Coming back to Finland... Well, I will now talk to you about the Kela Experience. I will explain you my experience here and then my experience in Spain for exactly the same thing- both EU countries.
In Finland the medical security and the unemployment -sickness fund is ran by Kela. Now the problem is practically this: the state wants to make it very difficult for immigrants to get the unemployment money so in the first place it makes it difficult to get the Kela kortti-card. Now, this is the result: I have been in Finland 5 months now, and even if I have been doing some small work here and there, I still dont have the Kela kortti for going to the doctor. When I first went ask my kela kortti, they asked me again... my work contract. I gave it to them and then they took a copy of it and told me that the...response will come in 3 weeks. Until then, if I have to go to the doctor, they told me that I had to pay and if and when I would get the kela kortti they would give me back the money.
Now, to be honest, like I already had a bad experience with the Arvauskeskus, I am now prepared to pay a private doctor to cure me in a case something happens or fly to Greece or Spain, than "beg"them or pay them and then have to fill tones of forms to get my money back.
3 weeks passed and then it came at home a paper saying the following: They suggest me to send to them a copy of my bank account to see for example how much money I gained the last month. And then after this, they would decide whether to give me or not the Kela kortti in... 2 months time!
I talked for this with other EU people that live in Finland and they all told me that it can take up to ...1 year to get the kela kortti... Like always, they dont tell you they wont give it to you, BUT they keep asking you papers, sending you papers at home and then the procedures are taking so much time from one decision to another.
Soon I think, hopefully, I will know what happened with the Kela kortti and I will let you know:)
NOW, the same thing in Spain, Barcelona. EVERYBODY who is in the country, from the EU or not gets a free healthcare. It doesnt matter if you arrived by car, plane, walking or swimming, if you have papers or not. They will treat you and have hospital care. OK, they dont welcome you neither, after they treat you most likely they throw you out to find your way. But the idea is that they DONT want to have ill people, for the basic reason that ilnesses can spread and it is better to take care of people before it becomes worse, so it gets more economic in the end.
And now how I got the card for going to the doctor in BCN: I just went with ONLY my registration number and passport to the Social security office and they immediately gave me a paper with which I could the same moment go to the doctor! After that I went to the nearest to my house hospital with this paper and then in, I think, two weeks they sent me the card to my place with the name of my personal doctor etc. And then, I could visit my personal doctor with an appointment that I could have from telephone or internet for all the visits completely for FREE.
I hope that the Kela experience finishes here and I dont have to write more about it :)
sunnuntai 4. tammikuuta 2009
maanantai 8. joulukuuta 2008
Home sweet home...
Due to the circumstances, I would like to make a pause of complaining about Helsinki, to talk about my hometown, Athens. But this is not a complaint, like in the case of Helsinki, with some kind of hope that this can change to better and one day it probably will. This is a desperate comment with no hope to change anything but my sadness.
I am from Athens, a city of 5 million habitants , from a suburb of the north, known as a living place of basically new rich people, my family not included. But I lived also a part of my youth in Exarheia and to me there is no surprise what happened on Saturday.
Exarheia area is very near to Omonia square, in the very center of Athens. This is basically the place where the left wing and the anarchists gather, to meet, to manifestate, to drink, to live. It is more from tradition that they go there, even though in the last years there has been a try to clean up the place and put instead some fancy cafes and posh bars. It is a really live place where you can really feel having some action: free dogs that everybody knows by their name hang around, heroin addicts asking for 1 euro, anarchists fighting with fascists, faschists fighting with anarchists, celebrities and intellectuals taking their coffee in the terraces, posters-invitations to manifestations or simply solidarity to the hunger strikers etc. And even if it seems strange, it is not at all a dangerous place to be, unless of course you go with an animal fur and heavy diamond necklace... But I have to admit it is not at all pintoresque: there is only big old grey concrete buildings, narrow streets, where the bright sunshine of Athens can hardly arrive to its people.
And now some words about the actual situation of Athens. In Greece the right-center wing party is governing. But to be honest, the common idea is that it doesnt matter if it is right or left wing, because in Greece the 2 basic parties are exactly the same: corrupted to the bone, filthy for money and power, shameless, with no sense of ethics, a horde of savage animals that take turns to power and try every time to eat what has been left from the previous party. In a few words...
Well, now the situation is that there is a super high rate of unemployment, a huge amount of students that nobody cares how they will be absorbed by the market, a great amount of gratuates that finish the university and work as pizza delivery for the rest of their lives or in "better" jobs that earn 750e per month when the cost of life--apart from the transports and rent appartments-- is almost the same as in Finland (a beer in Athens in a normal bar costs 5e). The conditions of work are terrible, most of the time without paying to employees the healthcare neither the pension money, with a knife on their neck that, listen boy, this is it, you work 50 hours like a dog, for 750e and if you dont like it, look, there is a queue of desperate people waiting outside... The only decent work that a young person can find is either for the state or in this kind of works that stand between legal and illegal, like private lessons at home, hairdressers, plumbers that get completely black undeclared money.
All these young people live in the misery, doing one and two works so that they can manage it, they cant have family, neither a flat of their own and like 80 per cent of the people less than 35 live with their parents or in a family apartment.
And on the other hand, there is the high society, that owns great amount of land and money, like the shipkeepers and other people of the power that do whatever they want with no laws to stop them, no taxes, free to have monopoly and act like they are the bosses. If you go to the very north of Athens you will see Porsches, Ferraris and houses that you have never seen in Finland...
Now, for getting a place to work for the state there is only one skill you have to have: being a cousin or brother of a politician or just have lots of connections that are ready to help you and you to help them and vote for them in the future... So the result is that the state is made principally from people that once got a place, a chair, and since then they have mainly worked to get all of their family in their...company: the Greek state!
The result of this and many other things, that i would need pages to describe, is that they have left the state with a huge deficit, very high unemployment rates, a healthcare system in the point of collapsing, an extremely bad and old educational system that is based mainly on extra private courses after school, problems with the immigration etc etc.
And now the Greek police... The Greek police is also a part of this corrupted corpus that almost nobody respects... They normally act violently in all the manifestations, beating people up and humiliating them. It is very common in the center of Athens to stop you just to check your ID or if you have rasta to search you for drugs and try to humiliate taking off all of your cloths, and then take you to the police for the night just because you didnt have identification with you.
They are normally people from authoritary families, with low education, that are given guns to go around the city. Last year a student was completely beaten up and was for days in a hospital. Normally in these cases the justice lets the policemen go without any charges. The same happens also when they get immigrants in the police station and beat them and humiliate them and then post their videos in youtube, proud of their achievements.
In the other hand I sometimes feel pity for them, because some of them think that they do the right thing, or that they are heroes or rambo of the city... In Greece also we have had a dictatorship in the 70s and since then the police is not seen with good eyes since from even the normal people...
Now, in Exarheia it is very common to have problems with the police, because there are policemen all around bothering people and people bothering them. It is not the first time that I have heard this story of throwing bottles or insulting but I have never heard of a policeman firing at a 15 year old boy neither. According to the latest news the policeman was not acting in self defence. A group of young boys insulted them verbally and then the policemen went to park their car, and came back and one of them shot to the crowd...
And then, Athens on fire... What I want to say is that this is not something that happened by accident, it is part of the sickness of the Greek society that is getting decomposed (almost half of the population of Greece lives in Athens), with huge differences between poor and rich, a miserable and desperate youth that sees no future and in the first opportunity they move out from there (like me), disgusted by these who govern years and years, the same people and their children and cousins and nephews making nothing but scandals and nothing, absolutely nothing ever changing.
A-f-r-i-c-a, black continent, as a friend says.
I am from Athens, a city of 5 million habitants , from a suburb of the north, known as a living place of basically new rich people, my family not included. But I lived also a part of my youth in Exarheia and to me there is no surprise what happened on Saturday.
Exarheia area is very near to Omonia square, in the very center of Athens. This is basically the place where the left wing and the anarchists gather, to meet, to manifestate, to drink, to live. It is more from tradition that they go there, even though in the last years there has been a try to clean up the place and put instead some fancy cafes and posh bars. It is a really live place where you can really feel having some action: free dogs that everybody knows by their name hang around, heroin addicts asking for 1 euro, anarchists fighting with fascists, faschists fighting with anarchists, celebrities and intellectuals taking their coffee in the terraces, posters-invitations to manifestations or simply solidarity to the hunger strikers etc. And even if it seems strange, it is not at all a dangerous place to be, unless of course you go with an animal fur and heavy diamond necklace... But I have to admit it is not at all pintoresque: there is only big old grey concrete buildings, narrow streets, where the bright sunshine of Athens can hardly arrive to its people.
And now some words about the actual situation of Athens. In Greece the right-center wing party is governing. But to be honest, the common idea is that it doesnt matter if it is right or left wing, because in Greece the 2 basic parties are exactly the same: corrupted to the bone, filthy for money and power, shameless, with no sense of ethics, a horde of savage animals that take turns to power and try every time to eat what has been left from the previous party. In a few words...
Well, now the situation is that there is a super high rate of unemployment, a huge amount of students that nobody cares how they will be absorbed by the market, a great amount of gratuates that finish the university and work as pizza delivery for the rest of their lives or in "better" jobs that earn 750e per month when the cost of life--apart from the transports and rent appartments-- is almost the same as in Finland (a beer in Athens in a normal bar costs 5e). The conditions of work are terrible, most of the time without paying to employees the healthcare neither the pension money, with a knife on their neck that, listen boy, this is it, you work 50 hours like a dog, for 750e and if you dont like it, look, there is a queue of desperate people waiting outside... The only decent work that a young person can find is either for the state or in this kind of works that stand between legal and illegal, like private lessons at home, hairdressers, plumbers that get completely black undeclared money.
All these young people live in the misery, doing one and two works so that they can manage it, they cant have family, neither a flat of their own and like 80 per cent of the people less than 35 live with their parents or in a family apartment.
And on the other hand, there is the high society, that owns great amount of land and money, like the shipkeepers and other people of the power that do whatever they want with no laws to stop them, no taxes, free to have monopoly and act like they are the bosses. If you go to the very north of Athens you will see Porsches, Ferraris and houses that you have never seen in Finland...
Now, for getting a place to work for the state there is only one skill you have to have: being a cousin or brother of a politician or just have lots of connections that are ready to help you and you to help them and vote for them in the future... So the result is that the state is made principally from people that once got a place, a chair, and since then they have mainly worked to get all of their family in their...company: the Greek state!
The result of this and many other things, that i would need pages to describe, is that they have left the state with a huge deficit, very high unemployment rates, a healthcare system in the point of collapsing, an extremely bad and old educational system that is based mainly on extra private courses after school, problems with the immigration etc etc.
And now the Greek police... The Greek police is also a part of this corrupted corpus that almost nobody respects... They normally act violently in all the manifestations, beating people up and humiliating them. It is very common in the center of Athens to stop you just to check your ID or if you have rasta to search you for drugs and try to humiliate taking off all of your cloths, and then take you to the police for the night just because you didnt have identification with you.
They are normally people from authoritary families, with low education, that are given guns to go around the city. Last year a student was completely beaten up and was for days in a hospital. Normally in these cases the justice lets the policemen go without any charges. The same happens also when they get immigrants in the police station and beat them and humiliate them and then post their videos in youtube, proud of their achievements.
In the other hand I sometimes feel pity for them, because some of them think that they do the right thing, or that they are heroes or rambo of the city... In Greece also we have had a dictatorship in the 70s and since then the police is not seen with good eyes since from even the normal people...
Now, in Exarheia it is very common to have problems with the police, because there are policemen all around bothering people and people bothering them. It is not the first time that I have heard this story of throwing bottles or insulting but I have never heard of a policeman firing at a 15 year old boy neither. According to the latest news the policeman was not acting in self defence. A group of young boys insulted them verbally and then the policemen went to park their car, and came back and one of them shot to the crowd...
And then, Athens on fire... What I want to say is that this is not something that happened by accident, it is part of the sickness of the Greek society that is getting decomposed (almost half of the population of Greece lives in Athens), with huge differences between poor and rich, a miserable and desperate youth that sees no future and in the first opportunity they move out from there (like me), disgusted by these who govern years and years, the same people and their children and cousins and nephews making nothing but scandals and nothing, absolutely nothing ever changing.
A-f-r-i-c-a, black continent, as a friend says.
tiistai 2. joulukuuta 2008
FOR EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENS WHO MOVE TO FINLAND, TO CONCLUDE:
1) Be a student or have a work, whatever
2) Go to Malmi (take a big book with you). It takes one or two days if you want to wait to the queue and 2 weeks if you reserve a time from internet.
3)Then go to Maestratti. You have to wait 2 weeks, they will send your registration number at home.
4)Then go to the bank. Nordea needs registration number and work contract, Sampo just passport.
5)Then to Vero.
5)Then to Kela. After two weeks they will send you the card or- like in my case- many papers saying that they will study your case after 2 months.
6) If you want to search for a job, go to Kluuvi, to Eures. They are not at all helpful, they will most likely try to send you to Tyovoimatoimisto, but you can give a try because they are supposed to help european citizens to get a job in Finland.
1) Be a student or have a work, whatever
2) Go to Malmi (take a big book with you). It takes one or two days if you want to wait to the queue and 2 weeks if you reserve a time from internet.
3)Then go to Maestratti. You have to wait 2 weeks, they will send your registration number at home.
4)Then go to the bank. Nordea needs registration number and work contract, Sampo just passport.
5)Then to Vero.
5)Then to Kela. After two weeks they will send you the card or- like in my case- many papers saying that they will study your case after 2 months.
6) If you want to search for a job, go to Kluuvi, to Eures. They are not at all helpful, they will most likely try to send you to Tyovoimatoimisto, but you can give a try because they are supposed to help european citizens to get a job in Finland.
Nordea bank or how to beg a bank to take your money
Today I will talk about the Nordea bank experience.
My boyfriend (A.) had a Nordea bank account and that's why I thought it would be more practical to have the same... Well..
On September, when I was still staying in Kerava, a small city-suburb of Helsinki, I went to the Nordea bank to make a bank account so I can transfer some money from Spain. The woman that was attending me asked me if I am a student or working (a question that repeat you all the time in Finland, even for yoga lessons). I said no, neither of them, and then she told me that then it is not possible. She didnt ask me where I am from, but she just told me that if I am a foreigner and dont belong to one of these categories I cant have a bank account.
I couldnt believe it so when I went home I called their customer care service. They told me that...in some offices they accept to do it with a passport and some not. So that I dont spend my life going from bank office to bank office to see which one accepts in Helsinki, I decided to wait to have my registration number so that it would be more easy.
When I got a registration number and this basic contract I went again to the bank, this time in Kamppi and with A.'s mother. The employer asked to see my contract. She was like...hmm, I dont see here how much you gain exactly...hmm... and...here it doesnt say...hm... After a while I got kind of angry and then I told her-in Finnish: Look, I got this job and they want to pay me. For that they need my bank account. Or you do it or another bank will do it instead.
Then the lady got...OK, no niin. And then she finally did it!
She told me though that I cant have still an internet access to it until I have some money inside. Then, I transfered my money from Spain, and went back. BUT, this time they told me that.. we are sorry but you can t have internet access before you get your first salary....! So...they want me to go to the bank everytime I want to do something until the end of the month that the company will pay me this ... one week of work?? Well, this seems to be what they want.
My boyfriend (A.) had a Nordea bank account and that's why I thought it would be more practical to have the same... Well..
On September, when I was still staying in Kerava, a small city-suburb of Helsinki, I went to the Nordea bank to make a bank account so I can transfer some money from Spain. The woman that was attending me asked me if I am a student or working (a question that repeat you all the time in Finland, even for yoga lessons). I said no, neither of them, and then she told me that then it is not possible. She didnt ask me where I am from, but she just told me that if I am a foreigner and dont belong to one of these categories I cant have a bank account.
I couldnt believe it so when I went home I called their customer care service. They told me that...in some offices they accept to do it with a passport and some not. So that I dont spend my life going from bank office to bank office to see which one accepts in Helsinki, I decided to wait to have my registration number so that it would be more easy.
When I got a registration number and this basic contract I went again to the bank, this time in Kamppi and with A.'s mother. The employer asked to see my contract. She was like...hmm, I dont see here how much you gain exactly...hmm... and...here it doesnt say...hm... After a while I got kind of angry and then I told her-in Finnish: Look, I got this job and they want to pay me. For that they need my bank account. Or you do it or another bank will do it instead.
Then the lady got...OK, no niin. And then she finally did it!
She told me though that I cant have still an internet access to it until I have some money inside. Then, I transfered my money from Spain, and went back. BUT, this time they told me that.. we are sorry but you can t have internet access before you get your first salary....! So...they want me to go to the bank everytime I want to do something until the end of the month that the company will pay me this ... one week of work?? Well, this seems to be what they want.
sunnuntai 30. marraskuuta 2008
Really moving to Helsinki: Malmi!
And finally after our vacations in Greece, we really moved to Finland... End of August. First of all, I didn't know from where to start. So, I googled to see what a person could do when he-she moves to Finland... Well, I googled, my boyfriend googled, my boyfriend's mother googled... and guess what: everyone of us found different things that should be done. To be exact, a web page said, first go to maestratti (national registry), and then to the police, another one said, first to the police and then to maestratti and so on...
Then we decided to go to the police in Kerava and ask. The woman told us that we should go to the police station of Jarvenpaa that was open some crazy morning hours and you could only get there by car. Then I called to Jarvenpaa, to be sure... They told me that I had to go to maestratti first.
Then next morning, I went to Maestratti... There the employer tells me that I have to go to... Malmi police station to get a registration number and he gave me a paper with the discription of how to arrive there. Then he asked me to fill a form with the date of my arrival and he told me that I couldnt register if I hadnt been in Helsinki... at least 3 months. Then I told him, that... how could they know how much time I am here if I am from the European Union and there is no way that they can know when I came... I dont even need a passport to come... Then he smiled and told me that I can write whatever I think but that this is what they said to him. Then of course I wrote that I came 6 months ago and headed for Malmi District...
Malmi is a ruther decadent suburb of Helsinki 15 minutes with the train from the center. When I went there I realised why this place is not in the center of Helsinki(as the rest of the services of the city): it would terrorise the middle-high class Finn to see so much foreigners together in a small room for too much people, standing on foot inside and outside, on the street, women with babies, children running around, an empty reception office and no one there to ask for information. Only once in a while a girl was putting her head out, she would say a number and vanish again. There I saw some spanish young people and went to talk to them. They where...ERASMUS students... and they had been sent to wait to this queue too.. They had been waiting since 9 oclock in the morning and it was 3 and they werent sure that they could enter today, maybe tomorrow morning... They just couldnt, of course, believe that this was happening to ...Finland! They also had to pay 40 euros fee for getting the registration number for these...3 months that they would spend here, as all the EU citizens that move here. For not EU it is a lot more expensive, depends on the country you come from, there was a list of prices...
I left Malmi devasted and with a strong will to go back back to Spain... What the hell, I thought. Who do they think they are? How much people they think that want to move here? In a country of 5 millions people and vast space, they cant take care of the few immigrants that arrive here? Unfortunately, what I get to see more and more here is that FInland is a rather xenophobe place that hasnt been used to receive immigrants, neither from EU neither outside of EU, and most of all has no idea what to do with them... Even getting a registration number can take weeks, personally to me, a European citizen, it took one month, even with the help of my Finnish boyfriend and all of his family... To make a small comparison, in Spain, it took me just... 1 hour to get my registration number (NIE), waiting to a separate queue for European citizens, in one of the most beautifull streets of Barcelona, 5 minutes from the beach, for FREE (now it costs 5 euros) and... guess what! The same day, two hours later I also had in hands my social security number too (that includes full free healthcare for everyone), just two blocks away from there!!
(I havent managed still to have a social security card here, eli KELA kortti, even if I have been working here, even if I have been trying 3 months now... They just sent me a 3 papers note last week that they will study my...case in the middle of January... Until then, I hope I dont get sick because in this case, I have to go back to Spain just to see a doctor- and take some sun :)....)
To continue my Malmi adventure, later I went home and decided to return another day, because, as everyone said, if you want to register in the same day you have to wait to a queue BEFORE it opens to public, that means on the street at 7 in the morning so that you are one of the first to have a number.
And then we had a big revelation: A. 's mother, discovered that you can book -from internet too- a time in Malmi police station and you can go there in that time and apply to register! OK, everything OK we thought... BUT, the only time they could offer us was... 3 weeks later! I thought, Oh dear, lets try to do it the civilised way... We can wait a bit...
Here to mention one very important thing that you need to know before moving here and go to Malmi: YOU CANT JUST MOVE HERE. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A BIG REASON. LOVE NOT INCLUDED. OR YOU HAVE A JOB, OR YOU ARE A STUDENT. BY NO CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN A EUROPEAN CITIZEN, CANT GET A REGISTRATION NUMBER IN FINLAND WITHOUT ONE OF THESE 2 CONDITIONS. So, in my case for example in these 3 weeks I had to wait, I was trying to get a job contract in...whatever so that they give me this...f...registration number. And now, guess what! You CANT FIND A JOB WITHOUT A REGISTRATION NUMBER!
Well, in the end I was extremely lucky to find a job of one week that the only thing they needed was to be native greek... and they did to me a super basic contract... And with that, 3 weeks later I went to Malmi to ...fight for my rights.
I went with my boyfriends mother as she was very suspicious by now that it wouldnt work, and went in the time, date we had booked. We waited for half an hour and nobody said anything, on the reception still nobody. All the doors in this place were opening only from the inside, so it was impossible to ask anything unless somebody would pomp out of a door. Again the same as before: a head saying a number and get lost again. It was so Kafka... Then A.'s mother after a while got kind of stressed and started knocking a door. After 10 minutes somebody came and then told us to wait a bit more. Then somebody came and took us inside: he said that he had forgotten our appointment! It was a corridor with small cabines protected with glass and cameras and televisions where you could see yourself. This guy asked me "Why did to Finland?" then for a contract and then he was very bored, took some copies, we paid 40 euros and that was it. I am sure though that without this basic contract I would have never taken this number...
And my fears have been truthfull : I met a girl from an EU country, that had had the same story as me, come with a Finnish boyfriend, and she had already been in Malmi... 3 times. They wouldnt accept the short term work contract she had and even if she had payed the 40 euros, she was in a ... queue to study her case... In the end, she had to go with the father of her boyfriend (poor parents) and he had to sign that she...is not sleeping on the streets and that he will give her some basic money for...food until she gets a better job!!!! And this is a REALL story.
Another friend from EU too, had to go with her boyfriend and her boyfriend had to show to the police station his ... bank account, that he has enough money to sustain her until she gets a job...
Finland 2008
Then we decided to go to the police in Kerava and ask. The woman told us that we should go to the police station of Jarvenpaa that was open some crazy morning hours and you could only get there by car. Then I called to Jarvenpaa, to be sure... They told me that I had to go to maestratti first.
Then next morning, I went to Maestratti... There the employer tells me that I have to go to... Malmi police station to get a registration number and he gave me a paper with the discription of how to arrive there. Then he asked me to fill a form with the date of my arrival and he told me that I couldnt register if I hadnt been in Helsinki... at least 3 months. Then I told him, that... how could they know how much time I am here if I am from the European Union and there is no way that they can know when I came... I dont even need a passport to come... Then he smiled and told me that I can write whatever I think but that this is what they said to him. Then of course I wrote that I came 6 months ago and headed for Malmi District...
Malmi is a ruther decadent suburb of Helsinki 15 minutes with the train from the center. When I went there I realised why this place is not in the center of Helsinki(as the rest of the services of the city): it would terrorise the middle-high class Finn to see so much foreigners together in a small room for too much people, standing on foot inside and outside, on the street, women with babies, children running around, an empty reception office and no one there to ask for information. Only once in a while a girl was putting her head out, she would say a number and vanish again. There I saw some spanish young people and went to talk to them. They where...ERASMUS students... and they had been sent to wait to this queue too.. They had been waiting since 9 oclock in the morning and it was 3 and they werent sure that they could enter today, maybe tomorrow morning... They just couldnt, of course, believe that this was happening to ...Finland! They also had to pay 40 euros fee for getting the registration number for these...3 months that they would spend here, as all the EU citizens that move here. For not EU it is a lot more expensive, depends on the country you come from, there was a list of prices...
I left Malmi devasted and with a strong will to go back back to Spain... What the hell, I thought. Who do they think they are? How much people they think that want to move here? In a country of 5 millions people and vast space, they cant take care of the few immigrants that arrive here? Unfortunately, what I get to see more and more here is that FInland is a rather xenophobe place that hasnt been used to receive immigrants, neither from EU neither outside of EU, and most of all has no idea what to do with them... Even getting a registration number can take weeks, personally to me, a European citizen, it took one month, even with the help of my Finnish boyfriend and all of his family... To make a small comparison, in Spain, it took me just... 1 hour to get my registration number (NIE), waiting to a separate queue for European citizens, in one of the most beautifull streets of Barcelona, 5 minutes from the beach, for FREE (now it costs 5 euros) and... guess what! The same day, two hours later I also had in hands my social security number too (that includes full free healthcare for everyone), just two blocks away from there!!
(I havent managed still to have a social security card here, eli KELA kortti, even if I have been working here, even if I have been trying 3 months now... They just sent me a 3 papers note last week that they will study my...case in the middle of January... Until then, I hope I dont get sick because in this case, I have to go back to Spain just to see a doctor- and take some sun :)....)
To continue my Malmi adventure, later I went home and decided to return another day, because, as everyone said, if you want to register in the same day you have to wait to a queue BEFORE it opens to public, that means on the street at 7 in the morning so that you are one of the first to have a number.
And then we had a big revelation: A. 's mother, discovered that you can book -from internet too- a time in Malmi police station and you can go there in that time and apply to register! OK, everything OK we thought... BUT, the only time they could offer us was... 3 weeks later! I thought, Oh dear, lets try to do it the civilised way... We can wait a bit...
Here to mention one very important thing that you need to know before moving here and go to Malmi: YOU CANT JUST MOVE HERE. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A BIG REASON. LOVE NOT INCLUDED. OR YOU HAVE A JOB, OR YOU ARE A STUDENT. BY NO CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN A EUROPEAN CITIZEN, CANT GET A REGISTRATION NUMBER IN FINLAND WITHOUT ONE OF THESE 2 CONDITIONS. So, in my case for example in these 3 weeks I had to wait, I was trying to get a job contract in...whatever so that they give me this...f...registration number. And now, guess what! You CANT FIND A JOB WITHOUT A REGISTRATION NUMBER!
Well, in the end I was extremely lucky to find a job of one week that the only thing they needed was to be native greek... and they did to me a super basic contract... And with that, 3 weeks later I went to Malmi to ...fight for my rights.
I went with my boyfriends mother as she was very suspicious by now that it wouldnt work, and went in the time, date we had booked. We waited for half an hour and nobody said anything, on the reception still nobody. All the doors in this place were opening only from the inside, so it was impossible to ask anything unless somebody would pomp out of a door. Again the same as before: a head saying a number and get lost again. It was so Kafka... Then A.'s mother after a while got kind of stressed and started knocking a door. After 10 minutes somebody came and then told us to wait a bit more. Then somebody came and took us inside: he said that he had forgotten our appointment! It was a corridor with small cabines protected with glass and cameras and televisions where you could see yourself. This guy asked me "Why did to Finland?" then for a contract and then he was very bored, took some copies, we paid 40 euros and that was it. I am sure though that without this basic contract I would have never taken this number...
And my fears have been truthfull : I met a girl from an EU country, that had had the same story as me, come with a Finnish boyfriend, and she had already been in Malmi... 3 times. They wouldnt accept the short term work contract she had and even if she had payed the 40 euros, she was in a ... queue to study her case... In the end, she had to go with the father of her boyfriend (poor parents) and he had to sign that she...is not sleeping on the streets and that he will give her some basic money for...food until she gets a better job!!!! And this is a REALL story.
Another friend from EU too, had to go with her boyfriend and her boyfriend had to show to the police station his ... bank account, that he has enough money to sustain her until she gets a job...
Finland 2008
torstai 27. marraskuuta 2008
My first week in Finland
In this blog I would like to take a note of my experience in moving to Finland. As an introduction: I am from Greece and we met with my Finnish boyfriend A. in Spain and after 4 years we decided to move to Finland. I had been learning Finnish in Barcelona for 2 years, I already spoke some when I came and I had-and still have-a big admiration for the Finnish culture and people. I was really interested to explore this country, meet my boyfriends family and find some work here. Everybody talks about the nordic countries how they are advanced in the social services, organisation etc. and thats why I came with big expections to face... the caos! From my personal experience, it is far more easy to move to Spain or Greece ( both known as lazy, unorganised countries) as a European citizen than in Finland. And in my blog you will find out why:)
My story begins on June 2008 when I came for vacations here before moving. I was living in Kerava, 35 kilometres from Helsinki, practically a suburb as most of the people who live there work in Helsinki. Then one day I woke up with a terrible urine infection- I had chronic urine infection in the past- and I had fever and couldnt really move from the toilet. My boyfriends parents were on holidays and we decided to go to the nearest terveyskeskus, city healthcare center in Kerava. We went there with our bikes.
Before us there were in the queue only three boys that one of them had twisted his foot. Even if he couldnt walk the nurses told him that he should go to the terveyskeskus of his hometown. The boys were young and were laughing because...he just couldnt walk. Then they lent him 2 sticks to walk but telling him many times that if he doesnt return them back he will get a fine. After that, it was our turn.
I said that I was in a lot of pain probably because of urine infection. They asked me for the kela kortti, finish social security, and I told them that I am just visitor, but I have the spanish one with me. Then they just told me that they cant help me even if there were no more people there. The only way would be that I pay 150euros(??) even if it was just a prescription for antibiotics. Then they indicated me that just next to the terveyskeskus there is a private doctor that will be....cheaper. I started crying but this didnt seem to bother them at all and their last words were that : Only if it is a matter of life and death we would be obliged to help you. As you can imagine after that we left completely destroyed. I just couldnt believe it. This has never happened to me in any other country I happend to be with a similar "urine infection story": not in Spain, neither Marroc, Algeria, Greece... In Algeria by the way, that they ARE NOT European Union, apart of giving me for free health assistance and antibiotics, they did to me an ecography just to be sure it was not something more important...Then, we went out and the private doctor was closed, it was around 5 in the afternoon and I was completely desesparate because I JUST KNEW THAT WITH A PILL OF ANTIBIOTICS ALL OF THIS WOULD END IMMEDIATELY. But, in Finland you cant get any medicine without prescription. Soo, we called my boyfriends uncle and we had to go with his car to Helsinki center, to a private hospital, wait 3 hours in the queue as there were a lot people there waiting and pay 50euros. And this was just the beginning...
My story begins on June 2008 when I came for vacations here before moving. I was living in Kerava, 35 kilometres from Helsinki, practically a suburb as most of the people who live there work in Helsinki. Then one day I woke up with a terrible urine infection- I had chronic urine infection in the past- and I had fever and couldnt really move from the toilet. My boyfriends parents were on holidays and we decided to go to the nearest terveyskeskus, city healthcare center in Kerava. We went there with our bikes.
Before us there were in the queue only three boys that one of them had twisted his foot. Even if he couldnt walk the nurses told him that he should go to the terveyskeskus of his hometown. The boys were young and were laughing because...he just couldnt walk. Then they lent him 2 sticks to walk but telling him many times that if he doesnt return them back he will get a fine. After that, it was our turn.
I said that I was in a lot of pain probably because of urine infection. They asked me for the kela kortti, finish social security, and I told them that I am just visitor, but I have the spanish one with me. Then they just told me that they cant help me even if there were no more people there. The only way would be that I pay 150euros(??) even if it was just a prescription for antibiotics. Then they indicated me that just next to the terveyskeskus there is a private doctor that will be....cheaper. I started crying but this didnt seem to bother them at all and their last words were that : Only if it is a matter of life and death we would be obliged to help you. As you can imagine after that we left completely destroyed. I just couldnt believe it. This has never happened to me in any other country I happend to be with a similar "urine infection story": not in Spain, neither Marroc, Algeria, Greece... In Algeria by the way, that they ARE NOT European Union, apart of giving me for free health assistance and antibiotics, they did to me an ecography just to be sure it was not something more important...Then, we went out and the private doctor was closed, it was around 5 in the afternoon and I was completely desesparate because I JUST KNEW THAT WITH A PILL OF ANTIBIOTICS ALL OF THIS WOULD END IMMEDIATELY. But, in Finland you cant get any medicine without prescription. Soo, we called my boyfriends uncle and we had to go with his car to Helsinki center, to a private hospital, wait 3 hours in the queue as there were a lot people there waiting and pay 50euros. And this was just the beginning...
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