Venice: The final chapter

Last week I finally finished off my trip to Strasbourg, and today I bring you an even older voyage - my November 2010 trip to Venice. I've already posted photos of Venice in Venice Wanderings by Water and Land, Around St. Mark's Square, Signs of Venice, St. Marks - details, St Mark's Interior, and Acqua Alta! and written about the trip in Venice Day 1, Venice Day 2 (original) and Last Day in Venice. Yet, unbelievably, there's more! I think I mentioned in one of the posts that I took 846 photos in the few days I was there. I had a pretty exhausting time of it, and saw a lot, although there was still lots of stuff I didn't get to see that I would have liked to. Even so, I'm not sure whether I'd go back. I left satisfied with my trip, let's put it that way. As you can see from the titles, most of the photos I posted already were wandering around Venice and in and around St. Mark's.

So I will finish up with photos from the main "sights" I went to, starting with the Accademia Gallery, which I saw on Day 1:

One of a series of trompe l'oeil paintings hung high up in the gallery


I wish I knew who this unfinished painting was by. Amazing use of perspective.




I learnt on my tour of the Doge's Palace that this technique - tying someone's hands behind their back and stringing them up - was the favoured way of torturing prisoners


Old painting of gondolas on the canals


Detail of someone taking his widdle doggie for a boat ride

Afterwards, I went to the Scuola di San Rocco, where the ceilings are dripping with canvases by Tintoretto. I got told off for taking photos, but it was worth it. Magnificent.

I finished up my first full day in Venice with a vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal by night:





On Day 2 I took a tour of the Doge's Palace, visited St. Mark's Cathedral and did a bit of wandering around the Ghetto, all of which is covered in text and photos in earlier posts (although here's a couple of extra photos of the courtyard of the Doge's Palace).







However, I've yet to post any pictures of the inside of the La Fenice opera house, where I also took a (audioguide) tour that day. As I recall, they were pretty strict on taking photos, but here's a few I managed to sneak in:


The lobby


One of the reception rooms upstairs


The ceiling in the opera hall itself


Me reflected in the mirror in I suppose the royal box or something

A few more miscellaneous shots:

Becoming an auto-entrepreneur

There has been talk for months and months now about my doing some freelance work for a prestigious Parisian institution which shall remain nameless, which I've held back on blogging about since it dragged on and on with nothing happening for so long. However, it looks like thunderbirds are go, so I thought it might be helpful to some of my readers to talk about the process of becoming self-employed - an 'auto-entrepreneur' in French. Please note that this is my own personal experience, so while I've tried to put down the process to the best of my ability, you should probably seek further advice if you're thinking of taking the plunge yourself. Also, I have an EU passport, so I have no idea what hurdles you need to jump through if you are here on an existing visa or you want to move to France to set up a business.

I was initially quite reluctant to go ahead with this, due to a number of concerns - 1) I wasn't sure whether it was okay for me to take work on the side while remaining an employee, 2) I wasn't sure what it would do to my tax bill, and 3) I wasn't looking forward to jumping through administrative hoops that I would regard as a headache in my own country, let alone in a foreign language and in France, kingdom of bureaucracy.

To take those points in order: 1) legally, you are allowed to be an auto-entrepreneur and salarie, with the usual caveats about advising your employer and not entering into direct competition with them. I told my boss when this was first raised with me, and I never actually got a response to my email, so hopefully it's okay! I assume so, I'm not doing the same work or stealing clients (we don't have clients for starters) or anything like that.

2) The tax rate for people providing services is 21.3% of your gross revenue, and you can earn up to 32,600 euros per annum as an auto-entrepreneur. This covers all social security payments as well. You can choose to pay this online monthly or once a trimester. Everyone seems to say that this is absolutely ALL you have to pay as an auto-entrepreneur and you pay nothing if you don't make any money. *However* I ran a couple of simulations on the tax calculator at impots.gouv.fr and adding in the auto-entrepreneur money seemed to add a couple of hundred euros on to my overall tax bill (on top of the 21.3% which is paid separately), which isn't great news since I'm only getting 1000 euros for this job. After thinking about it, I decided to go forward with the job on the understanding that I might not really make much money out of it at all, basically because it will look good for me to have work for nameless Parisian institution on my CV, it will look good to have professional translation work on my CV, and you never know if something will come of it in terms of making professional contacts and potentially opening up new career options. When I get the chance, I'd like to go and talk to someone official and clear all this up, but in the meantime I'm planning on putting the money straight into my savings and holding on to it until tax time. Best case scenario, I'm doing something wrong on that calculator and it is only 21.3% and that's the end of the story, but if not, I'm prepared for that.

3) The most important thing you need to do is register online to create your enterprise and get the all-important SIREN/SIRET number, equivalent to your social security number as an individual. It's actually pretty quick and easy. I won't go through every step, but just some of the things I thought were important to highlight.

You will need (ideally) to have an electronic copy of your ID (e.g. passport scan). The first thing to do is say what the nature of your work will be - I ummed and ahhed a bit about this, since the work I will actually be doing, at least for this first job, is a bit difficult to define, but I opted for 'translator' as the simplest option. I later read somewhere (I think on a form I got sent in the mail) that this information was for statistical purposes only, so don't worry too much. This is classed as an 'activite liberale', which I think does make a difference to your tax rate.

Unfortunately, this next bit got cut off on my print-out of my declaration, but I'm pretty sure where it asks about the regime micro fiscal (BIC or special BNC) I ticked yes. Whichever option I ticked, it is meant to mean that you can pay all your taxes and charges when you do your monthly or trimestrial declaration, so there *should* be nothing left over to surprise you at the end of the tax year.

I think those are the main things I needed help with when filling out the declaration, the rest should be more or less straightforward if you speak French. You also have to pick a new organisme d'assurance maladie, although you still keep the old one as a salarie. I really don't know how the relationship between the two works - it still confuses me that everyone isn't just on the same system to begin with. It says there is no difference to your charges etc. depending on which organisme you choose so I just googled and picked one with an office in Tours, since I prefer dealing with people face-to-face if possible.

After I submitted my form, it only took a week or two for me to receive the notification that they had created my enterprise! Since then, mail has been rolling in about different aspects of being an auto-entrepreneur (plus I am now on the mailing list of every telecommunications company etc. in France), which I haven't really had time to look at. And by "I haven't had time" I mean "I've been too lazy to". It is quite funny getting stuff in the post directed to 'le dirigeant' etc.

Once things were moving forward with the SIREN/SIRET numbers, I had to provide a bill for my services. I followed a model on this website, with some obvious adjustments due to the nature of the work. Note the line telling you that you cannot charge TVA as an auto-entrepreneur! Because I was billing for a mixture of translation and other services, I divided it into a rate per word for the translation and a rate per hour for the rest.

I will put what I'm charging on here since I think it can be hard, especially as expats, to get this sort of information. For this job, I charged 20 centimes per word for translation, and 36 euro per hour gross for my other work (basically liaison work with "clients" and updating the website - I don't want to get too specific on what/who I'm working for on the interwebs). I had actually drawn up a bill at 10 centimes and 20 euro, which I showed to a colleague who basically told me to hike my prices. I have seen rates for translation quoted online at around 7-15 centimes per word, so I initially went for 10 since I'm not a qualified translator or anything. It was good for me to get some advice on this as I tend to be a bit timid and to under-value myself, so sometimes it is good to get someone else to come in and tell you that you're pitching too low.

The translation work I am doing is in a quite specialised domain and intended for an academic audience, so arguably it should be charged at a higher rate. I think so far on average my rate for translation is working out at around about 50 euros an hour, although obviously that's subject to variation based on the complexity of the text to be translated. I had some further discussion with colleagues who have hired translators for similar work in the past, and this seems roughly commensurate with what they have been willing to pay. I don't know how competitive one would be at this rate out in the market, but all things considered, I think it's a fair rate. However, I submitted my facture right before Christmas, so I actually haven't got any word back on that yet!

If anyone is interested, I'll try to keep you updated on any developments as I get to grips with things myself (it's still all a bit new and scary to be honest) and any feedback on any aspect of the process, working for yourself, making contacts, translating, etc. etc. is welcome!

Strasbourg: Continued

I visited Strasbourg way back in July, and I blogged 'Day 1' and then with the whole flatmare (see what I did there) I never actually got round to blogging the rest of my trip. Which is a shame, because I see this blog as much as a record for myself as a way to communicate with others. And, predictably, I've now forgotten a lot of the details of what I did and saw. Apart from the cathedral, which I blogged about already, I remember blazing hot weather, visiting a bunch of different museums, eating a lot of yummy Alsatian food (my chicken thigh and spaetzle on my last day in town were a real standout), and the fabulous painted church I went to also on my last day.

Reaching back through the mists of time, I think my weekend went something like this: Day 1, arrive about midday, eat choucroute, wander around Petit France a bit and see the cathedral. Day 2, visit la Musee de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame, which focuses particularly on medieval and Renaissance art, including the originals of sculptures and stained glass from the cathedral and other churches. I also went to the Fine Arts museum, and because you got a ticket for all the museums in the city, I ended up taking a quick look in the museum of the history of Strasbourg and in the museum of Alsatian life. I think I did some of these on the Sunday and some the next day. I don't really remember much about any of these museums, oops! The Alsatian one was mostly full of folk art and little bits and pieces from the lives of ordinary people, and was in a cool old house with a courtyard inside. The history museum was a bit disappointing since, bizarrely, it ended before the whole back-and-forth between France and Germany, which was really what I was interested in finding out about in the first place. Not sure if there were some rooms closed or that I just missed, because that seems like a very strange choice. On my last day, I got up bright and early and climbed to the top of the cathedral. I was lucky to get a great view and because I was up there first thing, I got the chance to take some photos by myself, before a group of annoying schoolkids came along. I also went to Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Protestant church, built from 1250-1320, which is an absolute must-see for anyone going to Strasbourg. I had taken a few notes off the internet of stuff to see before I left, and then I think I left them at home, so I only had a vague idea that I had noted down to go to this church, but no idea why or if it really was especially worth seeing. So glad I did go, because it was absolutely glorious. Really wonderful polychrome painting everywhere (kind of ironic that it's the Protestant church), and almost bereft of tourists, so I was really able to enjoy it.

Thinking back on my trip and looking through my photos, I really did enjoy Strasbourg. Totally different from other areas of France, in terms of the architecture, food, culture etc. but a really lovely place which I would definitely recommend. At the time, I really needed the break as well, seeing that it came just days after finding out about G not paying the rent etc.

Views from the cathedral roof
You can really get a good sense of the distinctive Strasbourg architecture from on high


I think this is the Palais Rohan, which houses the fine arts museum


A statue of a king with money on his hat, for some reason




I love that this guy is looking up towards the top of the tower he's attached to/shading his eyes from the sun. I'll make the comment I always make about how human the Middle Ages were, contrary to the popular impression.




There was all sorts of carved graffiti left by visitors over the years on the cathedral roof. I liked this one from a Russian army officer, in the service of "All the Russias", as they say

What's the bet this "Pritish" officer got some German-speakers to carve this for him? Ha ha! I reckon his name was probably "Robertson", not "Ropertson" as well!



Inside the cathedral, the astronomical clock


A detail of the clock - it was Monday too, very impressive!

Out and about in Strasbourg


At first I wondered what this was meant to be a photo of. And then I saw the umbrella hats.


From memory, this sounded quite different on the menu, but it was quite nice. The central bit is a sort of soft pasta/dumpling rolled up with a meat-loaf type thing. I liked the small portion of choucroute as well, as opposed to my absolutely massive serving (choucroute garnie) for lunch the day before.

The caption says that in the Middle Ages, people sentenced to death by drowning, especially people who killed their fathers or committed infanticide (yeah, feminism at work) were shut in cages and thrown in the water on this spot. What was I just saying about the humanity of the Middle Ages?


Views of the canals and some buildings I liked











Museums

Why I oughta! The plague-ridden, demon-visited guy looks quite relaxed, by contrast. Nice insouciant ankle-cross.

Cute sign for the Musee alsacien. I wonder why it's not Musee alsacienne??


Aw, no idea what's going on here but these look like cute little doggies trying to help a brother out rather than ravenous beasts going for blood.

I can only imagine this was a moment of self-loathing, homophobic rage

A painting by Gustave Dore! I didn't even know he did real paintings. I just looked him up, and he was actually born in Strasbourg.

One of a series of four paintings of the seasons using fruit and veg. I wonder if it's by Giuseppe Arcimboldo or an imitator?


Eek! "Two deceased lovers" according to the caption. I wonder if they were lovers of the naughty kind, to receive this fate, or if it's just one of the usual "memento mori" type paintings. In case you can't see, the woman has a toad on her bits!

Saint Pierre le jeune church

My photos don't do justice to this place at all, it really is lovely!


The outside of the church reflected in a modern building

Fresco of the crucifixion, with the good thief on Jesus' right (from his perspective) getting his soul scooped up by an angel, whereas the bad thief gets his snatched by a devil


Detail of the bad thief

Chapel inside the church. I think that thing hanging from the ceiling is the top of the baptismal font


Interior of the church


Detail of a fresco on the back wall


A fresco representing different nations - here, Aragon and Castile plus another one I can't read


A fresco showing the whipping of Christ


The rood screen and organ. Fun fact, "rood" is the Old English word for cross :) Who said studying Old English (one class thereof) at university would be a wasted effort?

Bonne année 2012!

For those of you demanding crazy stories of my wild doings on New Years Eve, I give you:


Yes, I defrosted the frozen fridge of doom! Actually not on New Years Eve, but it is the single most exciting thing I have done in a long time! I had been valiantly trying to eat everything in it so I could unplug it before I went away, but I couldn't eat fast enough (and I wasn't exactly going to drink bottles of mayonnaise and so forth) and I also had doubts about leaving it to defrost all over my flat, so I left it plugged in but decided it needed tackling regardless when I got back. At first, I just unplugged it and wandered off for a bit, but upon closer inspection it became clear that it wasn't going to just melt by itself in a hurry. So I developed a system of throwing saucepan-fulls of hot water on it, scraping at the ice with a ladle and then gathering the ice out of the bottom of the fridge and melting it in the sink.

It took about an hour of hard work before the remaining ice came off in a few big sheets. So bear in mind, this is AFTER melting about half of it:



It then took about another hour to give the fridge a thorough cleaning, including all the trays. It actually was pretty clean, considering I only got it in August, but it was a good opportunity to do it. So, New Years Resolution? Keep my beady eye firmly fixed on any signs that the Frozen Fridge of Doom is making a comeback!

Other than that, I don't really want to call it a resolution, but I went to the gym on Friday, Saturday and today. Not New Year's Day since it was closed and I was a little bit hungover, but still, good going! I read something recently by a guy whose resolution *last* year was to work out every day and he made the argument that it was actually easier to stick to, because you didn't fall in the trap of thinking "I have to go three times this week, so I won't today, and I won't tomorrow, but I'll definitely, definitely catch up later this week" and then falling off the wagon. I realise a lot of people say the exact opposite, that you shouldn't try to set these sorts of "extreme" goals, but it made a lot of sense to me. So, I might not make it to the gym every single day, but I'm going to try and make sure I get at least 3o minutes' exercise every day (which is actually not really a change from now) but that I really do also make sure I'm down at the gym as often as possible.