Phone-me-not

The service Bel-me-niet has the purpose of preventing people from receiving unsolicited phone calls by marketers. Those reap phone numbers from the telephone directory, and use strategies to get a dubious "yes", which then will use to sell services.

I should have registered there. In general, I had fun answering those, because I used them as a way to practise my Dutch. But in some cases, awkward situations ensued.

Not long before leaving the previous house, I got 2 of them on the same day. One was from a telecom company, which promised lower rates than KPN. I don't care because I use the phone very little, and, when I do, it's mostly the cellphone or Skype. Yet, I stupidly fell: the guy at the other end wanted me to "sign a voice contract", asking me to answer "yes" clearly to each question. The second one was much quicker: I soon told them that they could send me informative material to my address.

Soon I got an answer from the first company by snail mail. It was a pile of papers, saying, among others, that my phone would have been removed from KPN and connected to their network, and that I had a few days to cancel everything. Which I promptly did, with a phone call to their call center.

I was angry at the first company, when instead I should have realised the truth. The first company, while being telemarketers offering unsolicited products, was at least transparent. They were clearly stating what they were doing, they sent a paper notice before doing it, they eventually did nothing when I told them to stop. The second company, instead, only sent me a paper notice when it was too late. Without me suspecting anything, they disconnected my KPN line, with no prior notice.

I told them that it was a mistake. They cancelled my contract. But there was a contract. Cancelling it meant creating a new contract with KPN. KPN treated me as if I were a new customer: they gave me the default subscription (I had a cheaper one, with higher rates for calling, because I seldom call: net result, I spent more money) and they wrote that I could only cancel the line after one year. "Oh ****", I thought, "I'm leaving in one month! Why do they do this to me, after being a customer for almost three years?".

Anyway, the landlord told me he intended to sell the house after I left, so I had no other option than ask KPN to cancel the contract.

KPN proved very inefficient. They said they could not cancel the contract, but they seemed not to know why this was impossible. They blamed the ADSL subscription. So I cancelled that (flawlessly: they said it would be closed in one month, and I would have left 1 month and few days later. And that happened: ADSL stopped working at exactly the right time). I tried again cancelling KPN, and this time is seemed successful.

The landlord changed his mind suddenly, and rented the house. The future tenant claimed he needed the KPN line. Therefore I called KPN again, attempting to cancel the request of closing the line. Their answer was negative: the line was being closed.

But then, I got a reminder by KPN, for a bill I hadn't paid. Well, I cancelled the line, why should I pay for a line I'm not going to use? So, apparently, KPN was not closing the line, despite claiming the opposite...

I paid the bill. And, when the new tenant came, we wrote KPN to change the name from mine to his. That worked. The line has not been closed, it is used by the new tenant now.

A happy ending for this story. But the story taught a lot about dishonest telemarketers and KPN not being able to figure what's happening with their own phone line.

In the new house, needless to say, I have a new phone+Internet provider, which has noting to do with the above ones.

Show ownership

Eventually, it happened. After so much wishing, 3 months ago, I've become the proud owner of a home in Amsterdam.

I only actually moved there on 1st March. There are many reasons. One is that I wanted to give a long prior notice to the landlord. He has always been fair with me, being fair with him is the right thing. Another one is the bad experience of my first house: I got the notice that I should leave it with only 2 weeks advance. So I wanted to take time. Yet another one was the lack of a bed. A new bed was ordered on 16th January, few days after I got the keys. The furniture shop said that the bed would have taken 6 weeks. And they were right. Even too much: the first 2 days I had to sleep on temporary beds because the real one hadn't come yet.

After moving furniture and boxes, and after sleeping on an inappropriate bed on the first day, my back became very painful. Luckily the situation improved in the following days.

But I'm so happy. It is close to my first Amsterdam home: it feels like a comeback after a long exile (almost three years). And it has proper heating. And the neighbourhood is lovely. And the bathroom has a decent size. And there is a locked space for the bike. And it's mine!!!

Know your ledikant from your boxspring

Yesterday, with -1°C outside, was time for a learning trip in search for a bedroom, involving, but not limited to, Villa Arena. Apparently, beds in this country come in 2 forms, ledikant and boxspring. Dictionaries are unhelpful (Prisma just translates ledikant as bed, and does not list boxspring at all). After analysing over 100 models of beds, I have come up with a theory, which has been supported by all experiments so far. A ledikant has a bed frame under the mattress, while a boxspring has a sort of second mattress there. So, an Italian would only consider a ledikant.

Still some way to go, but I've started making up my mind.

How to become completely Dutch

Long time ago, I heard that it was possible to get free Dutch language courses from the city. Curious, I went to the stadsdeelkantoor (neighbourhood's governing office building) to ask for information. Not only was it true, I ended up on a waiting list. After a not-so-long wait (about 3 months) and an assessment test, I started the 6-hours-a-week course. It was great, an occasion to train, in a place where there are so few (Dutch know English very well and are eager to show that off, so they start speaking English at the slightest sign the other party does not master Dutch at native levels). And the people at the course became real friends, invaluable mates in our stay in a foreign country.

The purpose of the whole class is to complete the Staatexamen NT2 (state exam for Dutch as a second language). And lately, the school pressed the students to sign up for the exam. So, reluctantly, I did. A few days ago, the result: sufficient in all 4 topics (reading, writing, speaking, listening). A big thank you to the teachers and the fellow students, you've been great. The only regret is that meeting the classmates will become less frequent. But they won't be forgotten.