Back In The Upper Lowlands

Posted on Thursday, 30th March, 2006 by ianmacd

Our short break away proved to be extremely relaxing and just what we needed.

As planned, we drove across the country into Germany to spend the first night in Cologne at the Eden Hotel. We had a splendid view, as our room was directly opposite Cologne’s very impressive cathedral.

The next day, we spent some time properly exploring the city, including its many fabulous bakeries. In the afternoon, we decided to head south-west to Monschau.

Monschau turns out to have half-day closing on Wednesdays, so a lot of the curious little shops that line its streets were closed. It was also bitterly cold, with snow lining the ground of the park and the hillside. Nevertheless, we enjoyed looking around the town, the scene of one of our very first dates back in early 2000. We stopped for a quick bite to eat in a restaurant to debate whether to spend the night here or drive further.

Eventually, we decided to drive a bit further, so I programmed the navigation system to guide us to the town of Vianden in Luxembourg. Wanting to drive along only nice scenic roads, I told it to avoid motorways when planning the route and within seconds, we were underway.

Satellite navigation continues to impress me, every single time I use it. There I am, in a small town in Germany, wanting to drive to a small town in Luxembourg, and this funny box of tricks knows exactly how to get me there. It even speaks the route to me, telling me when to take each turn. Even though I know how this technology works, it still feels like magic when I use it.

Anyway, a couple of hours later, we crossed the border into Luxembourg and rolled into Vianden, which was shut. Pretty much every hotel we tried was either closed or in a half-demolished state as it underwent renovation for the coming tourist season. We quickly exhausted all of the suggestions in our guide book.

Eventually, we found a cosy looking inn along Grand Rue. I went in to check for the availability of rooms and, to our great relief, they had some available. Not only that, but we had a fantastic dinner there, too, even if the environment did ultimately become very smoky.

The next day, we decided to drive down the eastern side of Luxembourg to Echternach, but because that was only a few tens of kilometres, we had plenty of time to spend exploring other things.

We started with a visit to Vianden’s magnificently impressive castle, which no visitor to the duchy should miss.

After that, we headed west in the car to explore some of that side of the country. Accordingly, we stopped off briefly in Esch-sur-Sûre and Wiltz. Mid-afternoon, we arrived in Echternach and soon found a hotel in the centre of town. In fact, it was very close to the youth hostel, where I once stayed about twelve years ago when on a biking trip through the Ardennes.

The next day was very drizzly, so we had a quick walk around Echternach before departing for the capital. Again, it was only a few tens of kilometres to the city, so we made it there very quickly. It took a bit of time to find a suitable hotel and park the car, but then we were free to start ambling around.

By the end of the day, we hadn’t even made it down to the lower Grund neighbourhood, which is always worth a quiet walk around, so, with the lack of a destination in mind for the next day, we decided to spend a second night in the capital.

Sunday morning saw us rise late, as the clocks had gone forward during the night. We piled into the car around noon and began the 400 km drive home, which we completed in remarkably good time, despite many kilometres of single-lane roadworks as we passed into southern Belgium.

All in all, our first extended trip in the new car was a glowing success. We’re already looking forward to making the next one. As always, we took a lot of photos.

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Taking A Break

Posted on Monday, 20th March, 2006 by ianmacd

Taking a break? From what? you may ask. From our usual routine, I retort. No matter how you fill your days, deviation from the norm is the essential spice of life that keeps you feeling invigorated and alive.

With our tax paperwork all but finished (I’m still awaiting a form from Google in the US), tomorrow seems as good a time as any to head out for a few days. Sarah has Dutch lessons every Monday afternoon, so we can’t really go for longer than a week. If we wait any longer, we’ll hardly be able to get away at all, because we have guests coming at the end of this month, plus a family visit at the end of the next.

Picking a destination has been a little tricky, because many places lie in directions we want to go later this year for a longer period, so it would be foolish to travel a long way in one direction only to retrace our steps a few months from now.

Bearing that in mind, we’re going to start by driving east to Köln (or Cologne, as it’s oddly known in English), where we’ll more than likely spend the night.

That’s about as far as we’ve planned so far. Düsseldorf and Bonn are options, but I don’t yet know much about them. Our Lonely Planet guide to Germany should help with that.

More than likely, though, I expect we’ll head down to Luxembourg and then come back through Belgium, probably returning next Sunday.

Posted in Cars, Travel | 2 Comments

Let There Be Light

Posted on Sunday, 19th March, 2006 by ianmacd

Whilst fulfilling our financial and bureaucratic obligations, we’ve also been trying to enjoy the pleasanter side of life, playing with our daughter and looking for things to make our house feel more like a home.

An important part of this has been the quest for lighting. We still have multiple bare fittings in the house, with the ground floor being particularly poorly illuminated. Most of the lighting shops we’ve visited have carried lighting that is much too strikingly modern. Our house is about ninety years old and has its own distinct character. We have our own character, too, of course, and we obviously have to remain faithful to that also, or our surroundings won’t feel warm to us.

For that reason, we’re furnishing the house with a mixture of modern and old items. I like modern things for the practical comfort-based items, like the dining table and the sofa, but less tactile items like cabinets and such can be old and as ornamental as they are purposeful.

Lighting has been particularly hard to find, as taste plays a huge role in the decision. Dedicated trips to lighting shops have been frustrated and fruitless. Occasionally, one of us would find something we liked, but it has basically not been the case that we were ever both wild about the same item.

Happily, that changed this week, quite by chance, when we wandered past an antique shop whilst on the way to somewhere else. In fact, most of the things we have ended up purchasing were found by chance, rather than by hitting the home shopping centre and specifically looking for stuff.

Antiques are really quite frightening. First of all, they look stately and command respect, especially from one so ignorant as I. Much more problematic, though, is that they can also be very expensive. Developing a nasty coke habit would probably make more financial sense than acquiring a penchant for beautiful things from bygone eras. There’s a bloody good reason why many antique shops are only open a few days per week or by appointment only.

Anyway, this week, we’ve managed to find no fewer than three lights for the house. For the foyer, we’ve found a nice lantern from 1880, which must at one time have been an oil-lamp. It has a lot of charm and will set the mood for the house as guests enter inside and doff their coats and scarves.

For the bedroom, we picked out a lovely Art Deco light from 1920. I choked on the price of the thing, but the glasswork is beautiful and it will set the tone of the bedroom, providing a warm yet distinguished ambience. I’m looking forward to lying in bed, looking up at the light passing through its cut-glass bowl.

For the downstairs hallway, we’ve opted to have a light made for us by a specialist in Aalsmeer. It looks old, but is actually brand new, so will fit in perfectly and serve to warm the mood of the marble in the hallway.

None of these lights are actually in the house yet, but I’ll put up pictures once they’re in place. With a bit of luck, we’ll get them mounted before our friends Lauren, Brian and baby Max show up for a visit at the end of the month.

Finally, I picked up my painting from the auction house a few days ago and was saddened to find a small tear in the canvas that I hadn’t noticed when I viewed the item prior to bidding. It’s also quite loose in its frame, so I think I may need to get the thing restored before I hang it up. What I know about restoring paintings can be engraved on the head of a pin, so that’s another thing for me to look into.

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The Business Of Keeping Busy

Posted on Sunday, 19th March, 2006 by ianmacd

We’re not so much keeping busy these days as unavoidably being kept busy. Honestly, who would have thought that retirement could be so much work?

Sarah and I have been busy trying to prepare our Dutch and American taxes. Given the fact that we have both been resident in two countries during the last fiscal year, can no longer file a joint return in America as in previous years (due to my partial resident status for last year), liquidated lots of stock, have bank accounts in multiple currencies and places, purchased a house, etc., our taxes are really quite complicated this year.

Add to that the fact that we’re missing or have incomplete documentation in some cases, especially around the period of our international move, and you have the basis for some very time-consuming and tedious work, e-mailing and phoning people for the missing data and trying to make sense of all manner of forms and statements.

Also, because our situation is no longer easily classified, none of the tax forms we have to fill in are fully applicable, so we keep having to annotate things and explain our unique circumstances. You end up wondering if the return you end up filing will make any sense or even be accurate.

In the midst of this, we’re also trying to sort out our estate planning once and for all. Estate planning is the financial world’s soothing euphemism for getting one’s affairs in order before one pops one’s clogs. Not that we’re planning to shuffle off this mortal coil in the near future, but very few people do, which is precisely the reason one needs to spend time on this stuff while one is still of relatively sound mind and something approaching sound body.

Dealing with the estate planning is as tedious as dealing with the accountants, and as complicated, too. Marriage to a foreigner with lifelong tax obligations to the country from which she happens to hail can really complicate your life. And Eloïse, too, is an American citizen by dint of her mother’s nationality, which further complicates our estate planning, as no money can be deposited in her name unless we’re prepared to pay tax to the US on any interest it earns.

Want my advice? Don’t marry a foreigner, especially an American, unless you’re up for a shitload of hassle, trying to prevent a greedy foreign government from staking a claim to assets to which it has no moral right. Of course, even if Sarah and I hadn’t been married, Eloïse would still be American, because she was born in the United States.

American citizenship is viral, you see. It’s like a hereditary disease. As soon as you start to earn money abroad, the tumour begins to grow. The only known cure is the abandonment of one’s citizenship, which still leaves you with a 10 year fiscal obligation. That’s the price of freedom, folks; you pay for it the rest of your days, even if you’re a dissident in some far flung part of the world. Well, you’re obliged to pay it, that is; whether or not you actually do so depends on your stance and the amount of bone marrow in your spine.

Basically, though, you can’t marry an American without marrying the American tax system.

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European Lynx (no, not the animal)

Posted on Wednesday, 15th March, 2006 by ianmacd

After several years of occasional bidding, I finally managed to win an eBay auction for a rare complete copy of the Lemmings cartridge for my old Atari Lynx handheld console. The cartridge itself pops up from time to time, but it’s much less common to find one still in its box, much less complete with manual and in excellent condition.

When the game arrived from England, I realised that I would be unable to play it (or any other in my collection), as my AC adapter is 110V only (bought whilst in the USA). Batteries aren’t a realistic option, as the Lynx positively devours the things, so I would need a new adapter for use in Europe.

Even though the Lynx is now about 16 years old, it’s still very easy to pick up an original Atari 110V US power supply (complete with box). The 3 pronged 240V UK adapter is a little harder to come by, with the 2 pronged 220V continental European model by far the hardest of the three to find. Consequently, it’s a little pricier to purchase, but thanks to the power of Google, I did manage to locate one. It arrived a few days ago, so I’m back in Lynx-playing business.

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