In the coming weeks I shall be doing more and more posts for new arrivals in Amsterdam as late August early September is a time where many students, tourists, and working people arrive in Amsterdam to stay for some amount of time.

Fact- Lots of people arrive in Amsterdam and their first idea for calling home involves getting a prepaid mobile phone and dialing their loved ones.
Fact- This is very expensive. You will eat through minutes faster than you can say "Yes, I saw a drunk guy fall into the canal." And worst of all, many people think that is how it has to be. Which is absolutely not true.

Simple Solution - In this day and age it is very likely you're coming to town with your laptop. Therefore you're bound to get some internet time, either in your hotel, apartment, or one of the neverending list of places in town where you can use wifi. And if you're using the internet than you may as well use the beautiful voice over IP programs out there to make a free or almost free phone call. That's right, Im talking about skype. You've probably used skype or use skype regularly but did you remember that the rates for calling land or mobile numbers in the US is dirt cheap? By dirt I mean .017cents per minute.

.017 cents a minute! Thats 1 hour for about 1 euro that you can talk with aunt Sally or your secret boyfriend back in Chicago. And if you don't like skype for some odd reason, there are plenty of other choices out there... including the open source Gizmo project. Once again, dirt cheap rates and you can call anyone with a phone! And of course if you call someone who's sitting at their computer back home.. well that is free. And FREE is good.

YOu'd think everyone knew this by now. But I must tell you... with every new season I see the same pattern over and over... buying the prepaid mobile to make pricey international calls... only to get very angry at the cost afterwards.

Friends don't let friends make expensive international calls.