Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#121

Post by teakettle42 » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #97

starik36 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to go on a road trip and end up in a different culture sounds awesome. I do that often in California, but there are only so many places you can go.

I absolutely love taking trips around the Balkans, and have been very lucky to have gotten quite familiar with Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo in my recent travels. In a matter of hours, the universal constants (language, food, culture) have been replaced, and there are just so, so many beautiful things to discover in these countries. Words to blow ones minds, history that brings tears with a few simple…

> Words to blow ones minds, history that brings tears with a few simple footsteps...

These are exactly the kinds of faux profundities I used to hear — and say! — traveling in youth hostels in my late teens.

It’s jarring to see them coming from someone ostensibly past forty.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#122

Post by xtracto » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

ArtWomb wrote: post #73

Seriously considered moving to London around Oct 2019 (WeWork Waterloo). But am glad I stayed US based. Still maintain contact with many US ex-pats in UK & EU. Very few of them have cut all ties to their native homeland. And if you ask them to be honest, they will admit to making "emergency runs" back to the states several times a year for everything from pharmaceuticals to tacos to extramarital affairs. Europe is ci…

> Europe is civilized. America is a wilderness.

Funny that you put it this way. That's the reason why some of cousins came back to Mexico from the US: They feel the US is very strict and there's a lot of rules, while over here in Mexico you are free to do whatever you want.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#123

Post by mmarq » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #35

jzellis wrote: post #15

I'm just outside London, moved here to marry my English wife from Vegas. I work part time doing basic IT for a US law firm due to health issues after heart surgery, and Yankee dollars are worth jack shit here - I'm not making serious tech industry money, but over here it's barely enough to survive on. Housing is always smaller than you'd get in (at least the western) US for the same price, and I'd bet that's true pre…

> brink of civil war I think that might be overstated. > NHS is absolutely amazing I've read and heard that for a non-emergency appointments, the wait could sometimes be months. Is that also overstated?

The problem is that you have to go through a GP first, which has a budget and tends to be very conservative. Many GPS will try some silly experiments for months before writing a referral. But once you get a referral it’s reasonably quick. Many companies now offer health insurance with private GPs, which tend to be less unreasonable re: referrals.

Said that it is much worse than Germany or France. To this day I don’t understand the British obsession for a healthcare system that would be acceptable in a middle income country (say Russia or Mexico), but that’s clearly not what you’d expect in a developed country.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#124

Post by eldaisfish » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #20

I'm sure others will cover the shorter-term aspects. I'll add that, particularly if you're not young or have a family, it wouldn't hurt to consider the fact that you will probably have a great time for the first N years, but there might be a slump when you realize that you will probably never really integrate and will have a smaller social circle because of it, in a place where people seem to have smaller casual grou…

This is something that doesn't get talked about often and i'm glad you brought it up.

For all its flaws, the US (and Canada) are societies built around inclusion. Anyone can become American or Canadian and they have. In North America, you are allowed to retain your original identity and flaunt your culture. In Europe, you must become only French, or only Dutch or only Italian. Your original identity is often erased.

Europe is a society fractured along lines of ethnicity and don't let anyone here tell you that ethnicity is not a huge part of identity. In europe, you are merely tolerated, you will never truly integrate and be accepted as "one of us". This is very evident in the words of non-white footballers like Ziyech and Ozil, one of whom is an EU citizen but plays for an African country. "Us" in the European context involves a specific ethnicity and this fact is very evident to people of colour in Europe.

You can certainly find individual europeans who buck this trend but the overall pressure from society is very different and this is the aspect a lot of people miss.

While europe's quality of life is great, what i'm getting at is a long-term problem that cannot be solved. And mind you, this is true everywhere in the old world as every society there is built around ethnicity.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#125

Post by scythe » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #31

AdrianB1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: how long since you moved out of USA? How long it took to learn German well enough (in your personal opinion) to integrate well?

20 years - I left just after 9/11, during which period I witnessed the USA collectively shitting itself, and during which I decided to play no part in the USA's continued economic survival. Far better to have moved to Germany and get things happening in a country not inclined to blood-lust because it was finally attacked the way it had been attacking countries, with impunity, for decades prior. The German culture's p…

>German culture's proclivity for peace-making

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitali_Klitschko#Political_car...

>UDAR is supported by the German government and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation[93][94] and received support in particular from Angela Merkel and also politicians from the conservative European People's Party. According to information gained by the German magazine Der Spiegel, the target was to "set up Klitschko purposefully as a new strong man in Kyiv—in order to counter this way the Kremlin's growing influence".

>Klitschko was one of the dominant figures of the Euromaidan protests.

Germany hasn't exactly kept their hands clean over the last few years. But I'm glad you enjoy the propaganda.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#126

Post by xxs » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #5

Hey! I'm back in the US but my wife and I moved from SF to Amsterdam for 3 years. We moved with our tech job there and ended up eventually quitting and doing our own company. - Where do you live? SF -> Amsterdam - What's the biggest sacrifice you had to make (i.e. pay, housing, friends, etc.) I was shocked when my HR department told me our salaries would pretty much be cut in half. I was also furious because I was go…

>Amsterdam... except for the terrible weather.

Must be truly spoiled coming from SF. As for amazon: amazon.nl (not .com) and you are set.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#127

Post by Hamuko » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

talideon wrote: post #65

pbourke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like a fucking Joy Division video here from October through April. :-D So people used to the Pacific Northwest would fit right in.

Seattle is further south than Paris, so make of that what you will!

Latitude isn't everything. I grew up on a latitude that is probably relatively uninhabitable in Canada.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#128

Post by lm28469 » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

nexuist wrote: post #107

jfk13 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay and opportunities are infinitely better ...if you're lucky enough to be among the privileged.

Living in America is by definition a privileged position. Largest military in the world guarantees either the country survives anything or the world undergoes nuclear Armageddon (and even then the tax man is still coming to your door).

> Living in America is by definition a privileged position

Low income Americans have it much worse than low income Europeans on probably every single metric you can come up with.

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#129

Post by _moof » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

boffinAudio wrote: post #4

I've done it, and it was one of the best decisions of my life. WHERE: I'm Australian, moved to LA when I was 18 and lived there for 15 years. Then, I moved from Los Angeles to Germany (Duesseldorf), and then to Vienna, Austria. WHAT SACRIFICE: No more In 'n Out Burger, no more decent Mexican/TexMex food, no more LA food trucks. These are literally the only things I miss about the USA. Literally every other aspect of…

I'll chime in here and say I hate the weather in LA, so for me, losing that would be a plus. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

#130

Post by rory » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #84

rory wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very hard to live where you can walk to a grocery store. Very hard seems like an exaggeration. More expensive, maybe, but millions of low-income people also do it. I didn't have a car for most of my twenties, and the majority of my social group didn't either. Living in a more spread out area of the US is a choice-- one that comes with benefits, but still a choice.

I think you’re getting a bit too caught up with wether it’s possible to walk to the grocery store for most Americans. I think you can agree that in most places, if you are walking to get groceries, you are either living in a well to do area, or you are forced to because you can’t afford a car, and it isn’t a pleasant experience.

"Hard to walk to the grocery store where you live" isn't the same thing as "hard to live where you can walk to the grocery store".

If you count entire cities as "well to do areas" then I suppose I agree.