A Sunday Stroll

Last Sunday I decided that I really needed some new photos of the Stadspark here in Maastricht, so I used the excuse of nice weather and a walk to take Dan and my camera out for a stroll.  It seems like the crazy rain/sun/hail we were having early in the year is over (thank goodness); and we’ve been enjoying some really beautiful days. A little cool still. I’m beginning to think this is my favorite time of year. The weather is getting good, the sun is still up a 9 pm, and it all just makes you want to sip coffee in a cafe or wander one of the various parks in the area.

But back to my Sunday stroll in photos….

Coming down from our apartment, the first feature of the Stadspark we run into is a memorial to abused zoo animals, which features an old-style cage containing sad looking animals including a giraffe.

The Sad Bear, one of my favorite statues in Maastricht (so far), is also near by and whenever I walk through that area I always stop by.

We wandered on down the path and discovered that we’d stumbled into a foot race. The Provience de Leige racers nearly ran me down as we neared the Dierenpark. I can only assume that they were tried and not really watching where they were going. It seemed like a rather casual event with runners and leisure walkers like us out on the same paths and only a few workers and intersections to direct traffic.

Instead of swinging low around the water, we went up high along the old city wall. The view is very nice there. And there are still mock cannons in strategic locations along the wall.

Unfortunately, some people feel the need to deface them. I’m a big fan of urban art, but not this sort of thing.

On our way home we walked through town and up past the Vrijthof. I think Dan was hoping to get a waffle, but alas, Pinky’s is closed on Sundays.  On the other hand a fair was just getting set up on the Vrijthof proper and while we didn’t wait around for the rides to get moving, it looked like it could be a lot of fun.  I’m always impressed at just how late in the day things like these fairs get going around here. The ride and shop keepers were just getting open around noon; while country fairs I’ve attended in the U.S. generally start at 10 am.

And then back home, a call to my mother for Mother’s Day, and then back to work, work, work.  How did you spend your Sunday?

Yeah, yeah, yeah…The Tax Man….

For some reason a visit from a tax specialist had the tune of Taxman by the Beatles running through my head all morning. It’s really too bad I couldn’t remember all the words.

I have to say that Dutch income tax forms are incredibly intimidating, which is why we hired Partners in Tax to run the paperwork for us this year. Each person who needs to pay taxes gets a thick blue envelope containing 4 thick booklets; two of forms and two of instructions, although with strict instructions to submit quickly.  Technically taxes were due at the end of April, but the Dutch tax office is apparently much more lenient that the U.S. IRS. We didn’t receive any forms in time, so our tax guy ordered them for us and the tax office granted us an automatic extension. Or maybe they don’t care. I’m not sure but the process just feels more casual.

Once the forms came in, the tax guy came to our place to fill them out so we were on hand to answer questions as he went through them. He made it look easy. Since I do the taxes in the family, I’m not too surprised; U.S. taxes at our stage aren’t generally too bad. Of course he is also a professional, I didn’t work in 2009, and we don’t own a house. And he can read Dutch. I’d consider doing them myself next year, but now that I have the business I think they might just be beyond my ability.

The one surprise what that there is electronic filing available in the Netherlands, but people like us couldn’t use it this year. Apparently you need to either 1) have lived in the country for the entire year, or 2) have lived outside the country for the entire year. If you straddled the year then you’re stuck with print filing. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with that scary-looking blue envelope in the mail again any time soon.

Dutch BBQ Win & Fail

Yesterday Dan & I invited a couple of friends over for dinner; sort of for Liberation Day, but mostly for the chance to hang out. And get our hands on a propane tank for the grill we bought last year. So we planned a barbecue. Unfortunately, a comedy of errors left us still cooking on the stove.

Two nights ago, I put together the grill we’ve been sitting on for a year. We couldn’t for the life of us find a place accessible by bike or bus to purchase a propane tank. Fortunately the grill went together easily. Win!

Our friend promises to pick up a tank for us since he has a car. Double Win!

I get a call asking me what size tank we need. The grill has no information about it so we just guess. Fail!

Oops, I need a regulator for the tank. I have to Google it to realize that the spout & hose on top of a propane tank isn’t included with the tank. Fail!

Luckily Praxis had one. Win!

Our friends arrive with beer, dessert, and most importantly a robin egg blue tank. the beer is excellent, but the tank and the regulator I purchased couldn’t connect. It’s now too late to go find a connector. Fail!

We cooked the (so-called) BBQ speklap, chicken kabobs, and worsts on the stove instead. The apartment does not burn down. Win! (Expect for the lack of real BBQ sauce. The lack of good barbecue sauce & maple syrup in this country makes me sad.)

Dinner and the company are great and I get the excuse to geek out about web design. Plus pie for dessert, French wine, and bonding over cats. Triple Win!

Hmmm…We seem to have come out ahead. We also learned that there is a camping store in Maastricht that carries the propane tanks. Once I get the address I’ll be paying them a visit to pick up a connector for the tank & regulator.  Hopefully we’ll be burning food on our porch in no time.

Hair Today

Yesterday I stopped in a funky little kapsalon (hairsalon) here in Maastricht to do something I’d been waiting to do for a long time: Dye my hair purple. I figure, I work for myself and my office is my own. If I can work in my PJs, I can have purple hair. The results, pictured here, are a bit darker than I had planned but I’m overall pleased with both the cut and the shade. Its less of an ‘in your face’ purple than it could have been. Next? Green. Maybe.

Finding Kinki Kapper was actually a stroke of luck for me. I am very bad at picking out a new hairdresser and had, in fact, been going back to the salon of my youth in Vermont during our 6 years in Boston.  No one knows your hair like the person who has been dong it for years and frankly the options in Boston were frequently expensive. It doesn’t help that I’m picky and trying to experiment a bit with my hair. Here in Maastricht, I’ve been restricted by my reluctance to have my hair cut by someone I couldn’t communicate fully with.  Fortunately, I was on the look out for a salon that would do funky colors and happened by this shop one day. Ducking inside the lush, punkish interior I found that the hairdressers 1) spoke very good English and 2) I didn’t need an appointment.

I returned on Monday and joined the row of people waiting their turn.  I have to admit that I was surprised to find the clientele were pretty normal looking. For a place with a fireplace filled with plastic bones, I was the only person there for an odd color. I feel that people in Maastricht are pretty conservative with their hair colors. Even the young punks or goths with hair extensions tend to stick to natural(ish) shades. The female hairdressers both had beautiful short, white cuts which I wish I had the elvish features to pull off, but the one male hairdresser had a pretty straight forward style. On the other hand I was wearing jeans and teeshirt, so I was certainly the least stylish person there.

To guarantee that I could get the cut and color I wanted, I brought in pictures with me and then let the hairdresser go to town. She opted to use a permanent dye instead of bleaching and then dyeing with a semi-permanent purple because the second option would have involved me sitting through 2-3 colorings (and paying 50 euros per sitting). That was awesome of her, since I didn’t want to pay for a color that wasn’t going to last at least for a little while. We colored first, and then she cut my hair; going over it several times to make sure everything was even and the length was right. Since it was my first time coloring my hair like this, she wanted to know if it was a surprise for my husband (no, but I knew it would surprise my folks). Seriously though, this is one of the best cuts I’ve had in a while; even if I still sort of feel like I’m wearing a wig.

The damage? 90 Euros plus tip. 37 euros for the cut and 52 for dyeing my hair. I don’t think I was suppose to tip, since she seemed very surprised. Sometime to remember next time. Hair color means I actually have to go back for upkeep.  For once in my life.

Now if I could just get Dan to a kapper, we’ll be gold.

NaBloPoMo May

I’ve been rather lacks in my blogging activities as of late, so I’m trying to put a fire under my butt this month with a good old fashion NaNoWriMo-inspired event. NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. The object of the event is to post on your blog every day for a month. Personally, I will be splitting my posting between Maastricht Minutiae & my new webcomic site design blog over at Fallen Kitten Productions (home to our webcomic and my web services biz). If you’d like to follow all my posting this month, please sign up for both RSS feeds: Maastricht Minutiae RSS & Fallen Kitten RSS. Maybe this will be the start of a more active blogging trend in the future.

So I hope you enjoy it and if you see me missing an update, feel free to give me a swift kick in the pants. Or whatever metaphor is appropriate here in the Netherlands.

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