We spoke by phone with an attorney in Boyle (near where we're living), and he offered to meet with us next Monday, but he warned us that he didn't think our chances were good. He said that unless there is a medical reason why we can't leave by Dec. 20 (at the end of our 90 days), it would be highly unlikely that we would be allowed to stay.
"We are finding many other roadblocks, too, to do with car insurance and driving.
"We are writing to you as a last resort to ask if you have any suggestions for us. We came over here lock, stock, and barrel, and we rented out our house in North Carolina. Now we have to figure out how to move ourselves and all of our belongings back by Dec. 20, unless you or someone else can give us advice that will put us on the right path to retire to Ireland.
"By the way, we are fully self-supporting, and our savings, real property, and investments currently equal well in excess of what we understand Ireland is looking for. We are in excellent health, and we did the FBI background check, fingerprinting, etc., and brought all of the documentation with us. We don't understand why or when the rules changed in Ireland, but apparently something has changed, big-time.
"We would appreciate any advice, contacts, etc., that you might be able to provide, as we are six weeks away from becoming homeless."
Lief and I remembered the couple from our Retire Overseas Conference in Scottsdale. Lief responded to their plea for help:
"Have you contacted immigration directly yet? If not, call them right away. You'll need to go to the garda station that is in charge of immigration for the county you are in. You can read more about this here.
"You should be able to go down to the garda station with your documentation and leave with a temporary one-year residency stamp.
"As a retired person of independent means, you should be able to qualify for residency. I'm not sure why the attorneys are saying you can't, but bypass them and speak directly with the immigration officer for your area.
"You can legally drive in Ireland on your U.S. license for a year before you have to have an Irish driver's license (unless they changed this rule since we were living there). Of course, that doesn't mean the insurance companies will provide insurance. However, you can get a provisional Irish driver's license, which the insurance companies should issue insurance on. You will then have to pass a driving test to get a full driver's license. Scheduling that test can take six months or longer, but the provisional license is good for two years and can be renewed. If you can get a letter from your U.S. insurance company that states you have had no accidents for five years, you should get a discount on your Irish insurance.
"I'll try to do some more research from here, but start with registering with immigration at the appropriate garda station."
In the two months since this exchange, we have thought of this couple often. Finally, this morning, we heard from them again:
"Kathleen and Lief, we are writing to let you know that we got in touch with the local immigration office at our local Boyle garda station as you recommended…and, finally, we got to meet with him. For weeks, he missed appointments we'd scheduled and refused to return our daily phone calls. We finally asked the garda in Carrick-on-Shannon for help. They couldn't process our residency paperwork because we lived in a different county, but the woman we spoke to in the Carrick station was, shall we say, less than pleased when we told her what was going on. Three hours after speaking with her, we received a phone call from the Boyle officer, who gave us an appointment that he actually kept!
"So we finally got ourselves registered on Nov. 29. We were granted a three-month extension of our tourist stamps, to the end of February 2013, and instructed to send specific documents to the Department of Justice in Dublin, which we did immediately. We've heard nothing back from Dublin, so we've sent follow-up emails and letters to light a fire under their tails. We're certain we will hear back, and we expect a positive response, as we more than qualify for long-term residency, based on our financial means, good health, health insurance, good references, clear background checks, credit histories, etc.--in other words, in just about every way that they might possibly scrutinize us. We'll send you a follow-up when the dust settles and let you know how everything turned out.
"Meantime, our landlady up north, in County Roscommon, announced in mid-November that she'd decided to sell the 200-year-old stone cottage we were renting, and it turned out to be a wonderful thing for us. We'd just discovered that (1) the internet service up there was woefully inadequate, causing me to have to shut down my online medical transcription work; (2) Ireland does, indeed, have winters (dreadful ones in the northwest); and (3) it's impossible to heat a 200-year-old stone cottage (we had papers blowing off the kitchen table when all the doors and windows were closed).
"All of these factors drove us to explore the south, and, when we hit Glengarriff, at the head of Bantry Bay in the southwest, it was love at first sight. We never looked back. Well, that's not true. We had to go back up north to get our things! We arrived in Glengarriff in mid-December, and we're still pinching ourselves every morning when we wake up: Do we really live here?! Glengarriff is a stunningly beautiful, delightfully charming coastal town on a harbor off the head of Bantry Bay (10 miles north of the town of Bantry), and it has its own unique, subtropical micro-climate. We have 30 species of bamboo, palm trees, tropical plants, and lush greenery everywhere. We can walk from our property into Glengarriff Woods Nature Reserve, parts of which are genuine rainforest because the canopy is so thick and parts of which are ancient oak forest. This area is one of the few places in Ireland that's still forested.
"Our house is lovely. It was built 15 years ago in a clearing in the woods adjacent to the Nature Reserve, with a river flowing briskly by on its way to the sea. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow, with big windows (lots of light), a sliding glass door in the dining area looking out over the river, and trees everywhere. It's fully furnished (even linens and kitchenware!), with a real washer and dryer. They were asking 650 euro, and we talked them down to 570 euro. There's a small shed on the property, and we've been given the green light to convert it to a ceramics studio. Best of all, we love our landlady and her family; they've become great friends in the four weeks we've lived here. We've made a ton of friends here, both Irish and expat (more from England than from the United States).
"We don't see or hear traffic, and yet a five-minute walk delivers us to the door of any of a number of delightful pubs where we're treated to live, traditional Irish music at least once a week. In the summer that will be nightly.
"Glengarriff is small (800 year-round residents), but it has all the necessities and a lot of extras: truly fine restaurants, pubs, gift shops, pharmacy, grocery, post office, and garda (we're lucky, as Ireland is removing a lot of garda stations, but not ours). There's also a hardware store and a place to buy firewood, turf, and coal. Fires here are more for the charm factor than for the heat; we have 16 hours of darkness this time of year, and everyone enjoys their evening fires.
"We're running around in sweaters, while up in the northwest, where we lived for more than two months, we had nothing but grey skies, relentless winds, either rain or sleet every day, and, beginning in late October, freezing temperatures.
"As you can tell, we're very happy with our move. Glengarriff is everything we could have hoped for and infinitely more. If it was good enough for Maureen O'Hara, it's good enough for us! Sadly, we just missed meeting her. She moved to the United States in November to live with her relatives. She is well into her 90s, but, until last November, she would regularly hold court at the Park Hotel, which is owned by our landlady.
"Well, I've taken up too much of your time. I'll stop here, but I will definitely let you know when we hear from Dublin. My letter of last week included a gentle reminder that we have dozens of friends and relatives poised and waiting to make travel plans to visit us in Ireland--if, indeed, we are going to be allowed to live here!
"You'd think that, with our financial situation, with our good health, our music and art (we both play Irish music on different instruments, and Graham's a ceramics artist, which Ireland professes to have a great appreciation for), and our enthusiasm for all things Irish, well, they'd roll out the red carpet for us, with their economy in the tank and their own population dwindling. Tens of thousands of younger people are leaving annually now for Canada and Australia in pursuit of jobs.
"But for retirees like us? Life here is just grand. Thank you so much for your help last November when we were nearly ready to give up."
Kathleen Peddicord
Image source: Richard Webb
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2013 Top Retirement Haven #6: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Monthly budget: US$2,000
Monthly rent: US$700
Mexico is a big place with a bad reputation. The reputation isn't altogether undeserved, as drug cartels do control parts of this country but not all of it, and some of the most appealing regions for both living and investing sit outside the war zones. Mexico real estate offers two long coasts, mountain towns and colonial cities, plus Mayan ruins, jungle, rain forest, rivers and lakes. It's also the most accessible "overseas" haven from the United States. You could drive back and forth if you wanted.
For all these reasons, Mexico is home to the biggest established populations of American expats in the world, making it a great choice if you seek adventure with the comforts of home. Mexico is no longer a super-cheap option, but it is my top pick for enjoying a luxury coastal lifestyle on a budget, in Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta is more expensive than other places where you might consider living or retiring overseas, but in Puerto Vallarta that's not the point. This isn't developing-world living. This stretch of Mexico's Pacific coastline has already been developed to a high level.
Life here can be not only comfortable but easy and fully appointed, with world-class golf courses, marinas, restaurants, and shopping. This is a lifestyle that is available only on a limited basis worldwide, a lifestyle that is truly (not metaphorically) comparable to the best you could enjoy in southern California if you could afford it. Here you can afford it even on an average budget.
2013 Top Retirement Haven #7: County Kerry, Ireland
Monthly budget: US$2,200
Monthly rent: US$600
When I moved to Ireland some 15 years ago, I arrived on the Emerald Isle with my family and my business expecting to plug into the kind of infrastructure I was used to back in the States. That didn't happen because the kind of infrastructure that we Americans take for granted in the States (transportation, telecommunications, banking, credit, etc.) didn't and still doesn't exist in Ireland. But that doesn't have to be the point.
I lived in this country during the apex of the Celtic Tiger, which generated great amounts of wealth, more money than this island had ever known. As a result, the Irish were distracted from what was right in front of them. They were busy covering their ancient green land with suburban track homes, shopping malls and fast-food franchises. I watched as pubs were replaced by nightclubs and as car dealerships eventually kept Saturday business hours and banks finally remained open through lunch. Ireland wanted so badly to compete on the global business stage. In that regard, it failed completely.
But now, when I think of my family's time in Waterford, the things that come to mind have nothing to do with business. I remember the owner of the corner shop across the street from our office and how he and his wife sent us a small gift when Jack was born and inquired after both Jack and his big sister Kaitlin every time we saw them. I remember the cabinet-maker who helped to restore our big old Georgian house to its original glories, shutter by shutter, wood plank by wood plank. I think of the castles and the gardens we explored on weekends. I think of the few times we braved the beaches at Tramore, sitting on the sand in sweaters, shivering and shaking our heads, while, out in the cold Irish Sea, the Irish swam and surfed. I think of cows blocking the roads and of sheep dotting the green fields. These are the pictures of Ireland I carry with me now.
By the time we left, Ireland had gotten very expensive. Today it's more affordable than it has been in more than a decade, its property market on par, more or less, with where it stood when we arrived 15 years ago. As a result, this country makes more sense as a place to think about when it comes to where to live overseas than it has in a long time.
The surest bets for real estate purchase are the tourist trails -- the Ring of Kerry, the southwest coast, Galway and Dublin. Pay attention to proximity to amenities that are important to you -- the ocean, a nearby airport so you can hop around Europe or a town so you can walk where you want to go rather than driving (remember they drive on the left).
2013 Top Retirement Haven #8: Granada, Nicaragua
Monthly budget: US$1,300
Monthly rent: US$500
Geographically, Nicaragua is blessed, with two long coastlines and two big lakes, plus volcanoes, highlands, rain forest and rivers. In this regard, it's got everything Costa Rica and Panama have got, all less discovered and developed and available for the adventurer and eco-traveler at bargain rates. Architecturally, too, Nicaragua is notable. Its two sister colonial cities, Granada and Leon, vie for the title of Oldest City in the Americas. Whichever story you believe (that the Spanish conquistadores settled first on the shores of Lake Nicaragua at Granada or, perhaps, a few months earlier in Old Leon), Nicaragua is the big winner, with impressive colonial-era churches, public buildings and parks to her credit.
Property values have fallen significantly in this country over the past several years, thanks to the re-election of Sandinista President Daniel Ortega and the global recession, which has hit this country hard. As a result, you can buy a house on Nicaragua's Pacific coast for less than US$100,000.
2013 Top Retirement Haven #9: Medellin, Colombia
Monthly budget: US$1,800
Monthly rent: US$500
Years ago, I sat around a table in a just-opened restaurant in a little-known mountain town in Panama called Boquete with a group of investors and businesspeople, in the country, just as I was, to scout opportunity. "I believe that the potential in this place for retirees is enormous," one of the gentlemen in the group (the one who had just invested in opening the restaurant where we were having dinner) theorized. "Right now, the opportunity here is for the investor and the speculator. Property prices are so under-valued. Apartments in Panama City are a screaming bargain on a global scale. Pacific beachfront, Caribbean, farmland, river-front, this country has it all, and it's all cheap.
"Panama is still misunderstood, suffering from a lingering case of bad press," my host for the evening continued. "When you say 'Panama' to an American today, he thinks: Noriega...drug cartels...CIA intrigue. It won't be too many years before those perceptions are flipped on their head. I predict that, five, seven years from now, when you say 'Panama' to the average American, he'll think: retirement. Because that's what this country is gearing up to offer "a very appealing retirement option abroad."
That was 1999. In August 2010, the AARP named Boquete, Panama, one of the top five places in the world to live overseas.
In 2011, I sat around a table in a just-opened restaurant in a little-known mountain town in Colombia called Medellin with a group of investors and businesspeople, in the country, just as I was, to explore current opportunity.
"Property values in this city are so under-valued," one of the gentlemen having dinner with me remarked. "I believe that apartment costs here are the lowest for any cosmopolitan city in the world on a per-square-meter basis. This is because Colombia, including Medellin, is still misunderstood. When you say 'Medellin' to the average American, he thinks: Drugs...gangs...Pablo Escobar. It's such a misperception. The current reality of this city is so far removed from all that."
As in Panama years ago, the opportunity today in Medellin is for the investor and the speculator. Prices are an absolute, global bargain. Right now, in this city, you could buy almost anything and feel comfortable that you could make money from the purchase.
The coming opportunity in Medellin is for the retiree. I predict that, five, seven years from now, when you say 'Medellin' to the average American, he'll think: retirement. Because that's what this City of Flowers and Eternal Springtime is on track to offer -- a very appealing and competitive retirement option. Medellin is a city with strong Euro-undertones, meaning it's a chance to embrace a sophisticated, cosmopolitan retirement lifestyle on a very modest budget.
2013 Top Retirement Haven #10: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Monthly budget: US$1,250
Monthly rent: US$500
Showing the bias of my perspective, I refer to Malaysia as Asia's Panama. That is to say, this country is a regional and a global hub, for trade, for business and for culture. The cost of living is affordable, though elsewhere in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, China) can be cheaper. Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia's capital, is clean, efficient, and well-functioning, with shopping, restaurants and all the other trappings of a modern metropolis. It's also (again like Panama) an expat melting pot with big numbers of expats both from all over Asia and, to a lesser extent, the West. Malaysia is more welcoming of foreigners than any other country in Asia. Its My Second Home program makes retiree residency easy to obtain, meaning you don't have to worry about regular "border runs," as many expats in this part of the world do. Because it is a former British colony, English is widely spoken, so you don't have to worry about trying to learn to speak Malay either.
Kuala Lumpur, located in the heart of the Malaysian peninsula, is a city of contrasts. The shining stainless steel Petronas Towers, two of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, anchor a startlingly beautiful and unique skyline. Modern, air-conditioned malls flourish, selling everything from batik clothing to genuine Rolex watches and Tiffany jewelry. In the shadows of these ultra-modern buildings, the ancient Malay village of Kampung Baru still thrives, with free-roaming roosters and a slow pace of life generally found in rural villages. Less than a 20-minute walk from the city center, you can find yourself in the company of monkeys.
Kathleen PeddicordContinue Reading:
Image credit in order of appearance: P. Alejandro Díaz, Lutz Fischer-Lamprecht, Zach Klein, I.D. R.J., and muconlaw.
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'Tis the season to remember
No we're never far from home
Merry Christmas, everyone
--"Merry Christmas, Alabama" by Jimmy Buffett
Dear Live and Invest Overseas Reader,
Our seven Christmases in Ireland, we could never bring ourselves to participate in one of Ireland's quirkiest festive traditions, what the Irish refer to as the "Christmas Day swim."
On Christmas morning, from beaches, piers, and coves around the country, people of all ages gather to immerse themselves in waters of around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (maximum).
"Swim" is a bit of a misnomer. There is no particular distance that you need to cover, nor any agreed-upon duration you must stay in the water. You simply join the crowd of people running toward and then into the water (cheered on by well-wrapped-up spectators), screaming as their bodies hit the ice-cold sea. A quick splash of the arms and legs, then back in to shore to dry off, wrap up, and enjoy a hot drink or a shot of whiskey.
Wetsuits have appeared on the scene in recent years, mostly among the kids, but it remains an unspoken rule among the hardy adults taking part: Traditional bathing suits only...
Our four Christmases in Paris were all about the lights. Each year, starting in November, Boulevard St. Germain, just a few blocks from our apartment in this city, is strung with tiny white lights. The trees, the building facades, they're covered with them. Each morning and again each evening as I'd walk Jackson, aged 4 through 8 at the time, to and from school, we'd linger at the intersection of rue du Bac and Boulevard St. Germain as long as possible, looking up and down, up and down, slowly, working to fix that magical view in our memories. "It's a fairy land," 4-year-old Jack declared it one morning. I see it still.
Twinkling lights and decorated shop windows. This time of year, storefronts throughout Paris are draped with pine garland, and shop windows are decorated with green trees flocked with white and trimmed with red and gold baubles. No one does shop windows like the French do shop windows, and no others compare with the shop windows of Paris at Christmastime.
This year, we're in Baltimore, celebrating the season with my family, remembering all the other parts of the world where we've found ourselves this special time of year in years past, and wondering where the coming New Year will lead us.
On behalf of the entire far-flung staff of Live and Invest Overseas, please accept our warm and heartfelt wishes for a Merry Christmas, wherever you're enjoying it this year, and our sincere hope that 2013 is the year your far-flung dreams of adventure overseas begin to come true.
All the best from our family to yours. We so much appreciate your coming along with us for this ride.
Kathleen Peddicord
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It was very early in the morning for them, but even if they'd been long awake, I doubt my news would have elicited a more enthusiastic response. As it was, my pre-dawn Baltimore-time announcement was met with near-silence. They'd met Lief, but only once. And, older now, I can imagine better what they must have been thinking. They were still reeling from the idea that Kaitlin and I were planning a move to another country a thousand miles away. Now I was remarrying, too? I can imagine now what they must have been thinking, but I can't tell you for sure, because they said little, not when I called to share my news and not over the coming few months as Lief and I engineered and then carried out the plans for both the marriage and the move.
Before we moved to Waterford, I'd lived my whole life in and around Baltimore, within a half-hour drive, more or less, of my parents and my sister. I saw them all at least once a week. Kaitlin saw them more often. A single working mom in those final few years before I left Baltimore, I counted heavily on my parents where Kaitlin was concerned. My dad, retired by that time, would race out the door on a moment's notice to collect her from school or dance class or soccer. I always knew he was but a phone call away. And my mom, sister, and I spent many Saturday afternoons poking around antique shops and painting, wall papering, and otherwise improving each other's houses.
My news that Kaitlin and I were not only moving out of town but also out of the country came as a shock, for my mother especially. My father quietly supported the idea, as he'd supported me my entire life to that point. But, to my mom, my relocation to Ireland was nothing more than a plan to separate her from her first grandchild. Kaitlin and I spent our final night in Baltimore at my parents' house. The next morning, Kaitlin lay in bed sobbing while my mother sat alongside her, crying, too. I had to pry Kaitlin out of the bed and carry her to the car. It was an inauspicious beginning for what I kept assuring everyone would be a fun and adventure-filled phase of our lives.
From Baltimore, Kaitlin and I flew to Chicago to meet up with Lief. Lief and I were married that weekend, and, a week later, we three plus Lief's mother boarded a plane for Istanbul, where we met up with Lief's father. From Turkey (our honeymoon...spent, yes, with my daughter and my new in-laws), I flew to Ireland. Our new little family spent that first Christmas in Baltimore, but, otherwise, we didn't see or, really, hear much from my parents until our next Baltimore visit the following Easter...when I discovered I was pregnant.
Lief and I hadn't planned to have a baby straight of the gate of our marriage. We hadn't planned not to have one either. The truth is, I don't think that the question had occurred to either one of us, in the midst of the rush of the events of the time.
I was very sick when pregnant with Kaitlin. Pregnant with Jackson 10 years later, I was much sicker. I discovered I was expecting in Baltimore then returned to Ireland and to the office, where I was able to continue working for another few weeks. The six months following were spent on the sofa of our rental cottage on the banks of Waterford's River Suir and in and out of Waterford Regional Hospital, where I became a regular patient, well known among the nursing staff of the maternity ward. The trouble was dehydration. I couldn't keep down enough fluids to keep from becoming dehydrated, and I couldn't be allowed to be dehydrated for any length of time for fear of consequences for the baby.
So every other week at least for six months, Lief was picking me up off the bathroom floor, where he found me often, and rushing me back to Waterford Regional, where I'd be hooked up to IV's until the doctors were convinced I was stable enough to return home. Two times that meant stays of longer than a week.
Those were long, lonely days. Lief would come by twice each day, once in the morning and again each evening, with Kaitlin. Otherwise, I had no visitors, as we hadn't been in Waterford long enough at this point to make any real friends. I wasn't up for friendly chats anyway. I'd lie in bed feeling too sick to move and worrying about Kaitlin, now not only far from her father, her grandparents, and her friends, but, I had to face it, for all intents and purposes, motherless, as well.
I'd worry about the business, too. We were barely established in our sublet offices, relying on new local staff with, still, no idea who we were or what we were doing, now all under the direction of Lief. Who else was going to keep the lights on and the magazine going out each month?
By this time, Lief had more or less abandoned his own plans. He'd focused, our first couple of months in Waterford, on pulling together the pieces to purchase Pouldrew House, the property he'd identified for his corporate retreat idea. But the volatile owner kept changing the terms of the sale, including the price (which he increased three times during the course of the negotiations), arbitrarily, and my new husband, I began to see, had little patience for unexpected change, especially in business dealings.
Finally, Lief's discussions with the owner of Pouldrew House's broke off entirely. About this time, coincidentally, we discovered I was pregnant and then, shortly thereafter, I became a regular resident of Waterford Regional Hospital. Suddenly, overnight, with no warning and no way or chance to prepare, Lief found himself the CEO of our emerging publishing operation. He'd ask me questions each time he came by to see me in the hospital, or, when I was back home, we'd review the day's events each evening over dinner, then Lief would return to the office to do his best to follow my instructions. Meantime, again, I was left with too much time to lie alone in bed thinking about everything I wasn't doing and how our lives seemed to have spun out of any orbit.
The public health care system in Ireland today is reputed to be a shambles. Friends in Waterford tell me about months-, even year-long waits to see doctors or to be scheduled for procedures. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed. I can only tell you about my experience, all those years ago, which was nothing like things are reported to be today.
My experience was limited to having a baby in Ireland, which I think may be akin to what it must have been like to have a baby in the United States in the 1950s. Fathers were hardly part of the picture, and I saw few men in the maternity ward other than the doctors. Visitors were mothers, sisters, girlfriends, not husbands. There were few private rooms and no birthing rooms. You had the baby in a delivery room and then were taken either to a private room if you'd reserved one or the open ward. Most of the women, pregnant, nursing, smoked. Everyone in Ireland smoked back then, including both the women in maternity and their visitors.
We patients in the big, open maternity ward, perhaps 12 or 14 of us at a time, were separated by curtains. Early each morning, the nurses would come through, greeting us formally and pulling back each curtain with an efficient swish. Then they'd serve us each a tray of tea and toast. The Irish believe with confidence, and, in fact, had persuaded me, by the time we left the island, to believe as well, that tea and toast can cure whatever ails you, from the stomach flu to a broken heart or a bad day in the office. Certainly, the nurses at Waterford Regional were convinced of the healing powers of their trays of tea and toast, which were served not only at 6 a.m. each day but also on demand around the clock and whenever the nurses felt like a cuppa' (which was shorthand for the tea, the tray, and the toast) was called for.
These nurses were caring but all business. Doctor's orders were followed strictly, working in bed was frowned upon (Lief tried a few times to bring me my laptop or some papers for my review, but the nurses intervened), and little time was wasted discussing how any of us was feeling. The Irish are a hearty lot, including their nurses and their women in the various stages of carrying and delivering babies. The Waterford Regional maternity ward was long on tea but short on sympathy.
This was just as well in my case, as I was feeling sorry enough for myself and, as the weeks passed, more than a little panicked. Finally, after my second hospital admission, I asked Lief to call my parents. We needed help. My mother arrived a week later, just after I'd been re-admitted to the hospital for the third time. She walked into the hospital ward as the nurses were serving lunch. On the menu that afternoon was roasted chicken and mash (as the Irish call mashed potatoes). My mother approached my bed as the nurse approached, as well, holding out my tray of chicken and potatoes.
The smell of the food sent my stomach reeling, as it nearly always did those days. My mother was quicker than the nurse. She grabbed the basin on my bedside side and held it in place for me while pushing the nurse and the offending roasted lunch as far away from my bed as possible. From that moment on, the focus was on managing this new life in Ireland, me, Lief, Kaitlin, and the coming dual-national baby, rather than questioning or resenting it.
My parents were on board...
Kathleen PeddicordContinuing Reading:
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We have porches, backyards, and driveways, and we fill every square inch of every room, every cupboard, and every storage shed with stuff. We keep two cars, lawn equipment, garden implements, boxes of old clothes, plastic tubs of mementos, hardly-ever-used appliances, the latest electronic gadgets, and on and on. We expand to fill the available space, and, typically, the space available is a lot.
Not so in Europe. Euro-city living isn't spacious. It's compact. In Paris, for example, you don't live in a house but an apartment. An apartment with no basement, no attic, no laundry room, no mud room, no family room, not a single walk-in closet, and maybe one or two bedrooms.
Under these circumstances, it doesn't take much to fill the available space. Europeans don't mind. They don't buy a new pair of shoes until the old ones wear out. They don't invest in a new coffee maker until the current one is kaput. Maybe they have a car, but more often they keep a bicycle. No need for a lawn mower or a weed whacker. No room for three or four televisions.
Our move from Waterford, Ireland, to Paris, France, took us from a 5,000-square-foot house on 6 acres to a 112-square-meter (1,200-square-foot) apartment. The adjustment, at first, was a shock. We'd sold much of our furniture and household belongings with our home in Waterford. Still, I had to do some creative organizing to fit our family of four into our seriously downsized quarters.
We squeezed in with not a square meter to spare. Sure, I would have welcomed a roomier closet in the master bedroom or a playroom for Jack. Honestly, though, after a while, we wondered how we'd ever occupied so much space as we had during our Irish country living adventure.
We found, over time, that we didn't miss the stuff we'd off-loaded during our move...and we didn't miss the area it had occupied either.
We learned to live not in our apartment, but in our city, as Europeans do. Within a 15-minute walk of our place were five parks. These were Jackson's backyard, where he met his playmates from school, where he and Lief played catch, and where we enjoyed picnics nearly every weekend the weather allowed. Within a 10-minute walk of our apartment were eight cafes. We'd stop for tea in the morning, a drink on the way home, or a snack after running errands on Saturday afternoon.
Neither did we miss our car. Paris is the world's most walkable city, and, when your feet give out, the Metro will take you anywhere you want to go for 1.70 euro.
We didn't miss yard work or spring-cleaning the attic. We didn't miss reorganizing closets to make room for yet more plastic tubs of things we couldn't possibly part with. It was an unexpected but liberating side effect of Euro-city life.
And it led to another unexpected benefit that Lief embraced whole-heartedly: We (well, I) spent less money. Some of our fixed costs increased, but our discretionary spending was reduced dramatically. I learned to buy with judgment, rather than on impulse. Every purchase had to pass the where-will-I-put-it test?
Formerly a hobby shopper, I had no choice but to reform.
Though, I admit, not completely.
Leaving Paris for Panama City, we decided to make our apartment there available for rental. When the French rental manager we engaged came to inventory the contents of the place, I walked her room to room, cupboard to cupboard. She grew increasingly quiet, finally noticeably unhappy.
"You will have to get rid of many of these things," she said at last. "These knick-knacks. All the extra kitchenware. All those CDs and DVDs.
"You have too much stuff. Some of it will have to go."
Kathleen PeddicordContinue Reading:
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