immigrants, expatriates, longterm residents in a foreign land, whatever you want to be called

ive no idea about it nor how youd measure or compare but fair enough

Born in the States, always lived in the States, would be glad to leave the States. (but no opportunity)

and like even apart from antisemitism, as much as I like the idea of moving to the Berlin my grandparents had to leave on some level, I don't speak German and what would I even do there?

you know what i always say, 'wherever you go, there you are'

ive no idea about it nor how youd measure or compare but fair enough

― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Monday, March 4, 2019 2:50 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's plenty of data out there regarding these things

Option 3

But my standards are too high for anywhere.

I am situated among the least interesting of the choices presented. I have never lived outside the USA and for a large variety of reasons I cannot see myself living elsewhere. Much as I acknowledge the problems and shortcomings of my country, I am so thoroughly embedded in it that leaving would be incredibly impractical, not to mention that in any other country on earth I would remain an American by temperament, and therefore somewhat of an alien being in my new country, until my death. Even in Canada.

silby, you would do the ~same things you do in the US except in Berlin. Nothing is permanent; you could always come back to the US. I like living in different places. I like being home but I like to see different things until they become familiar.

I said a while ago I’d never leave but I don’t know anymore. I couldn’t do it while my parents are still alive and they’re not even at retirement age yet.

there's plenty of data out there regarding these things

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 4 March 2019 22:57 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure didnt i ask the poster directly to find out their thinking didn't i. theres data on everything proving everything.

anyway anyone who can afford it should come to dublin for a while anyway. nb i havent read the data

I like Dublin. It's gotten really pricey though, right? (I haven't been in a while).

Would i be allowes to immigrate there? I am fourth gen but very nice.

born in america, live in america, consider "countries" to be a quaint 19th century solution to tribalism that is past its sell-by date

its excruciating costwise but the craic is mighty

You can find craic anywhere though tbh.

tisnt the same shtop

... outside of parts of Southern England that is.

I suppose Bloom himself was a Jew come to think of it

not much craic in vancouver tbh, plenty of crack mind

Born in Malaysia, lived four years in Singapore, six years in Australia, and now back in Malaysia.

It feels like home now - there isn't anywhere else with better food imo (except maybe Japan). But wouldn't say no to leaving again if the right opportunity came up.

I like being home but I like to see different things until they become familiar.\
otm x1000
i could stand for a little more of this in my life, but for now. i am happy to be going on a trip soon
i moved away from the place where i was born/grew up when i was 18 (with various stints at "home" but never longer than 6 mo and ending at the age of 22) and have not regretted it. i lived internationally briefly and the experience changed my life forever, in a good way. living away from the place where i grew up has been overall net positive experience for me. can't imagine having stayed tbh.

feel like i squandered the chance to live in europe when i had the chance tbh

i live in my native country or the country of my birth and i love certain aspects of it but will never rule out leaving

Like if the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ever secedes to Canada I'll be there, glorious and free

Or like if I can get a good job in NZ

one trend i see in a lot of people who come here is a grass-is-greener outlook,
which i can sympathize with, since you want to be optimistic when you make
such a big move.

but a lot of them are under the impression that moving is a solution in and of
itself; that it will fix a lot of their problems, and they come here to realize that's
not really how it works.

it's sad to see them complain about apparently the same things they didn't like
about wherever they were from.

this isn't counting the obvious transplants who grew up in the middle of nowhere,
of course. this is mostly to do with living in any big city, even though i realize there
are some cities that are better for specific skills, trades, or what have you.

I can't tell who's moving where from that post, JJJS. Are you talking of people from other countries from where they now live, or just people who moved to your city from somewhere else in the same country? Just what the heck are you trying to say and what is your point?

Been in NZ since October, no plans to go back to the UK apart from for inevitable funerals

xp are you squirrel_police?

aimless, i'm talking about transplants who move to the city i live in.
i don't think it's relevant whether they are american or not.

sleeve, ha! is it because of the line breaks?

i don't think it's relevant whether they are american or not.

well, it's pretty relevant to understanding what you're talking about. thank you for clarifying. the thread title and poll choices excluded the subject of people moving about within their own country, so it was especially difficult to follow your rambling thoughts into a different topic until you made that intention explicit

it's actually not relevant, because i wasn't talking about one group
specifically. you seem to want to force my argument to be a certain
way, though.

and w/r/t "ramblings," your passive-aggressive vibe is noted.

I'm not sure you are making an argument. I just got impatient with your lack of clarity concerning who you were talking about, other than "people who come here ", without saying who those people were, where they came from, or where 'here' was. if I wanted to force you to do anything, it was just force you to make more sense.

thread moderator stepping in here, jjs what city are you from? tell us a bit about yourself.
aimless thank you for trying to keep order here

that's a rude question, especially on a public forum.
i will say, though, that most of the transplants i interact with
are in IT.

Is that your way of saying they are south asian? I don't understand what is going on here.

Anyway, I want to move to Hawaii permanently except for the whole US lack of healthcare/45 issue right now. I am also angling for France/Japan/Australia, previously had been for the UK until Brexit. We know we won't be here for more than 5 more years max.

from dublin, living in london for 11 years, this week actually. feels a long time and i can't say i love london as i once did, not just due to the political stuff in the uk but also the restrictive laws about socialising and the extreme inequality you're forced to sponsor by paying rent here. i suppose that would be true of most other cities now though.

aside from that my work is about as good a setup as i can have anywhere in the world, regular office hours, flat structure with no real boss, meaningful and interesting day to day, and well-paid. equally i am studying an ma and that keeps me here too, i'll probably do an mfa after that.

after which i'd like to live somewhere else, dublin feels small enough to have a really good quality of life, walking in and out of the city etc. it bothers me that in london i pay high rent to live in a suburb, as someone who lives alone it'd be good to be surrounded by a city. i'd like to live in nyc for a while at some stage but dunno if i'd work in the american setup with so few holidays, maybe i'll just do three months on a tourist visa one day.

beyond that i think spain, any number of cities in spain tbh. i can imagine retiring there permanently when i'm older, assuming life allows that to happen.

ideally managing a small football team or perhaps one day the national team again.

emigrating means you get to start over again in many ways, for some of us this is what we live for, renewal, becoming someone new. maybe you could get that just by moving to another place where you don't have to learn a new language but I dunno. I am a chameleon though.

It gets exhausting when perpetual financial instability is part of the package.

It gets exhausting when perpetual financial instability is part of the package.

I've already got that here - might as well have it someplace with nicer scenery and better health care.

You live in the US, I assume? If so, I concur.

i lived for long periods outside of my native country or the country of my birth but have now returned home

seemed most apt. Total of six years in the US, incl. three from 2015-2018.

not to mention that in any other country on earth I would remain an American by temperament, and therefore somewhat of an alien being in my new country, until my death.

I mean, this is not a bad thing, being a foreigner in Brexit has at least given me the framework of "at least I can move back if I have to, I know it's within my capacity"

(Obviously of course this is one of the things that I approve of in other people - big cities are made by those who come there rather than raised there etc)

In the States right now. Feel like I could move back here tomorrow, and like I never ever will want to move back here again ever. The internalized American exceptionalism wears off right quick if you don't exclusively hang with ex pats.

Leaving the US for The Netherlands in a few months. Starting again from scratch in my middle age but that's fine. Learning Dutch and my brain is slowly catching on to this most difficult of languages. I'll only be back to visit family and get my stuff out of storage in a year's time. Good effing Riddance.

I don't spend time with Americans here except the ones I live with. I mean I encounter tourists now & then but as far as daily life goes, I don't know any other americans.

I feel like my most american temperament thing is that I drink coffee in too large vessels. And maybe drink too much water.

Welkom Capitaine! :)

Lived where I've been born (Netherlands, The North) most of my time. Lived in The North of England for over a year, and a couple of months writing in Basque Country. For someone who's made a living out of 'localness' (running a paper where I'm from, partly in a tiny local language passed on to me at birth; sure death of the tiny language accepted as fate but not without putting up a fight) I can see myself living in a different country more easily as I get older, to my own surprise. If it's on the cards it will probably be Basque Country.

I'd actually like to live in more different places than time permits.

Dank je, LBI!

George Robledo or gtfo.

I could envisage myself living somewhere like Brașov. The only reason I haven’t been back for ages is that I can’t face Luton Airport.

when i have to answer where i'm from, these days,

When people find out I'm Romanian it's either 'I have a Romanian friend, do you know him/her?'

London, Ontario?

once told someone that i was half-chilean and after a beat they said "pinochet and that?"

I'm so accustomed to seeing Chilean produce for sale at the area supermarkets during the off-season that that's the absolute first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of that country. I figured Pinochet is just a part of the OLD Chile back in the bad old days of the "banana republics" and bears no relation to the current state as it stands. Also, since my family's originally from Mexico and THAT comes with its own series of depressing associations, I would rather think of the good that comes from all Latin American countries (even Venezuela's got its rebellious anti-Maduro citizenry as its bright spot).

Romania I always associate with what I read about it in my favorite author Robert D. Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts and Eastward to Tartary, and the fact that the people there speak a Romance language, something highly unusual for that region or indeed any region outside Latin America or the Iberian peninsula.

Hm. London was never my 'dream city', but it's where I ended up. When I moved to the UK in 2007 I thought I'd go for Bristol or Brighton, but London was where the job offer happened. Now I've been here 11 years, pretty much 1/3 of my life. The first five or so years were fine, but seven-year-itch was definitely a thing, and it made me deeply unhappy to be living in London. I thought constantly about going home for a couple years, which wasn't helped by being in a stressful job and going though the grief of the sudden death of a parent 7000 km away. Everything about being in London irritated me: the high cost of living ('I could afford to buy an entire house in Canada, grumble grumble'); the long travel times to see/do anything interesting ('At home everything's within a 30 minute journey, grumble grumble'); how hard it was/is to make friends ('All my friends are at home, having fun without me, grumble grumble').

I ended up getting a much better job, which drastically improved my relationship with the city (I do research on city stuff so I get to travel to all sorts of weird and wonderful place in London). And in the last few years my own neighbourhood has exploded with stuff so I have more to do within a 30 minute walk. It's good for now, but London is not a place I want to grow old, and Brexit is a bummer... but I don't know where else to go.

Oh, I'm well aware of how every place out there has its setbacks and that London would be a pricey city to live in, though one could also say the same about every similarly sized global metropolis and I spent a considerable amount of my life as a hardcore Anglophile who looked at London as The Ultimate Goal. Also, yes, being employed somewhere that gives one extreme dissatisfaction would put the damper on one's living ANYWHERE, regardless of loction, so I'm glad you were able to find a better place of employment. However, in spite of the total shambles that is Brexit and the current lack of leadership from any of the political parties in Britain, I would absolutely take living there any day of the week over living in Drumpf's goddamned America, especially since he and his minions are targeting my people. I'm lucky to live where I do in that we're the majority and have significant political power on a local level, but it's a terribly boring place to live. I mean, the most exciting thing that's happened recently is that we finally got a local Ikea in town last month! Big fucking whoop. Additionally, it really burns me up whenever I see people who live in these huge, exciting cities leaving online comments chastising others for moving to those same cities and saying that those transplants should just stay where they are and create a local "scene" where they live; inside my head I'm thinking, "Oh yes, let's all just magic up some cosmopolitan excitement out of fucking nowhere! Then we can get around to pulling flying unicorns and world peace out of thin air!" The city where I live already HAS people trying very hard to turn it into something better but, in spite of its massive population growth since 1990 (from about 850,000 to almost 2 million and growing), it's still the same, boring backwater it's always been. Living in a huge metropolis with endless cultural options would be a dream for me (especially if I can make new, POSITIVE memories instead of the awful ones I have locally) and if it happens to be in the country I've adored since I was four, all the better.

I've lived 80% of my life outside of the place I was born, changing country every 4-5 years until I settled by accident here in Belgium, where I've now been living 15 years. The constant moving and the idea that I could I just reinvent myself in the next place gave me a paralysing tendency to over-romanticize places, imagined or half-remembered, instead of trying to ingrain myself wherever I was and actually build something. In recent years, I've found that starting a family has "cured" me of that since it's made it obvious that my life would essentially stay the same from now on, whatever the place. Worrying about school runs and weekend playdates leaves little space for longing for the elusive atmosphere of a foreign place.

pomenitul, you'll be happy to know that a research paper topic that was just released today for an advanced wine thingey is the future of Romanian wine in export markets.

Hah, I'll drink to that. I'm not crazy about the stuff tbh, having been spoiled on French wine, but there is much, far too much I haven't tasted yet.

Hmm… I said the exact same thing upthread, more or less.

it's ok, I feel strongly about that sentiment too.