Aloha is anybody there? :D
I've tried writting this text yesterday evening (Monday), but I was so knocked out that I wasn't able to, so I've finished it today (Friday).
I was about to tell of our arrival here in Amsterdam, if I remember it well, we stopped at the part of the registration as an expat.
Only thinking about it, get's me stressed again, what an episode!
This city counts already with aproximately 2,5 milion residents, number which is increasing year after year, mainly due to the oppenness to cultural diversity but also as it's considered one of the main financial poles of Europe and it's the dutch city where most headquaters of dutch companies are allocated.
Differently from other countries, for everything here exists a system, as I could tell when remembering some scenarios back in good old Portugal, so adapting to this mind set also requires some adaptation.
In Portugal, there is for everything a special place you need to collect documents from, to start with the registration process, here the process is easier although you need to fullfill certain requirements. But I get there in a minute, it's not that in Lisbon I wasn'T able to get everything I need, of course I was, but portuguese offices aren't well known for getting shit efficiantly done, so you might lose unpaid working hours and if you're lucky you might get it in that timeframe sorted, or you loose and get kicked from place A to B for as long as you get someone competent handling your request.
If you asked about this to a portuguese, they will most probably laugh at you like: "that's just the way things are, you just get to get used to it". :D
But getting back to Amsterdam, living in this much more organized environment of course does have its pros and cons, too.
I've took aproximately a month to conclude the registration process here in the Netherlands, not because getting the BSN was difficult to obtain, but everything you need to have, seemed a neverending cycle to me, as you need to have a flat with an official contract under your name or otherwise the person you live with (must be resident and registered in the Netherlands) and not run a short stay business, needs to vouch for you, as I got to know from a friend of mine.
After having the house you need of course a contract of seven months and guess what? For all of that you need a BSN. What brings you back in forth to what prioritize first. Sometimes I felt like a Hamster trying to jump into a rolling wheel, seriously.
As I've signed my contract by the end of April, I had some urgency to register, so we went through the most comon way, through an appointment at the municipality buildings nearby.
Well, this was probably the worst idea as the next best date available was after a month, what felt like a punch in the face!
That's how we changed plans and went to another city at the end of the world, with out backpacks on, saying that we would need a short stay document, for which we literally performed at the main entrance.
As we've manage to receive it, it felt like heaven for a few minutes, before we went back to the car and gor presented with a gift, a 65 Euros parking ticket. It was going to well for sure..
The next best deal was our flat, we've visited around 8452674585 houses, under which we've seen almost all type of scenarios, houses in ruines, houses in ghettos where I didn't left the car as I was miles and miles surrounded by strange looking males (give me a discount, I'm a country girl, I rather trust an animal than a person, sure shit), houses which were upgraded from old factory buildings, palaces at the most gorgeous hoods, where paying 1 Euro per 15 minutes for parking the whole day was mandatory as the the waitinglist to get a park permit was 10 years (no joke!), we've also seen houses in sky scrapers at the hightest spots of Amsterdam and all of that for absurdly overpriced rents (sounds like Lisbon, but with a shot of extra worse)
At the end, what worked best for us, was negotiating the price higher than the base price as after 3 weeks searching we knew how demanding the real estate marked was, otherwise we would be still living at our nice AirBnB flar up north.
In the middle of this adventure we finally settled and were able to destress a bit.
We're 20 minutes from the city center by bike, transport which already turned essential, mostly to get to the office, but also to get everywhere, public transportation is here very expensive and you don't want to waste money. But it's been fun.
That'S all for today, now I'm going to rest because tomorrow morning I need to wake up early to head back to Germany spending the weekend.
I wish you a nice weekend and like I've already announced through facebook,the next post will go online Wednesdays and Sundays according to your votings.
But the english version will always be one or two days later.
Kisses and Hugs from here!
Ni
