This week we had a bit of drama with our apartment search.  Just as we were feeling confident in having a place to live and getting ready to buy furnishings, the rental company came back to us and told us we need to find a co-signer.  The reason being that we still do not have our residence permits.   After a few tense days of wondering if we would have to go back to square one in our apartment search, Melissa’s boss agreed to co-sign for us.  We turned in all the necessary paperwork on Thursday, and are now again just waiting for the contract in the mail.

I started our American taxes this week; it has been a very steep learning curve.  It feels like my previous years filings were kindergarten level and this year feels like I had to jump to PhD level. We have four sources of income, Obamacare tax, moving deductions, education credits, investment income, student loans, IRA contributions, and all the other stuff I researched that didn’t apply to us.  After a few days at it, I think I have it all figured out except the one paycheck Melissa received here in December.  It looks like it may be taxed here and in the US, so I have to do a little more research to figure out if that is correct.

Also this week, we realized you always have to read the fine print, even if it’s in French.  We got our first phone bill and were surprised to see roaming charges from our trip to Germany last weekend.  We thought we had free international data and texting, but after some reading (and a phone bill twice as expensive as it should be) we figured out it’s only free international data and texting from within Switzerland.

Lastly, this week I did some experimenting in the kitchen. We haven’t had good chocolate chip cookies since we’ve been here, so I decided why should the lack of an oven stand in the way of making some?  I made up the dough no problem, then went about figuring out how to fry them in a frying pan.  The first batch was getting burnt on the bottom, and still doughy on top, so I tried to flip them with a spatula, but ended up with a big mix of cookie dough instead.  Not being one to waste cookie dough I just mixed and flipped this until it seemed cooked through.  When my glob cooled off it didn’t look as pretty as a cookie, but it tasted like one so I decided to make the rest of the dough with this method.  Below are a few pictures of my fine tuned cookie-frying technique.  Maybe I have a future as a fancy French chef?