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Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#51

Post by hackpert »

erdo wrote: post #27

Moved from the UK to France after the Brexit vote (the last chance to easily move my family to another country and have my kids grow up as Europeans with the ability to work and live in the EU country of their choice, access low cost or free university education etc.) I'm a contractor and felt reasonably sure I could find work as an android developer in most large cities - Paris is also close enough that if things re…

About the bit regarding you possibly commuting from Paris to London for work, I'm curious - how would that even work? Would you go through customs every morning/evening? Has anyone here done this?

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#52

Post by LilBytes »

drstewart wrote: post #41
alangibson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know where to begin on differences. A big one is how much more orderly basically everything is, from government processes to condition of the streets. Overt politeness is more common. People are generally more relaxed to the point that it annoyed me for years. I attribute this to the lack of any concept of 'hustle' and not being worried about dying in poverty. I think a huge amount of the American person…

Yeah, I don't think the idea of not being within 20 steps of a beer makes a country 3rd world. Sorry, but that's pretty insulting to actual people living in poverty. Then again, all in all it's pretty privileged to be able to have such a sheltered view of the world, so good on ya.

From the father comment, that was what you took away from his message?

> "People are generally more relaxed to the point that it annoyed me for years. I attribute this to the lack of any concept of 'hustle' and not being worried about dying in poverty. I think a huge amount of the American personality comes from a subconscious anxiety over how precarious we live."

I think this was the bigger driver over his personal perspective of living in Europe vs the USA, though having beer readily accessible every where is certainly a boon but not the differentiator.

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#53

Post by willvarfar »

searchableguy wrote: post #13
willvarfar wrote: post #8

Partner would have been happy to stay with me in the UK but I was blown away by the beauty of Scandinavia when I visited, and am so glad she relented. Average quality of life in the nordics is massively better than the uk. It’s not even close! Wages are lower in absolute terms but not qualitatively and we probably couldn’t afford to move back to the uk and have any semblance of same standard of living. We are now tra…

> Wages are lower in absolute terms but not qualitatively and we probably couldn’t afford to move back to the uk and have any semblance of same standard of living. We are now trapped in a utopia and happy about it. Can you give some example of improvements that you would need to pay for in the UK? I'm interested.

(GP)

Childcare etc is great, but that wasn’t top of my mind when I wrote this. I was thinking about general standard of living.

Normal wage structure here is very flat - there really aren’t orders or magnitude like you see in, say, the UK or the US. The vast majority of people live in much the same income bracket and that affords them very comfortable housing. (Locally there are valid complaints about a housing shortage etc, but this is nothing compared to, again, the UK. Grown up children aren’t financially forced to live with their parents etc)

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#54

Post by PKop »

4ad wrote: post #36
alangibson wrote: post #3

I married an Austrian while living with her in Texas. I made exactly zero plans before moving. She had the better degree by far so it only made sense to move to Austria. Getting a job was easy by local standards due to a tight local market for programmers. Getting through German classes to earn the permanent residency was the toughest part. I would never consider moving back to the USA. I was always a sceptic of the…

Funny, I live in Austria and I wish to emigrate to the US. I consider Europe, and Austria in particular a living nightmare.

>Austria in particular a living nightmare.

Please elaborate, that is quite a statement

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#55

Post by BrandiATMuhkuh »

alangibson wrote: post #3

I married an Austrian while living with her in Texas. I made exactly zero plans before moving. She had the better degree by far so it only made sense to move to Austria. Getting a job was easy by local standards due to a tight local market for programmers. Getting through German classes to earn the permanent residency was the toughest part. I would never consider moving back to the USA. I was always a sceptic of the…

Tip for any EU citizens marrying a non EU citizens. For the EU citizen, make sure you execute your European right before your partner applies for residency. That way your partner does not have to learn the local language etc.

The reason for that is, that EU family law is pretty liberal. And EU law is "higher" then local law. But that only applies if you executed your European right.

To execute your European right, you must have lived for 3 month in another EU country. Or simply marry in an other EU country which is not your own country.

I'm writing this from experience. As this was the way my wife (Saudi) and I (Austrian) did it. I did first study in Denmark. Therefore executing my EU right.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/documents-fo...

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#56

Post by jll29 »

smoe wrote: post #28

Swiss living in Colombia for a bit over 5 years. There is not that much of a path or sophisticated plan to it. I was tired of Switzerland/Europe and wanted to try different things for at least a while. I have travelled Latin America extensively before and had a short list of potential countries/cities. After that it was basically a couple of months for finding a job I'm exited about and winding down obligations and c…

Bill Bryson: "You can't come home _again_."

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#57

Post by loloquwowndueo »

drstewart wrote: post #43
netfortius wrote: post #32

Moved twice - once to the USA, 30 years ago, from Eastern Europe. US is a perfect place to make [more than enough] money (and enjoy some, when not at/with/connected to work), while strong / well fit educationally, psychologically and physically, in a country where jungle capitalism shrunk social safety to nothingness. So make sure you don't need it. After 30 yrs moved out of the USA, to France, to enjoy the financial…

I'm curious why you didn't just skip the step of moving to the US since in France et. al. you don't need money, so why bother making it in the jungle hell that is the US?

I’m curious how is it that you don’t need money in France. Did they implement UBI while I wasn’t looking?

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#58

Post by drstewart »

alangibson wrote: post #47
drstewart wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't think the idea of not being within 20 steps of a beer makes a country 3rd world. Sorry, but that's pretty insulting to actual people living in poverty. Then again, all in all it's pretty privileged to be able to have such a sheltered view of the world, so good on ya.

Ha! What are you talking about? That comment was in response to a question about differences between the countries. The USA is a 3rd world country because we allow people to literally and figuratively rot on the street. There are many others of course... Can I assume from your aggrieved attitude and uncharitable reading that you're a fellow American?

When the top thing you can think of as the main difference is that you can get blasted at 11am in a foreign country, the "uncharitable reading" is that you're an alcoholic, not that you're a sheltered emigrant that doesn't know what a real third world country is like.

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#59

Post by BigRedDog1669 »

smoe wrote: post #28

Swiss living in Colombia for a bit over 5 years. There is not that much of a path or sophisticated plan to it. I was tired of Switzerland/Europe and wanted to try different things for at least a while. I have travelled Latin America extensively before and had a short list of potential countries/cities. After that it was basically a couple of months for finding a job I'm exited about and winding down obligations and c…

I just spent about a year in Colombia and really enjoyed it. People there are more friendly than anywhere else I've been in the world. Money goes a lot further there too (if you have a foreign source of money). The thing that I couldn't get used to is in the cities, you could always be subjected to loud reggaeton blasting or other loud noises, even in residential areas, rich or poor. Weekdays, weekends, 8am or 1pm or midnight. It was too much for me. I stayed in different areas and couldn't avoid it. Sometimes I just need quiet and need to be in control of that. Also the multiple hour wait to go to the immigration office or phone company office or any bureaucracy was draining.

Re: Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

#60

Post by legolas2412 »

ardit33 wrote: post #11

I am from Albania, I came in the US as an exchange student for my last year of high school where I lived with an american family in Virginia (they were awesome). I got a full scholarship for college at Radford, VA, and stayed here. Then I had to deal with the whole visa saga, form J1 to F1, to F1 OPT, to H1B to finally a Greencard (after 17 years in the US). The whole journey to get the Green Card was not easy at all…

> I feel this country makes it a bit too hard for legal residents to come with work visa, meanwhile I know people that got it much faster via 'fictive' marriages

So true. I have been on a student visa for 8 years, and hence I am a non immigrant. I have the luxury of getting a working visa by a random lottery, with no regards to my skills as a PhD. And when I have that, I have the luxury of entering the 100 year long line for green card for Indian immigrants. They have such racist policies in immigration, but consider Asian Americans privileged.

I find it hilarious to hear politicians talk about immigrants creating jobs, while actually having the worst policies possible for the high skilled immigrants that actually create the said jobs.

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