Hristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat!

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

Ca românul nostalgic, am zis să văd o parte din slujba de Înviere de la TV, i.e. ce se transmitea din România la TV...
Mi-am dat seama de această posibilitate puțin după 23 ora NL, deci puțin după 00 ora RO...
Deci am pierdut primirea Luminii prin display-ul comp-ului...

Și, cu speranță am pornit să găsesc pe undeva live streaming:

1. Evenimentul Zilei și Gândul nu ofereau nimic - logic, normal, evident.
2. Realitatea - pe lângă știri tâmpite plasate pe tot site-ul, apare link-ul de live streaming, but guess what? Era setat automat pe România, iar eu eram... Internațional - presupun ca funcția de determinare automată a locației are bug-uri, dar de implementat au implementat-o, corect? :) Anyway, constatând că nu găsește serverul (îmi dădea mesaj explicit cu asta), am dat click pe Internațional și a mers.
   După câteva minute de transmisie au revenit în studio, și moderatoarea cu invitații au ciocnit ouă și au început să bată câmpii. (Ca fapt divers, ce căutau în studio Corina Chiriac, Tudor Octavian et. al.?)
   Damn, hai să mai căutăm...
3. Antena 3 - știri și mai tâmpite pe tot site-ul, dar live streaming-ul apare plasat bine și merge din prima. Yupiii!
   Imaginea și sunetul veneau de la Patriarhie cred, dar îi mănâncă pe cei din studio și încep să comenteze diferențe ortodoxism vs. catolicism și alte teme dintr-astea filozofice - evident, în spiritul antenist, erau habar-nam-iști, pesimiști, naționaliști și manifestau un puternic spirit rural.
   M-am oprit, mă simțeam pedepsit de divinitate, aproape abandonasem ideea...
   

...Apoi mi-am dat seama - soluția era evidentă - Trinitas:
Din păcate, TV-ul oferă un link de live streaming care nu merge, dar...
Radio-ul oferă live streaming perfect: totul în direct de la Patriarhie, sunet bun, zero întreruperi, zero comentarii aiurea - exact ce vroiam, iar televiziunile comerciale nu au putut oferi. Felicitări!... și uite-așa, stând pe scaun mi-am potolit nostalgia.

Precizări:

1. La noi în biserică se stă în picioare, înghesuit, cu vecini nerăbdători care comentează - eu stăteam pe scaun, lejer, și ascultam în liniște. => Destul de catolică abordarea, aș zice :)
   În momente ca astea apreciezi organizarea catolică și-ți dorești să bage și ai noștri băncuțe mai multe în biserică, să asiști liniștit, dacă vrei să asiști.
2. Evident că din slujbă n-am înțeles mai nimic - Deh, nu am spiritul religios antrenat.
3. Oh well, a fost o experiență interesantă.
   Nu, nu mă duc la biserică.
   Nu m-am mai dus să iau Lumină de Paște de nu-știu-câți ani.
   Da, nu sunt un bun creștin.

Anyway,

Hristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat!


Am menționat că am făcut și ouă roșii?
Ok, zic acum.



Paște Fericit duminică, pe 4 Aprilie, people!

Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Tulip Museum

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]


I've visited 3 museums (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Tulip Museum) last Sunday, 14th of March - my opinions on them:


Rijksmuseum
Cool museum!

I really liked the first rooms telling the history of Netherlands becoming a great power (1 paragraph written high, in large letters, on a wall in each room) - so poetic, such a nice politically correct language - it basically describes how The Kingdom of Netherlands kicked asses (Spain, a bit of Britain and so on), how they did commerce (including slavery, gold and something else if I remember correctly) and expanded into other parts of the world (i.e. colonies). Strange enough, it does not mention France and Germany, which I find very difficult to understand given that every nation in Europe used to continuously fight wars against its neighbors for resources or prestige or even fun/boredom (yes, Europeans have a very weird sense of humor).

There also are some paintings, including the famous Night Watch - yes, Rembrandt did a good job. Many rooms filled with paintings are made by his pupils - funny enough, there are too many made by his pupils (his pupils becomes an annoying phrase at one point) and just a few by Rembrandt itself!

Admission for Museumkaart holders: free entrance, yeah!
You can also let your coat, back pack etc. at a wardrobe right before entering the visiting area. Nice.



Van Gogh Museum

A lot of Van Goh paintings, of course, nicely organized with respect to the periods and locations in which Van Gogh painted.

There also were some other exhibitions - I remember the one regarding Paul Gauguin.

Admission for Museumkaart holders: free entrance, yeah!
You can also let your coat, back pack etc. at a wardrobe right before entering the visiting area. Nice.



View Netherlands (by Liviu) in a larger map



Tulip Museum

They had the story printed even in Romanian - that felt good!
It's a very-very small but well organized museum.

Admission: 2 EUR for students! Yes, stress gets paid off.



View Netherlands (by Liviu) in a larger map



Conclusion:
So far, so good, with visiting museums and making use of the Museumkaart.
I think I'll visit again the Rijksmuseum just to read those several politically correct paragraphs describing how the Dutch won the wars they fought and became a great power - congratulations!

Museumkaart: the cheapest way to visit a lot of museums in the Neherlands

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

The Museumkaart [official site; details on Amsterdam.info with respect to covered museums in Amsterdam] is the one very cool and very cheap way of visiting most major museums in the Netherlands. Basically, one pays the card and gets 1 year of free access to all museums the card covers. Given the list of covered museums is extensive and cool, therefore the card is cool.

Price: 35 EUR
Plus an extra 4.95 EUR first time administration fee - whatever...
So, a total of 40 EUR for me.


Roadmap for getting the card:

1. I filled in the form (available only in Dutch of course) on the Museumkaart official site: name, address, birth date, account number etc. - the usual data they require in the Netherlands - thank you Google Translate for the help, once again!
2. The Stichting Musemkaart (en: Museum card Foundation) sent an invoice (having my bank account number on it) to my address.
3. I signed the invoice, put it in an ING envelope and then in a TNT post box.
4. The payment got confirmed.
5. The Stichting Musemkaart (en: Museum card Foundation) issued the card and sent it to me by mail - starting 11th of March I am the proud owner of one such card.

Anyway, I say it's worth the money and I recommend you get one, should you want to visit many museums for little money here in the Netherlands.

DigiD: Your own login code to the entire state (of Netherlands)

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

On 1st of February, I've received by mail a notification from the VU to convert my Studielink account into a DigiD account. I let it rest nicely in the inbox until the end of last week when I decided to solve the problem.

Studielink - short description: the Studielink site technically aggregates information regarding all students in the Netherlands. As I understand it, it is a platform used by all universities here to manage their students (native or international), as each student's profile contains information regarding one's education background, payment status of his/her education in NL and so on. I think it is a very smart approach to managing international students.

Anyway, after a few clicks (as described in the mail) on Studielink I landed on a page that said the same thing as the e-mail said a few paragraph below: one needs an already existing DigiD account in order to make the conversion. Ok, let's make the DigiD account...

So, here I am landing on the DigiD site, which offers a very nice and very short English explanation of its functionalities...

Indeed, you are a fan of my blog and you know the rest: Well, that's everything you're gonna get in English! :)

The steps for creating and activating a DigiD account:

1. So, at the end of last week, having the Dutch (i.e. the only) version of the site open in one tab and Google Translate in another, I started reading the options and the messages from the site, and filled in the required information (names, surname, address, BSN etc.) to finally create an username and password, which further required an activation code.
2. DigiD sent me by regular (i.e. paper) mail the activation code, which I've received at the beginning of this week.
3. Friday, i.e. yesterday, I opened again the DigiD site and inserted the activation code and finally activated my DigiD account. Hooray!

Side note: This is an interesting approach to securing your account, since an attacker cannot do it in our place, since they will never get access to all data. To do it, they must (1) know everything about you (since the information is checked against one's registration with the Municipality), (2) have access to your mailbox and (3) pick up the activation code letter before you notice it has arrived, but I find it all unlikely.

Anyway, then I went back to Studielink and successfully converted my Studielink account into a DigiD account, which means from now on I can use the same DigiD username and password for Sudielink, too.


Wondering about the title of this post?
Well, that's written on one of the papers in the envelope I received with the activation code:
Uw eigen inlogcode voor de hele overheid
which translates into:
Your own login code for the entire state
Isn't this good publicity for the state or what?


DigiD, as I understand it, seems a great move towards e-government (NL occupies the 5th place regarding e-gov readiness). In the future, as both the letter and site claim, this account should allow one to access many administrative services, therefore interact more effectively with the state.
So, this is one of the many times when I say about the Netherlands: Cool approach! Congratulations!

Voordeelurenabonnement

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

A week ago I have finally received by mail the Voordeelurenabonnement (The off-peak discount pass).


The story of my Voordeelurenabonnement

Since I filled in the form in mid November, you can imagine something went wrong.

Although NS (this is the Dutch Railway Company) was supposed to send it to me by mail in three weeks, they did not. I did not worry because I thought NS would synchronize perfectly (they really seem able to do this, I am not joking) and send me the final pass a few days before the temporary one expires. Since the temporary one was expiring at mid February, I went to the Zuid station NS office at the beginning of February to ask whether something happened - I did it for my own mental comfort rather than thinking there was a problem...

The clerk was surprised to hear I have not received the pass by mail, so he handled the problem rapidly:

1. Phoned the NS headquarters which confirmed to have lost the form (wow! I could not believe that)
2. Gave me a 1 month extension to the temporary pass
3. Gave me another form to fill in and bring along with a passport photo - he wrote on the form my client number, since I have been inserted as a client in the system, but apparently something went wrong afterwards.
   Joke: maybe the system does not allow Iacob, but only Jacob?

One day later, when I returned the form I was very inspired to emphasize that my name is with I not J (they always write Jacob here!) and he wrote that on top of the form.

Due to that phone call, the NS headquarters also sent me one week later another form to fill in, since they acknowledged their mistake. However, I did not fill that since I have already filled the form one week before.
However, guess what? Besides my client number, the form also had my name printed on it: yes, it was written Jacob...

The pass I've received by mail recently has my name perfectly written on it, therefore I was very inspired to emphasize to the clerk how my name was spelled correctly.


Further details on the Voordeelurenabonnement

The Voordeelurenabonnement is an OV-chipkaart (in English for non-Dutch speakers), just like my anonymous GVB card.

Why buy a Voordeelurenabonnement?
The discount suits very nice the needs of a Dutch native or a person living a long time in Netherlands, by offering nice discounts (see the 40% discount during off-peak periods tab) when traveling by train. However, I lack the time and mood for traveling - ok, this is my problem and I should get it solved.

One has to write on the form his/her bank account number, so NS automatically withdraws money (after one year) from one's account to renew the pass. That means I shall have to send them an e-mail probably in October to announce them I've closed my bank operations in the Netherlands and returned home, since I will be back in Romania starting mid July - thank you Google Calendar for storing that reminder for me!

TNT in Netherlands: How to find the closest post office to one's home

[Post publicat de Liviu pe Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]


Problem

One needs to find and go to a TNT Post Office or TNT box etc., e.g. (1) the closest one to his/her home, or (2) a Post Office offering specific / complete services etc.
How does one find such a location?


Solution

After landing on:

1. The Dutch TNT site
2. The English abridged (i.e Client Service section) version
3. The international TNT site

I returned to the Dutch site and using my (not so) extensive Dutch knowledge I finally landed on the page which displays all the TNT services centered to one's post code. Just enter the post code and click search, i.e. Zeok for non-Dutch speakers.
Or one can use the next page, which allows to select both post code / city and the desired type of service. Indeed, it's only in Dutch and that may pose problems.


The most advanced / useful solution I can provide, after hacking some parameters in the address bar, is this page displaying the interface in part in English, with the same options of selecting both post code / city and the desired type of service.


Side note: Regarding the English version of the site, I'd like TNT's slogan to become: Sure we can have the whole website in English!

Experiment culinar foarte reusit cu hering afumat si elemente auxiliare

[Post publicat de Liviu pe Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

Am realizat in noaptea aceasta un experiment culinar foarte reusit, pe care doresc sa-l share-uiesc lumii intregi.
Fazele se mananca pe rand, i.e. nu se combina si nu se alterneaza intre ele; o faza incepe abia dupa ce cealalta a fost terminata:

Faza 1: Peste cu diverse elemente auxiliare, paine si smantana:

1. Hering file afumat - 150 g (cantarit in forma finala preparata). L-am cumparat deja preparat (evident!), ambalat in plastic si vidat; a fost putin cam sarat, dar ok.
   
2. Mustar super iute.
3. Masline verzi.
4. Usturoi.
5. Paine stil lipie, usor pufoasa, cu gust dulceag.
6. Smantana greceasca, 10% grasime, racita bine in frigider. - Ofera o senzatie racoritoare peste pestele si maslinele usor sarate, respectiv mustarul super iute.
   

Faza 2: Warm down

1. Cartofi natur - cantitate mica.
2. Castraveti murati, extra fini (adica mici-mici, mai mici decat degetul mic de la mana), raciti bine la frigider.
   

Faza 3: Desert

1. Portocala, sau orice alte citrice, e.g. mandarine, gref etc. - dupa 20-30 minute.
   

Recomandari suplimentare:

• In loc de apa, ar putea merge mai bine o limonada.
• La faza 1, se pot adauga suplimentar feliute de lamaie.
  

Concluzie:

Declar acest experiment culinar o reusita.
[Cred ca m-a luat valul si am mancat prea mult.]

nl: retour afzender - en: return to sender

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

Problem:
You live in a new place (in the Netherlands) and keep receiving mail addressed to the former occupant of that place. I guess, (1) this is annoying you and (2) it's frustrating for the sender to send mail that never gets answered/read.
So, what solution is there to solve this problem?

Solution:
First, you should write on the envelope retour afzender which in English means return to sender.
Second, you should put the envelope again in a post box - yes, there are plenty of those on the street, so you will find one instantly.
Well, that's it. Now, TNT Post will return the envelope to the sender and the sender will know there is a new occupant, i.e. you, at that address; there's no need to stamp the envelope again, since this service is basically included in the mail delivery service which has already been paid when the sender placed the stamp on the envelope.


... now a bit about myself:

At first I ignored the problem, since I was quite busy at the time. Then, envelopes started piling up in my room. I remembered I read something on one of the leaflets with instructions from De Key, but haven't had the time to solve the problem. Finally, last week, although I kept being busy (I know, repeating it might get you nervous, so to make things clear, I must say I've been busy the whole time), I decided to search in those leaflets and eventually I found the solution I was looking for.

As a side note, now I know the names of the people who have lived here before me: J. Lopez de Lacalle Beltran de Heredia and Achem Baye John. Now, since only one could have lived at this address last year, it means the other one was lazy enough (or maybe even more occupied than me) to solve this problem. So, the million dollar quesion is: who is the lazy (or more occupied than me) one? Is it the one who keeps being sent mail from the VU and a greeting from I-don't-know-who, i.e. Achem, or the one who keeps being sent mail from both the VU and the Dienst Persoons- en Geo-Informatie, i.e. J. Lopez? Hmm, I think it's the latter one...

For now, I just wrote the 'retour afzender' phrase on all the envelopes, and I plan to put them in the post box on Monday, since Sunday I'll be busy voting in the 2nd round of President-of-Romania elections...


Update - 19th of March 2010

I have received today the VU magazine, in Dutch obviously, doh! One copy was for Lacalle etc. and the 2nd copy (yes, I received 2 at the same address) was for Mevrouw (en: Ms.) D. Zhang - so yes, now I know the names of 3 people living here before me. Cool!

First haircut, first post

[Post published by Liviu on Liviu's [in Netherlands] Blog]

I've had on Wednesday my first haircut in the Netherlands, so I decided it was a great time to have my first blog post, too. Hopefully, there shall be other posts before my second haircut.