Friday, June 30, 2006

bye bye cabinet and vacation




What a day, the last day of my vacation and the cabinet resigns. Which has no relation as you know.

It started with the Ayaan Hirsi Ali case. Our Minister of stranger affairs and immigration (translation) denials Ali the citizenship she became 5 years ago. Then she investigates the mater and concludes she was wrong. Ali lied only about her age and not about her surname.

That doesn't matter for her citizenship.
Ali only had to write a letter in which she should state she also will be known as Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the future. To satisfy the minister she should excuse herself in the letter.

The last sentence was one action to much. With this the minister blames Ali for everything while the minister made some mistakes too. Ali had no choice to sign the letter under presure. This was the last straw. The minister should resign. There was no more confidence in minister Verdonk.
One party who had no more confidence had also 2 ministers in the cabinet and as a result of this lack of confidence of the party both ministers resigned.

This left the cabinet without a mayority. The prime minister offered his resignation to the queen of the Netherlands. And now it's a question what will happen.
A continuation of policy and the minister who should resign stays in the cabinet?
This should not be appropriate.

One thing is sure election will be earlier than May 2007

Of course I've been on a cycletour from my house to Great Britain, France, Belgium and then home again, 20 days. Seen a lot, meet some interesting people and cycled a long distance.



Monday, June 26, 2006

Just say hello.

Hello everybody,

I learned that everybodies trip/holiday was okay, so was mine.

Every vacation you learn new things. (which you might have been forgotten before the next holiday, or when you need that experience)

So this vacation I learned that the French police isn't very polite when you want to register loss of a wallet with bankcard and creditcard and you don't have any money at all. So I learned to divide passes and money over my luggage.
The way to get money when you don't have any isn't easy.

Asking fellow Dutchmen for some money (I got to drink, eat) learns how life can be when there is no trust. After a night at a campsite without food, € 10,= was all a family would give. I'll pay back as soon as I can. € 20,=, with thanks for the trust.
A Dutch woman in the Office du Tourisme of Le Treport would let me phone with the Dutch Embassy. The embassy could give me some phonenumbers to call to block the passes.

It took me a visit to again the police, practically all peasants.
(who speak no other language than french. The younger generation in their 30's have a better understanding of foreing languages)

The Ville de Marie had a better idea of the problem and I could phone again with the Dutch Embassy. The could tell me now that I could easily get money by a Western Union moneytranfer from a postoffice in Holland to a local La Poste in France. With a code which I got from the sender in Holland I got money from the postoffice in France.

This is the best possible way to get money. Sending an ERC card by Mastercard was a fiasco. I gave them the number of the hotel where I could be called. But mastercard thought that the number was incorrect, when they didn't get me immediately. What a bug organization is mastercard anyway.

Later I learned that Mastercard tried to reach me at the French hotel but the hotel employee would not give any information about guests.

I got money thanks to Western Union.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

HI

TEST
JAN

This was probably a mistake.