I am retiring in about a year.
I met a woman from the Netherlands a few years ago, and we hit it off real well. So well, that I am going to retire there.
Yes, I have some stuff to straighten out with my passport, but luckily I have a decent retirement, so I will finally get married, and "settle down." At like 63!
I have been to the Netherlands twice already, and find that things are so much better there than they are here.
Well, Amsterdam and Rotterdam and other big cities are expensive, but in the middle, where she lives, Wageningen, is quite nice, and costs are about what we pay here. Yes gas is more expensive, but health insurance costs about 1/5 what it costs here, and there is no co-pay (except if you have to stay at the hospital), many drugs are included in your insurance. They also have a great public transportation system, and people bike everywhere. The country is as flat as a pancake. 90% of the folks speak English, but Dutch is not too hard. It is something in between English and German.
There are much more reasonable cultural things to do there. For instance, there is a thing called a "Museumcart" or Museum card, which you pay 50 euros a year for, and you can get into most of the museums there. There are many. Art, history, and others. And they are mostly within an hour's train ride away, if not less. They say that they like to have this, because it encourages people to go to the museums, even if it's just to see a limited engagement exhibit on their lunch hour.
Most of the stores are in the city center, which is about a 15 minute walk from the house. On Wednesdays and Saturdays they have a market in the city center where they sell food, clothing, and all sorts of other things.
Internet access is cheap and fast. 30-40 euros a month for cable tv and 100-200MBps internet! I think for another 10 or 20 euros you can get cellphone service too. And there is wi-fi on the trains and buses too.
So it was sort of a miracle, when I met Inge. I met a woman who I finally know wants to be my partner in life, and she lives in a great little country.
PS- There's a "twilight zone" thing going on here too. I live on the only road named Creek Locks Road on the planet. It is on the old Delaware and Hudson Canal, near Kingston, NY. The first settlers here in the 1660s were the Van Wagens, who were from Wageningen. I nearly flipped out when I stumbled across this bit of history. There is a great Dutch influence here in NY's first Capital, Kingston, and a lot of history, all over Ulster County. It is very strange that I am going back to where the first settlers here were from though.
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Aren't we the lucky ones to have her as our nominee.
besides my Tea Party Dad introduced me to Michael with Roger & Me 
