Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts

Friday, 18 May 2007

Several steps closer

We've spent the last couple of days sorting out all manner of things.

The following represents a tiny percentage of the stuff we've sorted out recently:
  • Put together this awesome spreadsheet to work out our budget - go XLS!
  • Got a new biometric passport for Ben (€185!) (!) ... !
  • Canceled various insurances - there is nothing the Dutch take more seriously than insurance
  • Switched our ADSL connection from a shared arrangement between XS4ALL and KPN (don't ask) to just XS4ALL - this allows us to cancel our phone line without buggering up the internets
  • Found a storage facility to put all our fancy stuff in
  • Got confused about various other insurances - are we legally obliged to continue them or not?
  • Scanned all our important documents and put them in a special place for safekeeping
  • Set up a postal forwarding system
  • Researched a lot of stuff about a lot of countries: nowhere in the world is safe, but everywhere looks brilliant
  • Put the car on the market - anyone want to buy Uncle Volv?
  • Bought a global SIM card from the nice people at www.gosim.com
  • Set up this blog and our special email address for while we're away: benanddebsyearoff (at) gmail (dot) com
When we first hatched this madcap scheme of ours - some time towards the end of 2006 - I had no idea how much paperwork and faff would be involved.

Now, several months wiser, I can tell you that as of today, we have processed precisely one metric ton of red tape.

red tape photo from hexod.us's flickrstream http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsnet/

Ben