no comprende

for all of you who have ever had to apply for unemployment in a language other than your mother tongue. Or in any other language that you cant speak.
Right - so I do speak a couple of languages quite well (ok - not trying to brag here but it happens if your parents are from Europe - where anyone speaking less than 3 languages fluently is considered a dope - and your father is a linguistic genius) So - chip on the shoulder here. Ok - yeah, but I dont speak dutch. Am having been living in Amsterdam for 3 years. Never have never will. Only 16 mil people do - so figured not worth it. I get by, with english and knowing german (dutch is a bit of a mixture of the two above combined with some harsh sounding grunts and such) Whatever. So since I resigned on Monday - have to apply for unemployement. And they are so progressive here, that you do it online. With these amazing pc's - which are about as fast as my great - grandmother trying to explain what a blog is - she's dead by the way - in dutch. Great. Luckily, there is a guy sitting next to me, kinda skinny, missing teeth and sunken cheeks, but really really nice. He helped me. Although he was valiantly trying to do his application as well, his computer always seemed to crash. So, while he was waiting for it to re-boot, he had time on his hands. I didn't. Wanted to get outta there as fast as possible. Man, its sooo depressing at these places. Gsus - plus I felt a bit outta place there with my blackberry and 60GB ipod. Felt kinda bad actually. If I won in the lottery, I would buy these poor slobs all ipods. I would. And employ them. Especially the heroin addict helping me.

Anyways - so yeah, get through all of this and go back to the counter and ask if I am finished. The bad news: no, there are still like 15 bloody pages to fill out. The good news - I can do it online at home! Yes. So I was outta there and off to my hairdressers appointment.

The moral of this story? Don't schedule a hairdressers appointment on the same day as you go to the unemployment office.