Chateau Josselin
Just another day in Brittany….
Built in the 11th century, classified as a historic monument it remains…private property.
We love it here!
Don’t let us kid you. We don’t actually work all the time. Every week we “discover” cool new places to see and things to do in our neck of the woods. Clearly, it’s what keeps us fascinated by our life in Europe. We are still very limited in our travels to the outer reaches of the continent partly because there is so darn much to see close to home and partly because we really want to finish our projects in the house before we just go gallivanting all over the place.
Recent local finds include:
The Treguier Stones: We have been doing a lot of our daily shopping in Treguier, just up the road. We have driven past the waterfront public parking lot a thousand times but recently Janice noticed a memorial plaque of sorts. Stopping to read it, she found that the 4 foot high circle of stones surrounding a grassy area was no less than an elliptical ‘belt’ having surrounded a mound of dirt that had been formed in a manner to provide housing, in 2500 BC.
BC as in Before Christ.
Tour St-Michel: This tower, also located in Treguier, is almost across the street from my hardware store. It dominates as the highest point in the area and it is said that from the top of the tower with a pair of binoculars on a clear day, you can see Jersey.
No silly, not 'New Jersey'! The isle of Jersey is a British island off of our area of the coast of Brittany. A number of executions and torture were meted out within the tower's shadows. Finally, it was also from the top of this tower that on August 14th, 1944 a German sniper shot Sgt. LLoyd W, Libben, US Army 15th Cavalry.
Sgt. Libben had the misfortune of being the only American soldier in General Patton’s army (bivouacked down the street from our house) killed in the liberation of Treguier. A memorial stone stands nearby on the sidewalk at the spot he fell .
The pillory post: La Roche Derrien is a village next door that we often take walks to from the house. Our bank is there as well as our post office. Recently, walking down the higgely piggely side street from the post office, I noticed yet another little plaque on the wall of a residence. The plaque announced that this was the spot where the town pillory post had been located and a smidgen of behavior modification had been imposed on area bad guys .
Maison du Gouffre. Another afternoon of exploring took us to Plougrescant. A private home on the beach that was actually an island twice a day when the tides came in, it is now landlocked since a causeway of sorts has been put in.
[Editors note: A boneheaded move in the opinion of one who is completely impartial regarding the subject of Islands]
It’s not easy being us you know. We have had to make a HUGE sacrifice, moving out of our family home and renting it to perfect strangers to help fund our kid’s educations while we are marooned on some God forsaken Island half the year and then having to scrape by in Europe all winter long.
[So, how did that sound? Did it have a sincere ring to it? Do you think there is any chance the kids will buy it?]
The Roman baths: Cruising down one of the local beaches with friend’s recently, they pointed out the remains of a Roman bath. While I am not sure what year this was built, I think you can know that these were not Italians that came by recently. Ingeniously designed, they allowed for a weatherproof wood storage area to stoke the fires that heated the water. The water ran under the floors through clay pipes to warm the different baths. Depending on the distance from the heat, different baths could be tepid, warm or hot. The view? The crashing surf, of course.
Like I said, we don’t work all the time
"Hey, if you like the place so darn much why don’t you move there permanently?"
That would be the next story.
Why don’t you move there?
Whooooooooaaa, cowboy! There’s no need to get your panty hose caught up in a bunch and start talking crazy. As Paul Harvey would say… "here is the rest of the story".
Finding many, many things to love about our area is easy to do but “living” here as opposed to being a seasonal visitor is a horse of a different color. We bought a home here because there was so much more that interested us to visit in Europe than in Asia or Africa or South America. As a visitor, I can smile and laugh off many things that are ‘French’ or European that I would never stand for or tolerate permanently.
You show up here as a tourist, exchange a few dollars into Euros, gasp at the fees and say, “what the heck, we're on vacation” then run off to see the Eiffel tower. It has no appreciable effect on your life. But in the time I have spent here I see that people in similar income brackets in America vs their European counterparts live quite differently. There is a significant disparity in their standard of living.
For all my griping about the high cost of living here, we are constantly reminded by our British friends that they moved here, lock, stock and barrel because the cost of living in the UK was so much higher! Yikes!
The basic formula here when you hire someone is 1/3 materials, 1/3 labor and 1/3 taxes of some sort. While there are big fines for hiring unregistered workers there are a number of people whom won't work unless they are paid in cash. All countries have an underground economy but with taxes as high as they are here, many work hard at underreporting their incomes. You can’t even hire the kid down the street to mow you lawn. Unless that is, if you pay him or other temporary workers by ‘cheque employer’. You get this special book of checks at the bank and when you pay someone with it the bank adds 50% to the amount and deducts it from your account to pay appropriate taxes, social security, ect.
No one we know here has a credit card. They are available but cost about $200. a year for the privilege of having one issued to you. They don't have a clue as to what frequent flyer miles are. Everyone uses debit cards. Free, of course at home, $50. a year for the privilege here. Yes, it minimizes debt but it also limits the financial options. Transferring money from your home bank? Free at home between the US and Canada, $30 to $80 here, no matter how little the amount --plus the exchange rate of course. Water bills? About $85. a month here, $25. in California. Building materials are quite expensive here. Not really a big deal for us as we are only doing relatively small projects but when we decided to varnish our bedroom doors, varnish ran about $200 a gallon. Excuse me? Paint is not much cheaper.
Like to futz with your computer? Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system, is sold in the US for $189, yours for a mere $350 in France. Need blank DVD’s? 100 for $25. in the US, 10 for $25. here.
Working on you car? Hey, I am not even going to mention the 3-letter ‘G’ word that makes the car run ($2.20 gal in the US, $6.50 here) A friend’s alternator was as high as $700. here, available for $89. in the US. Why? Taxes and fees.
Like to futz with your computer? Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system, is sold in the US for $189, yours for a mere $350 in France. Need blank DVD’s? 100 for $25. in the US, 10 for $25. here.
Working on you car? Hey, I am not even going to mention the 3-letter ‘G’ word that makes the car run ($2.20 gal in the US, $6.50 here) A friend’s alternator was as high as $700. here, available for $89. in the US. Why? Taxes and fees.
On January 1, Germany raised its VAT (value added tax) from 16% to 19%. In Canada they call it GST (goods and services tax). We call it the ABCDEFG tax and you don’t want to know what that means! People there thought “Big deal, its only 3%”. The next day, our daughter Mandy reported that her rent in Germany went up 'to make up for it", she was told. Every business will pass their tax increase on to consumers. Besides having to register when you move from or to a new city in Germany there is, of course, a 'registration' fee. This alone would be incomprehensible in the US.
A leading presidential candidate here (the French version of Hillary Clinton) wants to set the minimum wage at $2,000. (US)/ month , with a guaranteed job within 6 months upon graduation or the state will pay for additional training. You see where I am going with this? When you keep chipping away at people you erode their standard of living. Individually they may balk but Europeans seem resigned to the fees and taxes imposed on them and quite accepting of the consequences it inevitably has on their standard of living.
So, do we not want to move here because varnish costs a few bucks more?
Of course not. The financial hit is one thing but lifestyle is another. Remember, this not about not being happy here. We truly LOVE it. But there is a reason why Americans returning from foreign travels (Ok, not necessarily from Europe) have been seen getting off the plane, kneeling and kissing the tarmac.
Its like when you visit family or friends. Its wonderful…..for a while. But at some point their lifestyle or yours will clash. It would become less fun and you don’t want to become an eternal guest. When you or they return, you can enjoy each other again.
It's a simple fact that if we lived here a hundred years we would still be foreigners. Foreigners are at inherent disadvantage speaking up in their host country. We can’t vote although we pay taxes, so local politicians don’t take us seriously. We sometimes have large farm trucks park on the sidewalk in front of our door, under a no parking sign. What I want to do is step out and say “ Hey Pal! Have you bumped your head? Make like Michael Jackson and ‘Beat It!’" But if I complain I risk being ignored or worse told “if you don’t like it here, go home” Janice feared that it would invite all kinds of unwanted attention: anti –Americanism, xenophobia or just plain scorn.
What I did was to go see the Mayor and brought pictures of all kinds of vehicles doing just that on different occasions and showing that the sidewalk was beginning to break up as a result. I offered to buy and install large planter boxes, fill them with flowers, donate them to the village and place them on the sidewalk to prevent the illegal parking. I even showed how wheel chair access would not be impeded. The town council smiled and said “No”. The temptation as a foreigner is to keep your head down. As a visitor, that’s fine, but I could never ‘live’ like that, condemned to a lifetime of taxation without representation. What this place needs is a little Boston styled tea party...
Don't ask...
Then there are French politics, the compulsory 35 hour work week limit, global warming…..please, don’t get me going.
My man Mr. Christopher
No one promised the little man an easy first year but it would be nice to give the poor kid a break. This to say nothing for his exhausted parents who have played tag team to be with him 24 / 7 in the hospital, yet again.
Our grandson came down with a bout of pneumonia. The medication to treat him caused acid reflux, which developed a bad case of thrush all the way down his esophagus. This in turn caused him some difficulty breathing. Whisked into surgery [twice no less] to have a little extra tissue on his esophagus lasered off, he (and mom) spent the next 3 weeks in the hospital while he recovered. (He would surely qualify for frequent patient miles) He was released to go back home but required a feeding tube, as he was unable to nurse and breathe. He will be on it until he grows out of this condition, which is expected to take from 6 to 18 months.
Within days his condition worsened and he was returned to the hospital where he was given a tracheotomy. He and mom will be in the hospital for some time to come. We wish him a quick recovery, mom and dad a long vacation and a hospital free future for all.
Problem solved
We are thrilled every time we find a way to solve some logistical hiccup in the way we live. For instance, we resolved banking issues long ago by having accounts in California, Canada and France. You know how it works, as long as you put more in than you take out, they are happy. The real solution of course was when we were able to not only keep tabs on our finances instantly online but to pay our bills electronically in different countries from a click of the mouse from anywhere.
On occasion we have needed to send or receive faxes without always having immediate access to a fax machine. Well, sometime ago we found a free online faxing service. With it, we have been sending and receiving faxes from anywhere with a ‘local’ US based phone number. Pretty handy when you are in some village in Italy and you are expecting a fax over something you’re dealing with in Canada. It arrives as an email attachment and we can print it if we like. I am currently setting it up with a European based number also (free of course, as it is a US based service) because people are loath to call a phone number on another continent to send you a fax. Just darn convenient.
A huge weight was lifted off our shoulders with our ability to call long distance with Skype, the Internet based phone service. Yea, I know. Some of you guys HATE our calls when we have a bad connection or when we sound like we are at a bottom of a drum. Truth is, we make many, many hours of calls and inevitably, 99% are long distance whether we are in Canada or France. Some are very, very long distance. This has allowed us to be able to call anyone, anytime without giving it a thought. On a number of occasions we have even made conference calls while located in France, speaking to Mandy in Germany as we were talking to Cassie in California. Or, my sister in Toronto Canada, my brother in Montreal, and my mother in California, simultaneously. I don’t know about you but we think it’s wild. We have great add-on external laptop speakers, a desktop microphone and a web cam so we don’t have an uncomfortable headset to wear and it sounds much better to us than a land line. We absolutely love it.
The Internet with all its available services has made how we live possible.
The last fly in the ointment was mail. For two years we have been frustrated with our mail forwarding service in California. We have tried to alleviate the problem by having a PO box on the US side of the mainland at the Island in the summer. This is needed for magazines and packages we order while we are there. We have refrained from having mail sent to us in Canada from the US as it takes too long to clear Canadian customs. Much easier for us to zip over to the post office by boat right to it’s dock.
Recently though, we did get a Canadian PO box because, again, there are Canadian magazines that won’t ship to the US or Canadian mail that will not be delayed if we get it ‘in country’ so to speak. It’s weird because both mailboxes are only a mile apart but in two different countries. The real bugaboo was mail in California. We kept our ‘main’ PO box there because for serious stuff like taxes, insurance companies and the like we wanted one central permanent address for it all to be collected at then twice a month forwarded to wherever we are at the time. Great in theory but touch and go in practice.
We have had mail sent to the wrong end of the country, mail not sent (ooops, we forgot!) mail sent twice in 5 days then not sent for 6 weeks. We felt that we had little choice but to continue, as it is a major logistical headache to notify some 60 odd contacts that we have a new address for a different mail forwarding service.Enter the Internet to the rescue again! Recently, I found a California based company that gives you a physical address so that all of your mail gets directed to them. (Yes, that means those 60 some odd contacts will be notified that we have a new ‘permanent’ mailing address) Each day they get our mail they scan the front of the envelopes and post the images online to our account. If we chose, they will open the envelope, scan the contents, post them online and we can print it or have them forward it to us. Whatever we don’t want (except for a check that would be pretty much everything) gets shredded. No delays, no lost mail, no forwarding costs. This way, we get our mail everyday (not twice a month) even if we are traveling and the cost is about a third of what we currently pay.
Is this a great country, or what?
Want to see any of the above pics really big? Easy, just double click on them!!
