Help me decide where to live after Buenos Aires (Preliminary Thread)

[Arnfinn Madsen]

What are you looking for in a place? I.e. France is extremely varied, wrt to everything, different regions have very little in common and thus the country as a whole can offer almost everything. The same for Switzerland as well. If you put up a list of what you are looking for with 10-20 points in prioritized order I will find a place for you in Europe that suits you.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

And stop blaming Schengen, LOL. I.e. Norway is member of Schengen and we still have very liberal rules wrt to non-Schengen citizens from some countries being allowed to stay long periods of time without having to leave every 90 days etc.. Nothing in the Schengen-agreement prevents that. It is not Schengen or EU that cause all this mess for visitors, it is something some of the members voluntarily do.

[TheMetetron]

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What are you looking for in a place? I.e. France is extremely varied, wrt to everything, different regions have very little in common and thus the country as a whole can offer almost everything. The same for Switzerland as well. If you put up a list of what you are looking for with 10-20 points in prioritized order I will find a place for you in Europe that suits you.

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What do you mean what am I looking for in a place? You mean like an apartment specifically or a city/area?

I think you mean city/area and there isn't really a single answer to that. The first place I'll probably go is Spain simply for the language and interest in the culture, but after that it is very up in the air. I want to try different things and experience the different cultures, get a flavor for the cities/countries, etc which makes it pretty hard to say that there is one place I'd be happiest and the rest aren't worth considering. I've got time and I've got the freedom. I want to give it all a shot and see what I end up liking most.

[mijae]

Paris is a nice city to be a tourist in, but I'd hate to live there. The only way to avoid being ripped off everytime you buy something is to avoid all the tourist areas altogether, and you can't do anything without spending a lot of money.

I live in england atm, but I'm originally from Toulouse, it's a great city to live in, very beautiful, 100k students so very cheap and nice night life. It's also only 2 hours from ski stations in the Pyrénées, 2 jours from the ocean, and 2 hours from the sea. It's in the south of france, with a very laid back atmosphere, and a very good life quality / $ ratio.

If you need more info, I'll gladly answer.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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What do you mean what am I looking for in a place? You mean like an apartment specifically or a city/area?


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No, I meant in the sense of what you like, if you are trying to find a place where you will enjoy staying. What kind of mentality, food, architecture, climate, topography etc. do you like?

[TheMetetron]

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Paris is a nice city to be a tourist in, but I'd hate to live there. The only way to avoid being ripped off everytime you buy something is to avoid all the tourist areas altogether, and you can't do anything without spending a lot of money.

I live in england atm, but I'm originally from Toulouse, it's a great city to live in, very beautiful, 100k students so very cheap and nice night life. It's also only 2 hours from ski stations in the Pyrénées, 2 jours from the ocean, and 2 hours from the sea. It's in the south of france, with a very laid back atmosphere, and a very good life quality / $ ratio.

If you need more info, I'll gladly answer.

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Toulouse was actually the city I wanted to live in in Southern France. I had a friend who studied abroad there and loved it. I'm fairly certain I'll be asking you some questions at some point.

[goodgrief]

If you want some older "wiser" person to confer with you, I will be happy to visit you in Buenos Aires and talk your ear off. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If I relocate, which I suppose I will since my area (New Orleans) will be underwater in my lifetime, I might be thinking Panama. Just gorgeous and a tad south of most hurricane events.

Paris is beautiful and you are going to love it but I don't know how easy it is for Americans to truly emigrate there.

If I ever emigrate to Europe MY choice will be Portugal. If you speak Spanish or English check it out. Hell, if you're freaking mute, check it out. Frecking beautiful. Nice people. Easy to get along w. sign language if the person doesn't know Spanish or English. They don't expect foreigners to known Portugeuse and if you do know a few words, they're tickled pink. Good food too.

Germany is very nice too but more expensive than Portugal.

[Josem]

Answered for Australia:

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- Furnished rentals

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www.realestate.com.au
www.domain.com.au
www.myhome.com.au

I imagine $200/week would get you something unfurnished and decent in an inner suburb in Sydney or Melbourne.

Edit: Add on $50 for furnished, I'd guess. I don't know, but the websites above list a heap of Australian rental opportunities.

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- Public transit

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Yes. Trains and buses, also trams in Melbourne.

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- Language schools

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English.
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- Cost of living

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http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costo...tofliving.html may be a useful tool for anywhere in the world.

http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au...p;contentId=-1 gives you extensive information about the cost of living in Victoria (state including Melbourne). Sydney would be slightly more expensive, other regions would be cheaper (except Perth which has recently had a massive increase in housing costs due to the mining boom)


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- Areas to live in/avoid

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Sydney/Melbourne would be obvious places - big cities, stuff to do.

I live a couple of hours north of Melbourne in a country town called Wangaratta.

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- Visas for Americans (resident, tourist, whatever)

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12 month tourist visas are easily obtainable for Americans. These do not allow you to work while in Australia, though. I don't know whether playing poker is considered "work" by the Department of Immigration. More info is available online at www.immi.gov.au

If you are able to make an investment of over $1mil, you are likely to be able to obtain a business visa which leads to permanent residency and citizenship.

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- Safety concerns

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None? Murder/homicide rates are massively lower in Australia than US. You'd be awfully unlucky to be the victim of a major crime. It is simply not an issue, assuming you do obvious things like locking your car and so on.

The Australian Government provides reguarly updated travel advisories to every country in the world online at http://www.smarttraveller.gov.au/ which may be useful to you.

The US State Department advice for Australia is online at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p...s/cis_954.html and provides a significant chunk of information.

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- Reasons for/against the city

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For:
-great timezone for poker (10am - 5pm Aust Eastern Time is US Peak Time)
-climate
-similar culture to US/UK
-stable country (not going to be a coup)
-open, transparent democracy (not going to be arrested if you don't bribe the right guy)
-high standard of living
-reliable internet
-lower cost of living than UK/US
-bloody big country with plenty of things to see/do

Against:
-high cost of living, compared to third world and developing countries
-isolated by transport

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- Other relevant things I can't think of right now

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Edit: Melbourne hosts the Aussie millions, a $10k buy-in poker tournament in January that is very popular... 750 players or something this year.

Melbourne casino is much larger than Sydney's, and provides over 50 poker tables. High rakes compared to US, but many very bad players.

Sydney's rake is, I think, the highest of any land casino in the world, but, I think, has the worst players of any land casino in the world.

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I'm also open to new suggestions for places or if you want to offer specific suggestions within countries I'm not too sure about (Spain/Italy/Australia).


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Thread at http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...umber=10073811 may be useful

[Cancuk]

Try cities in China, specifically Beijing. It has a pretty large Ex-Pat community and you're so immersed in mandarin that you'll pick up even basic language skills quickly, if you're taking lessons aswell, it can be pretty quick.

[El Diablo]

Met,

I have been to all of those places except for Australia and Prague. All of my friends who have lived in Australia loved it. I've heard mixed reviews of Prague the last few years.

I was going to write a long post, but JaredL pretty much wrote everything I was gonna say. I really love both Barcelona and Sevilla. Between the two, I'd probably recommend Barcelona for you just because it's bigger and there's more to do and more people travelling from around the world to meet. But Sevilla would also be a great choice.

Italy would be my next choice, tons of great places to live there.