Happy 4th of July from The Netherlands!

 A lot has happened since I last posted a couple of weeks ago.

My good friend, Louise, and I have been getting together once or twice a week. We go grocery shopping together at the organic markets or just have a cup of tea together at one of our homes or a coffee shop in town. It's been nice having someone to "hang out" with! She and Gary will be moving to the UK in 3-4 months. He'll be able to transfer his job there.

This past week Andrew's brother and his family (all five of them!) came to visit for a few days. They were visiting her family in Denmark and they drove down here from there. When they arrived our neighborhood BBQ was going on!  So, they dropped their things off in the house and joined the party!  Our street was blocked off so we could all sit around and chat and eat!  What a nice evening!  We are so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors!

 We were out till around midnight!

They left again Tuesday morning for Paris and will come back here Friday evening and stay till Sunday when they plan to drive back to Denmark. They will head back to California in a couple of weeks. It's been soooo fun having a house full of family!  We spent a day in Amsterdam together

 Sarah's friend, Vasco, who lives in Amsterdam, met us near the Rijksmuseum!

 The "kids" went with Vasco to Vondelpark, where he and his friends were BBQ'ing!

Jeff, Birgit, Andrew and I walked around Amsterdam some more, then headed back to Haarlem. We had given the "kids" return train tickets to Haarlem and OV Chipkaarts so that they could use the trams in Amsterdam. Vasco went with them to the train station and made sure they got on the right train to Haarlem. Andrew and Jeff picked them up in the car around 2330hrs. 

The next day we headed over to Zaanse Schans!

 We took the train.....first to Amsterdam Sloterdijk, then switched trains towards Uitgeest.

 We got off at the Koog-Zaandijk stop.....walked a couple of blocks and this is what you see as you're crossing the bridge into Zaanse Schans!

The drawbridge was up when we arrived....

 for a barge....

 Swans and their baby:

 When we got back to town we stopped at Douwe Egberts for coffee. Jeff and Birgit wanted to get some cups...they have a very nice selection there!

We headed home after our coffee. Andrew took them all on a walk in the woods with Sammy while I made dinner....homemade mac & cheese.

Birgit and Sarah made a salad and we had some yummy garlic bread to go with dinner!

Tuesday morning Andrew headed off to work, and they headed off for Paris for a few days! They will return tomorrow evening. So, today I'm shopping and cleaning and going out to enjoy the nice weather!

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Andrew and I are working on a trip to Norway and Sweden. We're hoping my parents will join us!!! They will let us know this week........keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed they will come!  It's a chance of a lifetime to travel around together!

Dutch taxes

Andrew and I filed for an extension for submission of our Dutch and American taxes. It's all very complicated, and it's pretty normal to get extensions from what we've heard.

We have a company here in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) doing our Netherlands taxes and a guy that we used last year in Los Angeles working on our U.S. taxes. We have to file The Netherlands first and then the U.S. taxes get filed with a copy of the Netherlands taxes attached.

The other day we received a letter from the person filing our Dutch income tax return. We had to file separately this year because I didn't move here full-time till last June.  Andrew receives what is called a 30% ruling:

Financial consequences

Based these conditions you may be eligible for the 30% ruling, but what does it actually mean? From a tax perspective, the salary agreed upon between the employee and employer will be reduced by 30%. In return, the employee should receive a 30% reduction as reimbursement for expenses. This is the most common way it is done since it does not influence the salary burden for the employer. 

Because I'm not working here I do not benefit from the 30% ruling. However, I'm being taxed on money I had in the bank in the U.S. as of January 1, 2013! Sooooo, I owe the Netherlands €3,197 (excluding possible interest): €1,739 tax/national insurance premiums and €1,458 income related health care insurance contributions. Needless to say, we were not prepared for thaaaaat!

Next year we will be able to file jointly so this won't apply. 


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Today is Friday, June 21st.  The tax saga continues! 

Yesterday we received an email from our Dutch "tax guy". The Dutch authorities want more proof that I was still living and working in the U.S. till June 1st last year...Apparently my W2  wasn't enough. So, I'm now making copies of my passport, my plane tickets from 2012, the house sale paperwork, my paychecks, and anything else that can prove I was still living there. Oh myyyyy.....all because I got my residency card in December 2011 because we had someone there to help us at the time. If we don't send in all this information we will be taxed more than double. Plus, with more paperwork.....of course, there is another fee for that! It's going to cost us another €300!

Open Garden Days and Protestors in Amsterdam

Our friends/neighbors, Bruce and Linda, had told us about the Open Garden Days that was occurring this past weekend in Amsterdam.

http://www.opentuinendagen.nl/

We decided to go, since we're always looking for ideas for our garden!

Before leaving Haarlem I went over and took care of Bruce and Linda's kitties, then Andrew and I stopped at Gary and Louise's to take care of their cat. They live close to the Haarlem train station, so we got on the train when I was done. From Amsterdam Centraal we took Tram 24 to the Keizersgracht stop.

The first place we went was Keizersgracht 672, the Museum van Loon where we bought our tickets for the walking tour of the gardens.

 They were serving a drink mix called "Campari", which we ended up trying later in the day....It's quite bitter.....we didn't care for it. It sure looked pretty in the glass though!

There was a boat cruise included in the price of our ticket....and was a "hop on, hop off" type of thing. It was a nice way to see parts of Amsterdam we hadn't see before!

Lots of houseboats!

We ended up touring through 11 of the 29 Open Gardens.....along Keizersgracht, Herengracht, and Prinsengracht. As you can see, we walked along Leidsegracht also!

Here are a few pictures of them:

We found that many of the gardens were not maintained very well or had little to see. It was a little disappointing. Maybe we're looking at it from "American" eyes and need to change our point of view.

In between looking at some of the gardens, we stopped to have some lunch at St. Jame's Cafe, in the Rembrandtplein area.

Well, the beer (Palm....my favorite!) was good, and the fries were good.......I took a chance and ordered a hamburger-thaaaaat was a mistake!  Mystery meat, that's all I can say to describe the texture and flavor of the burger. I ate about 1/2 of it only because I was really hungry. There is only one place I've found to get a tasty burger here and that is the Jacobus Pieck Restaurant in Haarlem....now they make a goooood burger!

Later on in the day there were some protestors that passed us by:

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This morning I woke up with a different kind of headache. I did a little cleaning and was so exhausted I thought I'd better lie down for a bit. I woke up 3 hours later with a slight fever. Sooooo, I'm nursing it today with fluids and some Advil and just rest!  The weather is supposed to be warm tomorrow and I don't want to miss it!!!