O..M...G.. Thanks *heaps* Telia

For those of you who don't know, Telia- Tee (hard sound at the start) - li - ah, is the equivalent of, I guess, Telstra in Australia. A really big telecommunications company.

Unfortunately for me, when I had to rush back to Australia, I had no alternative but to take my Danish mobile. I went straight from the airport to an aunt's who kindly loaned me her car so I could try and find out what had happened to the place where I come from.

As you may imagine, given the roadblocks because of fires etc, this took some logistical work and, as I had no word about my father - or brother from Singapore at that stage - it took quite a lot of telephone calls to come to grips with what was going on. I knew in the back of my mind it would be a hellish bill because of all of this BUT I wasn't quite prepare for the almost DKK7,000 bill I noticed on my bank account today!

Yes, I made the calls and yes I knew they cost money but DKK7000??

Anyway, suspecting I might get a large bill, last month I emailed them hoping they may take some mercy on me - given how much these sorts of companies CEOs are paid and the size of their Golden Handshakes/Parachutes. I certainly wasn't asking to pay nothing but I thought they might take some mercy on a rather dire situation. They didn't (obviously as my bank account will attest). In any case, I wasn't completely surprised when I got this response from www.telia.dk :

"Thank you for your email

It is very unfortunate what you've been going through. And you have our deepest sympathy.

But we can not fulfill your wish and wtrie down this bill. We have many customers that use their phone in other countries than Denmark, and if you choose to use it, you will also have to pay the bills."

Thanks Telia - that first sentence had me reaching for tissues... And, at that stage, I didn't even have the bill - which btw, has taken over a month to hit my account. But firstly, I didn't ask Telia to 'write down the bill'. I'm not a tight-arse. But knowing for how little you can call anywhere on Skype, I kinda figure they make a decent profit and, at a time of catastrophe, they might take of 10% or so, given that I wasn't in the frame of mind, nor did I have the time, to rush of somewhere and organise some sort of Australian pre-paid thing when I arrived.

Anyway, I kinda figured I'd be up for DKK3,500-4,000 but DKK7000! I guess it's my own fault but really, I didn't expect it to be that much!

DKK7,000!!!!!!

Seriously, just kill me! :)

And I had to come clean about it to NQDII tonight. :(

This week in Copenhagen

The back yard dog poo mine field


Well, where shall I start? Disgruntled neighbour? Work? Danish class? Bomb blast?

Hmm.

Firstly, we had a lovely note (in English, so it could only have been for us) from one of our neighbours above us about the doggy-doo in the back yard. I’ll preface this by saying we always pick up Hamish’s poo (in bags, of course, not with our hands) after he’s satisfied himself. But, occasionally, late at night before we go to bed we leave it till the next morning because it’s too dark to find it and you run the risk of stepping in it in the search.

Nevertheless, first thing NQDII does is go out, as if is life depends on it, fossicking around first thing in the morning for it. And, so it should be. However, one of our upstairs neighbours doesn’t think that is good enough and we had an ‘ever so nice’ letter shoved through our door asking us, more or less, to more vigilant in our endeavour. In fact, her letter suggested we never picked up after him at all.

To be honest, it didn’t really worry me but when I came home from work the mood was…tense and he pointed to the note on the bench.

The first thing I did was go out and buy a torch so we could find his precious droppings before we retired for the night. I told him to not worry about it as the note was written very nicely and we have been diligent since but that didn’t stop NQDII (who was somewhat disgruntled and upset) from writing a reply saying we would be more careful in future and putting the note under her door – or what he thought was her door…

Anyway, I never gave it another thought until this afternoon when I happened to pass said disgruntled neighbour in the street saying “Hej” to be greeted with barely eye contact. At first, I just thought ‘well, it’s your problem, X’, not mine. We’ve mended our ways and you’re the one stewing.’

Sitting here now, it’s really getting to me that people (well she) is so nasty about the whole thing. I don’ t like that because I can’t see, in the scheme of world mayhem, how much it really counts. Nevertheless, it is paramount to another Suez crisis for her.

I might add, as nicely as possible, that her dog is a scrawny, odd looking rattish thing that barks incessantly on the stairwell and not very pleasant.

I was really offended by her dismissive glance of me in the street. It’s not like we’ve ever done anything to upset her but, obviously we’ve done our dash as far as she is concerned. I am satisfying myself now by believing she must have inner…challenges she needs to work through but, to be frank, I can’t be bothered finding out what these may be.

To counteract this I’ve been madly searching on nybolig.dk for flats to buy. I’m thinking Christianshavn or around near the palace but she’s turned me off Frederiksberg today. Neither of us like throwing money away on rent but, as aliens from the Hassidic-oriented Caulfield North sector on Planet Melbourne, I’m not sure we’re allowed to buy property quite just yet, although the interest rates are very attractive and our nieces and nephews will probably thank us posthumously for the prudent move should we be able too.

I am trying to reason in my head that there are very nice people in our building. The young – exceedingly handsome couple on the ground floor with their adorable baby daughter and gorgeous White Welsh Terrier, Gustav, who Hamish adores and the people next door to us who are delightful. But the bitter, nasty lady upstairs with her funny feral, ratty dog has turned me off the place.

I am having visions of her being one of the couple of those neighbours in that US sitcom – whatever it was called, with Paul whatisname and the supposedly upherself actress with the blonde hair who, hard as they tried, these neighbours didn’t like them.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to be…well, just nice. After all, we’re all of us, just trying to survive and do our best. Grrr. I’ll be alright but she has put a damper on my weekend. I’d say I hope she gets crabs but that would be un-Christian of me.