Majority of my readers would most likely not know Mottingham. Do you mean Nottingham, of Robin Hood fame?… Native Londoners may recognize the name of the village but give me a quizzical look as to why I would choose to highlight a rather nondescript location instead of one of hundreds of places that are famous
Due to the quirks of the UK tax calendar that I described in the past, having not lived in the country for four and a half years, I would be due to file a tax return for only the third fiscal year in which I have had zero UK income this coming January. Thankfully, Her
Turns out that even after not having lived in the UK for two and a half years and not having a single penny of UK-taxable income to my name, I still owe it to Her Majesty Revenue and Customs to fill out the tax return for the most recent fiscal year. Failure to do so
An espresso at a European café or even a restaurant is likely to cost €2. Maybe, €2.50. If the restaurant is upscale, it could go for as much as €3.50. But paying more than that for a shot of espresso happens only at the brazenly overpriced locations, such as Venice’s Piazza San Marco. The other
In the middle of the night, needing to put gas in my car, I ended up paying over $4 per gallon for the first time that I can recall. I was unpleasantly bothered by that fact. Rewind a few years back, and I used to pay nearly £5 per gallon while living in the UK.
I’ve been back in the States and off UK payroll for nearly a year and a half. But because of the quirks of the UK taxation calendar, I ended up having had worked part of the 2009-10 tax year in the UK, for which the returns were due this coming Monday. I sat down today
One of the things that we always liked the least in Europe is the intent of people in the service sector to have lives outside of their shops. What do you mean, you are closed for three hours in the middle of the day? Are you so dumb as to lose potential customers by madly
Yep, 15 minutes, give or take. January 31, 2010, is the deadline for filing UK taxes for fiscal year 2008-09, and I repeated the self-assessment process that I first mentioned here. This time, I literally typed in three different amounts provided to me on the British equivalent of W-2 form (called P60) and one other
Having spent a large portion of the long weekend behind the wheel of a car, I am reminded of an old problem I have with American drivers. (I reflected on it in passing in this post.) Left lane is for passing, not for cruising. I don’t care that your speed is marginally faster than that
How the perspective changes with just a bit of time… Precisely two years ago, while describing my preparations for the driving test for a UK license, I noted my annoyance with the speed limits treatment in England. The absence of clearly posted limits on any road where the “national speed limit” was in effect required
Burlaki.com finally got around to interviewing the youngest member of the family on her impressions and feelings regarding Europe and coming back to America. In the practically unedited words of a 9-year-old… Burlaki [back] on the Hudson: Are you happy to be back in America? Kimmy: Kind of… I miss London, but I’m also happy
Natasha realized the she forgot to mention one other thing she misses from England in her little essay. It is not an obvious point either: Charity shops. Where we lived in Southeast London, seemingly every other town had at least one of these, selling everything from second-hand clothes to souvenirs to books and CDs. What’s
Some two years ago, I wrote a cost comparison entry for basic UK-vs-US costs. It was based on generalizations rather than some hard data, but I hope it was useful for someone. Having now been back in the States for a few months, I am probably due an updated treatise on the subject. And, predictably,
Today’s post was penned by my lovely wife. Hers in the next entry in a small feature of everyone in the family discussing their feelings on having lived in England and returning to the States. The previous post in the series can be found here. ——————- Travel was number one on our list of the
A person decides to go for a week-long trip to Paris with her teenage daughter. Neither of them have travelled much before, especially to Europe, and they’ve never been to France. Neither of them is much interested in history, art or architecture. They picked Paris as a holiday destination because, well, it is one of
I was checking the score of the last night’s MNF game on ESPN, when I came across Chris Berman’s “Fastest 3 minutes in Sports”. Introducing the annual NFL game played in London, he made the frequent mistake of misidentifying one of the iconic city landmarks. People! Let’s get this straight! This is not the London
It took me a while to follow up on Geo’s excellent suggestion, but I finally started to sit down with members of my family to get their thoughts on living in England and being back in America. First up, the teen. Burlaki [back] on the Hudson: So, what did you like the most about England?
Our weekends have gotten back to what we consider “normal” for us very quickly upon repatriation. A dinner outing with parents. An idle get-together with friends by the pool. A mixed kids-and-adults party in celebration of some occasion. We have not had a single Saturday or Sunday in the last month where we were not
A quick observation that I cannot properly quantify: We’ve been struck over the last few days how much more commercial time there is on American TV as compared to the channels we watched in England. It feels as if every 6-7 minutes there is a 3-4 minute commercial break. Our recollections of the British TV
For a casual cell-phone user, the cost of the service in Britain is a proven expense that is considerably lower than here in the US. The difference is in the treatment of incoming minutes. In UK, they are free. On a pay-as-you-go scheme, one conceivably can have zero balance on their account, yet use their