651–660 of 759 posts
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>My wife and I live in Mexico....There is not much here for her and I'm a bit bored of Mexico. >we're now planning to go back to Europe Where in Europe are you planning to relocate?
My wife would like the North of Spain or South of France. I'd prefer a colder climate.
My wife and I moved from Solana Beach California to Sedona Arizona (in the mountains, two hours north of Phoenix) in 1998 and it was a great decision. We did close up our house twice for a while and left town when I worked at Google and Capital One, but Sedona has been our home most of the time. Work wise it has been OK remotely consulting, but that only worked because I usually enjoy whatever someone is paying me to…
Do you live in actual Sedona or do you live next door in Cottonwood or Cornville? I found Sedona beautiful, but a bit too tourist focused, whereas the other cities were actually much better to stay in. Also they have all the wineries :)
I know a lot of people who make their living off of tourism, so I tend to look favorably at tourists and will often halt a hike for 5 minutes to talk with tourists on our hiking trails.
My wife and I moved from Solana Beach California to Sedona Arizona (in the mountains, two hours north of Phoenix) in 1998 and it was a great decision. We did close up our house twice for a while and left town when I worked at Google and Capital One, but Sedona has been our home most of the time. Work wise it has been OK remotely consulting, but that only worked because I usually enjoy whatever someone is paying me to…
Dang that’s a good deal. How much salary do you get for 15 hrs/week? Is the rest and vest situation?
EDIT: I did do a full time onsite gig 2018-2019 managing a small deep learning team. My wife and I saved a good fraction of that income, and I still support that company for the 100+ US patents I worked on.
I'm a bit surprised very few people mention proximity to parents, family, and long time friends as a major reason of picking a place to live. The discussion is mostly around beaches, scenery, and climate. It seems that either social capital is not that important for most commenters, or many simply don't realize what they lose when they move to another country for beaches and scenery.
My mom, sisters, long time friends, family, beaches, scenery, mountains, hurricanes, etc. I’ll take it all.
I would need to be able to have and run a central AC like here though. All I hear from friend is how hot it is right now.
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Curious, what books did you buy? I’ve been getting interested in this sort of thing lately.
If interested in urbanization and the particular problems SF is running into today, I would highly recommend Progress & Poverty by Henry George. Fairly dense at first but it lightens up. It was written in SF post-gold rush to answer the question of why the obscene wealth generated by the gold rush resulted in abysmal quality of life and skyrocketing inequality in SF. Sadly relevant these days.
Moscow or Saint Petersburg. I'm ethnically Sri Lankan, born and educated in Toronto and I've spent quite a bit of time in the Bay Area, but I've become disillusioned with the West. It just amazes my friends that you can live a comfortable middle-class life in Russia on $800 per month. But aside from being cheap, I just feel like it's a place of great opportunity and future power. There's that immense energy of Russia…
Having said all of this, however, I am also very aware that my experience here is very different from the average Russian. Being an expat, from the US, speaking English, and being able to afford a comfortable lifestyle in the center give me a much rosier perspective than if I were a low-income worker having to commute 1+ hours to get to work. I'm ethnically Latino and look obviously not-Russian, so people here are curious about me and act extra nice - especially when they find out I'm American. It's not uncommon for someone to approach me on the street, a park, or a bar just because they heard me speaking in English. On the other hand, however, immigrants from ex-Soviet countries (particularly Central Asia) face discrimination and racism, as do non-European Russians (eg: Russians from the Caucasus region, or the east of Russia), and it's not uncommon when looking to rent an apartment to see the words "FOR SLAVS [white Russians] OR FOREIGNERS ONLY", something that would be completely illegal in the US. Don't get me wrong, as an expat from the West I find Moscow to be just about the perfect place to live, but I totally understand the perspective of many Russians or some immigrants that criticize it harshly. I love this city, and I think loving it means also being aware of its shortcomings.
I've always wanted to make this move but I never cared for the nomad life.
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The good thing for homeowners is that renters don't vote. On top of that - many renters are also ineligible to vote in CA. (Cause no citizenship) If prop 13 were to die, you'd think it'd be this year with all the budget problems coming up. It won't though. Politicians would face a mass exodus even if they kept in an exception for primary homes/business-locations. There's no way they'd all stay in office.
People who rent, can't vote in the US??