I probably should post something here but it looks like I’m taking a little break from logging. I hardly take photos anymore and I’m tired of writing the same things over and over, illustrated by a lousy point-and-shoot photo.

My life is pretty boring at the moment, I’m not progressing much with the projects that I should have finished some time ago, there are some health issues but for the rest it’s pretty much the same as it was last year or the year before that.

L’histoire se repète.

Nine months ago, in January, I was finally eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship. To be able to apply you need to have been exactly 3 years (1,095 days) physically in Canada, and since I was quite often in the Netherlands and the US after my immigration, it took some months after my 3 year anniversary for me to be eligible.

I filled out all the forms, paid a fee, made special pictures and wanted to send it off. The forms included a checklist and I duly checked all the items before putting them in the envelope.

Everything was there.

But wait, one of the items on the checklist said AND not OR.
So I needed two items of paperwork for that checkbox and I only had one.

The paper I was missing was my Record of Landing, a big, legal sized, piece of paper that they stapled into my passport when I arrived in Canada. They told me that I didn’t need that paper anymore because it was going to be replaced by a new, wallet-sized, Permanent Resident Card, that I had to buy for $100. That card indeed was sent to me a couple of months later and I removed the crumpled Record of Landing from my passport. I now was officially in Canada I thought, with a shiny ID-card with my photo on it.

But it turned out I really need that piece of paper, and that the Permanent Resident Card replacement is only for travel purposes, even though it is issued by the same organization that does the citizenship procedure, and there is no way I could have received that Permanent Resident Card without a Record of Landing.

So I paid another 30$ to get a duplicate Record of Landing. I filled out an application form and mailed it to the Citizenship and Immigration office in Montréal that handles duplicate forms.

And then the waiting began. After 2 months, in March, I thought it was taking an awful long time to make me a copy of a form so I call. They tell me that the processing time for duplicate forms is now 4 months, so I just have to wait.

After 5 months I get a letter. Ah, finally, my Record of Landing has arrived!
Nope, it is only a letter saying that my file has been sent to another office in Ottawa and the processing time will be 5 months.

I must say, they are quite fast in Ottawa, because it only took them 4 months to make me a photocopy of my Record of Landing and mail it to me. Tomorrow I’m going to make a photocopy of the photocopy and then I can finally sent my application to become a citizen of this fine country. A country were all official documents/applications/forms seems to be done on paper, and everything has to be processed by humans because none of the forms is machine readable. I fill out the forms on my computer and then I have to print them (and of course Adobe Acrobat spits out 5 copies) and someone on the other end has to enter all my info into another computer. This whole thing can be so much more efficient. It would save so much time and money. Why is Canada a third world country when it comes to bureaucracy?

When I looked first into this procedure, when I just had arrived in Canada, the processing time to become a Canadian citizen was 10 months. By the time I was eligible it was already 12 months, and now it is 15 months. So maybe in March 2009 I will become a Canadian citizen. And maybe not. Watch this space. Patiently.

We try to find access to the west side of “our” lake. This view is from a neighbouring hill, but steep cliffs prevent us from descending. Later I (and Poupoune) manage to bushwack around the hill, but it certainly isn’t an easy approach. I think I’ll hack a path towards the lake next year and put up a sign “lake access”, so the path gets really defined when many people are using it.

All the shoreline on the right of this photo will soon be developed for rich people. For the land alone the developer asks already around 300,000 dollars per plot, and your architectural plans have to be okayed by a commission before you can buy. Not for us mere mortals. And even if we had the money we wouldn’t want to live in an enclave of rich people. Why can’t they make cheap apartments near lakes?

I should be in the Netherlands today, but I’m not. I had a ticket for a flight to Europe last night, but I didn’t use it.

During the past 6 years, I always bought return tickets from the Netherlands to Montréal. In the beginning because I just went for several weeks to several months to visit Alison. And when I finally immigrated to Canada, 4 years ago exactly, I didn’t buy a single ticket. The reason is that a single ticket is actually more expensive than a return ticket. To give you an example, I can fly next week from Amsterdam to Montréal and back two weeks later for EUR 403. If I book a single ticket however, the cheapest flight will cost me EUR 1049. That’s more than twice the price for half of the product. Explain that to me. It’s like if you go to the grocery store and 1 loaf of bread is more expensive than two loaves of bread. It’s absurd and some economic watchdog should take measures to correct this, but that’s a whole different rant.

So I always, during the past years, bought return tickets. Usually with British Airways and those tickets were valid for a year and you had to pay a certain
fee (100 USD) if you wanted to change the return date. But, I discovered a loophole. Those tickets are valid for a year, but you can’t actually book your return a year ahead. The computer only “knows” about dates 10 months in the future. So I had my travel agent call BA and ask if I could change my return date for free because I couldn’t book it yet. That was very convenient, an open ticket for a low price. Later they closed that loophole and I could only change the date to a date after those initial 10 months but then I just paid the fee. Which I did a couple of times, when my mother was severely ill and I decided on short notice to visit her.

Last December, after such a surprise visit, all flights back to Montréal were fully booked and the remaining seats very expensive. So, suggested by my sister, I booked my flight from a city in Germany that is actually closer to my mother’s home that the airport of Amsterdam. There was room on that plane, I could just be on time here for Christmas evening and the price, although high was not unreasonable. As a return date I put 11 September 2007, because that was the last date the computer would let me, and easy to remember. I actually feared I would have to go back much earlier, because my mother’s health situation at the time was very precarious. (She seems to be doing much better now, thanks for asking.)

So a couple of weeks ago I foresaw that I couldn’t make it on 11 September because I was just too busy with all those projects here, that needed to be finished. So I called Air France to change the return date on my ticket and fell from one surprise into another. The first person told me I couldn’t change my ticket at all. I looked at the ticket and there it was clearly marked that I could change the date for a fee of EUR 150 (yes, those penalties did increase over the past years). Yes sir, but I see here that your ticket is only valid for 9 months. What? They now sell tickets for 9 months. And they don’t advertise that in any way when you book it. She then transferred me to another person who said that OK, even though I couldn’t officially change my ticket they would make an exception. My heart rated lowered instantly. Because the new ticket was more expensive I only had to pay a surcharge. A surcharge of 3400 EUR. Yes, you read that correctly, thirty! four! hundred! fucking Euros. That’s almost 5000 Canadian (or American) dollars. My hearth rate went up a couple of notches and I started laughing uncontrollably. “Vous faites un blague madame, n’est pas?”, but no, she wasn’t the type of person that made jokes, probably never had. The only thing I could do was hang up and stare at my computer screen in disbelief.

Just to put the absurdity of that amount in perspective: A return ticket Montréal-Dusseldorf with Air France on December 4th to December 24th would cost me EUR 3,245.64. Of course that would be a Business class ticket, since a normal economy ticket would only cost EUR 717. That is with Air France, I could have a direct flight with KLM to Amsterdam on the same dates for only EUR 578…

And these prices are for flights from Canada to Europe and those flights are always more expensive than if you fly from Europe to Canada. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea.

So now you know why there was an empty seat on flight AF 347 last night.

I had to restrain myself from going to the the airport yesterday, checking in an old suitcase, and then just leave the airport and let them have to remove the suitcase from the cargo bay after they found out I wasn’t showing up. That would have caused a nice delay. But with all the no-fly lists these days I figured out that was probably not a smart thing to do. Even though I actually was in the neighbourhood of the airport at the time.

Just hearing my name (that nobody can pronounce here, neither English nor French speakers) over the intercom would have been worth it.

“Last call for Mr. …. Rash-n-ders on flight Air France 347.
Mr. Rash-n-ders, please head to gate B34 immediately or your luggage will be offloaded.”

The last couple of days I told Linde that there is not much crime here ó after which she promptly forgot to close the guestroom window when she went away.

But I spoke too soon, because last night someone smashed in my car window. He (let’s assume it wasn’t a she) only stole a $40 iPod charger, and cut the cord that went into the cassette player, but the damage done was much bigger. The back window is also scratched, and is loose in it’s fitting, so I might need to replace that as well.

I made a tour along the alley and at least three more cars had smashed windows. I talked to one of the owners and she had 10 CDs stolen. It looks very much like a junkie who needed easy money.

So now I have to go to the police to file a report, and to the car window company to ask for a quote. I have a deductible for the insurance, so it probably won’t be worth it to claim the damage. Grrrr.

Update: Police rapport filed (they even helped me 10 minutes before their official opening time). Window will be replaced today. Total replacement cost 550$.

Update 2: I just noticed that the thief also stole a packet of dropjes (Dutch liquorice) that I kept in the car. And the window replacement guys found a ring, that isn’t mine nor Alison’s so might have been of the thief. He has big fingers and a bad taste in jewellery.

Our nice tranquil lake, with boats nor cottages, surrounded by pristine forests, dotted with majestic boulders, with its beautiful sandy beaches, its coconut palms…

Okay, I’m carried away a bit. But our very nice secret lake, an hour from Montréal but almost never frequented by any other living creature than deer, moose and otter… Oops, there I go again. Anyway, that lake is going to be spoiled. A developer lay its filthy hands on it and now he’s going to build cottages around it.

We went there today and found big signs with “Domaine Privé” and “Défense de circuler”. We ignored them for now, since it’s construction holiday and also to investigate. The lake is just as pristine as ever, but there was doom in the air. The doom of big trucks, by and builders coming in, to build monstrous houses. (For some reason people who can afford a second home in the Laurentians have no taste.) Followed by loggers on a mission to create lake views for the owners by logging all the trees between the lake and said houses.

It’s only weeks before they put big steel fences around it and declare it a real No-go area.

So I’m going to spill the secret and give you all detailed instructions how to get there. Rent a car and enjoy this really nice lake while you still can get in, albeit by ignoring some signs. If somebody tells you to go away tell them you come here for years and nobody ever told you to go away. They probably tell you that things have changed but I bet you can stay for the day if you tell them you came all the way from Montréal.

How to get there

First locate the lake on this Google Maps map. Follow the included driving instructions from highway 15 North to the parking area in Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard.

From there:

• Park your car at the parking area on the Chemin de Val de Loire. It’s a rather big parking, for around 20 cars (so all readers of loglog can go at once; plan car-pooling in the comments), at the North side of the street, on the map above at the letter D (of “De-Loire”), just right of Lac Morgan.
• Get out of the car, pack your things (sunscreen!) and enter the area by going through the big gate at the east side of the parking lot.
• Turn left (NW) and follow the wide path. At a crossing there is a small cabin for cross-country skiers (there are not many of those around) and an orange plastic barrier.
• Ignore the signs, walk around the barrier and continue on the narrowing path. Enjoy the nice ferns at both sides of the trail.
• Cross a almost destroyed bridge (I bet one of those fat builders tried to cross) over a small stream.
• You now approach an open area, with on your left a pumping station for the municipal water supply of Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard since our lake is their main reservoir. To the right you see the newly constructed road that leads to the new cottages, surrounded by big boulders.
• Continue straight ahead, ignore another sign and follow the slightly sloping gravel road.
• We’re almost there now. After a slight bend you’re at the highest point of the road and the magnificent “Lac de la Cabane” is right in front of you.
• Follow the road 100 metres and there is the beach. Soon it will be a private beach, no longer accessible by us mere mortals, without hundreds of thousands of disposable dollars.
• If you follow the path that starts at the other side of the beach you can go to a nice private rock.
• A few hundred metres from the beach there is a large boulder, slightly hidden under the foliage.
• Just before it is a small path passing on the left side of the boulder, and leading to a magnificent flat boulder that is an excellent starting point for a nice refreshing swim in the crystal clear (the whole village is drinking it) water. Clothes are entirely optional. A pillow or mattress might come handy however, since the rock is quite rough on your bum/back.
• Enjoy your stay, don’t get sunburned, and please leave only your footprints.

Lakes should be public and not private. They’re part of the land that our ancestors stole from the natives. Well, maybe not my ancestors exactly, but you get my point.

If you don’t get my point you can always go to the developer’s site and buy one of the lots and have your dream house built. Be quick, they’re going fast. If you do, please invite me over once in a while. In return I can do some maintenance, I’m quite good at that. Then at least I can lay my eyes on “our” lake once in a while.

If you have access to other lakes please do not hesitate to email me.

This day a year ago we bought our house. Today is also the hearing in our rent-increase-case at the Régie du Logement. I amassed all the paperwork I needed to proof that the rent increase is justified and even dug up my dusty briefcase from a moving box in the basement. I was prepared.

The meeting was a disaster. One of our tenants showed up in person and started a litany on how bad the shape of their apartment was. She forgot to mention that I actually spend the most time fixing their apartment. Even though the judge told her to shut up since this hearing was not about that it set the tone. I was the evil landlord and the judge was clearly against me. She didn’t buy my argument that we should be able to include the cost we made installing an alarm system, since it lowered our insurance premium. She also didn’t want to look at the amount we actually pay for the insurance but copied the amount from the policy, which didn’t include 250 dollars tax and service charges.

I also needed additional documentation on the amount of taxes the previous owner paid, and gave me two weeks to cough up those documents.

One positive point: Our tenants probably have to to pay the cost of the review by the Régie.

I left quite discouraged but fortunately after a while that feeling went away. We’ll see what the outcome will be, and how much we can actually raise the rents.

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Midden in de nacht om vier uur wordt ik gewekt door een drup. En nog een drup. En nog een heleboel meer drups. Het gedrup komt van onze bovenburen, dwars door ons plafond heen, in zowel de keuken als de slaapkamer. met mijn slaapdronken hoofd zet ik er emmers onder, en wat bandhandoekken om het geluid te dempen. maar het wordt al snel minder en ik besluit om de bovenburen maar niet wakker te maken. Ik vrees dat hun wasmachine het ergens intern heeft begeven en dat het water dat in de trommel zat nu naar beneden is gelekt.

Ik wil niet teveel klagen bij onze nieuwe bovenburen, want we klagen al genoeg. Ze zijn namelijk nogal luidruchtig, en zeker in vergelijking met de vorige bewoner, die nooit thuis was.

En parket is leuk, maar met drie mensen waarvan een klein kind boven je hoofd met een parketvloer is niet alles. En ze hebben een ventilator die ongelofelijke trillingen veroorzaakt en me al een paar nachten heeft wakker gehouden. En een luide televisie, net boven onze slaapkamer.

De volgende dag toch maar even gemeld, en het was gewoon de afvoerslang die uit de gootsteen was geglipt. Ik hoop dat dat nooit gebeurt als het ding aan het pompen is en het om een grotere hoeveelheid water gaat. Want ik weet zeker dat ze niet zijn verzekerd. Verzekeren is namelijk iets typisch nederlands, daar doet men hier niet zo aan. Het is dan ook vreselijk duur, wat natuurlijk mede komt doordat niet iedereen is verzekerd. Een inboedelverzekering kost hier drie keer zoveel als in nederland. Ik moet er ook nog eentje afsluiten, maar ik stel dat steeds maar uit. Ach, de huizen zijn hier grotendeels van hout, de ramen staan de hele dag open, de deuren zijn niet op slot, wat kan ons nou eigenlijk gebeuren?