but this will not be happening. So I have a bit over 2 weeks left to fit in 6 months of planned travel. I will go to Antwerp in the next few days to buy chocolates for my sister, and perhaps from there go on to Paris. Mel and Jem, Jan and John arrive in A’dam on Friday and are spending the long weekend with us here, after which I return to London with Mel and Jem. I will spend a week with them, return to Amsterdam for one day to say goodbye to everyone, then off to KL and then home.

I don’t yet know what to do after that, but when I do, Dear Reader, you will be one of the first to know.

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I come from a country where businesses want you to give them money. In many cases, the purpose of a business is to get money from people.

A different philosophy is used in the Netherlands. The purpose of businesses here is solely to employ people, and those people are employed to say “that is not possible” (dat kan niet).

An example, common exchange:

Darryn: “hello business, I would like to give you money for your goods and/or services”
Dutch business: “that is not possible”

I am charged $5 by my Australian bank every time I use an ATM here. So I want to get a Dutch bank account.

The first step is to get a social security number. That took a month, 7 phone calls and 2 visits to the tax office. On my last, and successful, visit, I was told nine times that giving me a number was not possible. One of the reasons, told to me while holding my passport on the work permit page, was that I did not have a work permit. Having a work permit is not considered proof that you have a work permit. Luckily I had the letter from the government that said “you have a work permit, the official permit is in your passport”. So I got the sofinummer.

Two weeks ago I tried to get a bank account. I had ID, I had my sofinummer, I had every document I could think of. Dat kan niet. To open a bank account, I need a contract that lists my current address. They suggested I bring in my mobile phone contract. I pointed out that you can’t get a mobile phone contract without a bank account number. I asked what I could do. She just looked at me. The conversation was over.

So I sent in an expired cashback coupon to the mobile phone company in the hope that they would send me back a letter with my address printed on it. Last week the letter came, just as I has hoped. As a bonus, they gave me the cashback as well.

Today I went in to the bank, armed with my passport, my driver’s licence, my international driver’s licence, my official sofinummer certificate, all documentation relating to my visa, the mobile phone letter, and all of my other documents. I even brought a few hundred euros cash in case they needed a large deposit to open an account.

Dat kan niet.

It is not possible to open a bank account in the Netherlands without an employment contract with a Dutch company, and proof of income. I explained that I was doing work on the internet, which has no borders and am not employed by an official Dutch company. I explained that I had money which I wanted to give to the bank. I was told that I should have made an appointment, and when I get a job I can come in to make an appointment to apply for a bank account.

It will not surprise you to learn that you cannot get paid in the Netherlands without a Dutch bank account, they only do direct deposit into Dutch accounts. One of the required fields on an employment contract is bank account number.

I feel like a latter-day Yossarian.

Exception: None of the foreign companies I have dealt with here suffer from this. I have had business with both Sony and Sunglass Hut and both have given fantastic service, politely replacing broken goods that I did not even buy in the country, with no questions asked. The employees that I dealt with were Dutch.

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