FUN AND GAMES

Apart from cycling around the streets taking photographs, shopping and getting in the way of trams, you must be wondering how I fill my day. Well, to start with there was (and still is) a fair bit of administration involved in becoming legal in The Netherlands. Luckily, I was born in the EU reducing the amount of paperwork required.

Having said that, The Town Hall, who issues your Tax Number still requires that your Birth Certificate and in our case our Marriage Certificate is Notarised. Rather strange, as these are very legal looking documents in themselves with stamps and signatures all over the originals, but we had to send them off to the UK to ensure our papers are in order and they have just been returned from Milton Keynes with an additional document glued to the backs of both, embossed with HM government stamp and more signatures.

K,  on the other hand, a naturalised British Subject is not quite as legal as me and has to go back to his roots in Canada so that it is taking a little longer. American Colleagues who arrived in February are still going through the process.

What is all this about, well, you have to have a Tax Number to do anything, open a bank account etc., but the Banks waive this if you are in the process of getting your Tax number and you can open an account anyway. Having this number opens doors to all sorts of welfare – I am now registered and starting to accrue points already for my Dutch Pension, although I don’t actually earn any money here. Everyone is entitled to this if you live in the country and have a number. I won’t go into detail as it starts to get complicated, but we follow the rules and produce whatever documents are required as it all seems to be in our favour.

The Netherlanders speak fantastic English, therefore, to be honest you don’t have to learn Dutch but the problem is that EVERYTHING is written in Dutch so you have to at least know enough to read directions/packaging and most of all letters arriving from the various government departments or your Bank. We recently had one enclosing a brochure explaining what your Council Tax covered and at the very end a one-liner saying “if you want to read this in English” send off the attached coupon with your name and address…. And they did send us a copy in English. Likewise with internet banking, so we are getting by with a little help from BABELFISH the translation site… although some of the translations are hilarious and make no sense whatsoever.

Interspersed with dealing with the bureaucracy, it was time to get into some social life. It just happens to be that time of year when the Expats return from summer holidays and new people arrive, therefore I was just in time to join Amsterdam-Accuel the French Ladies Group (I also have French Nationality) and the International Women’s Group. I attended the Newcomers Coffee Mornings in both cases and started to make friends. There are the usual activities from Scrabble, Choral Group and Needlework, definitely not me, but also the ones I am most interested in which are Visits to various places in and around Amsterdam and of course tennis because you definitely need a group to get you involved in Club play. I have booked myself on some visits and will restart my tennis when the season starts in October.

In the meantime, I suggested to my new found friends an afternoon Film Club. There are great Cinemas here. One in particular The Tushinski is an Art Deco work of Art. Built in the 1920s by a Polish immigrant, it is a stunning building inside and out. All the cinemas show films in original version with Dutch subtitles and we get all the latest releases, sometimes a little late but including the more interesting low budget films that normally don’t go on general release as blockbusters but tend to win a lot of the Film Awards such as Cannes etc.

K and I tried out the rather smart Pathe Munt cinema last week. There are several theatres within this modern Cinema complex showing films all day and late into the evening. It has those nice comfortable armchair seats but surprisingly, considering the Dutch are giants, not much legroom. We settled down to watch the film and suddenly a rat/mouse ran across the back of the chair in front of me. Yikes I said giving K a nudge – did you see that… the response was I was imagining things, then it came again across the back of the chair… by this time I had decided to put my feet in the popcorn holder located on the back of the chair in front, about waist height, I didn’t want any of those things running up my trouser legs!!!!! K thought I was bats, but chatting to my mahjong group (yes that is another daytime activity – I haven’t played for 20 years so learning again) the ladies all confirmed that yes, the theatre is full of mice/rats and sometimes they run right across the screen in the middle of a film…. Where’s the Pied Piper when you need him!!!! OK wrong country – but not that far away.

Back to the ladies afternoon cinema Club. We are quite a motley group, a mix of Brits, American, Cuban, Mexican, definitely a fun club. The Film this week, My Sister’s Keeper – knowing it would be sad someone had the sense to bring along a box of tissues along with 2 bottles of wine, plastic cups and a whole selection of cheese and biscuit snacks… no wonder there are mice/rats in the cinema?? No, we were very clean and took away our empties although most people seem to throw their rubbish on the floor. We followed the film with a “discussion” at an openair café in Rembrandtplein – if I remember rightly it was Irish Coffee in the sunshine…. I think I am going to enjoy this Film Club!!