Emigration...

Gazzaputt

Tenerife or Lanzarote for me. All year round sun and great roads to ride on.

Monty Dog

Gazzetta67 wrote:

Cycled in Brittany & Normandy a few years ago coming back from the TDF - Howcome the french can have these great road surfaces and there and hardly anyone uses them ? They put our roads to shame..makes you wonder how much were being shafted in road tax anf they dont even use the effing money on the roads :evil:

You probably thought that the TdF was a race run by a media / sports promotion company when it is in fact a secret cartel of the French tarmac layers who conspire to ensure that most of the French roads gets re-laid every 5 years on the pretence of a few guys to ride their bikes....

ben@31

schweiz wrote:

I would argue that the main reasons to coming to the UK at the moment are

5. We don't say no.

Is there any truth in the French built their immigration camps near the Calais ferry terminal?

schweiz

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... entre.html

schweiz

ben@31 wrote:

schweiz wrote:

I would argue that the main reasons to coming to the UK at the moment are

5. We don't say no.

With the new wave of immigration from the Eastern EU states, the UK can't say 'No', they are as entitled to work in the UK as a UK citizen.

Ben6899

France or Germany for me.

You wouldn't get me near Australia for all the gold in the world.

Ben6899

Gazzetta67 wrote:

...makes you wonder how much were being shafted in road tax...

C'est quoi?

k-dog

verylonglegs wrote:

I would have thought the most obvious clue about how good it is to live in the UK is the number of people who seek to move here themselves...so it can't be that bad can it?

Not sure where I'd go if was to leave, have only been on holiday to other places which never offers a realistic assessment of what it would actually be like to live there on a day to day basis. Somewhere without stupid people...does that exist??

Antarctica?

marz

I left about 15 years ago looking for something challenging and rewarding that at the same time pays well.

Ended up in the states for which the cons (weather, work, pay, taxes) outweigh the negs (lack of countryside and land access, republicans).

Ben6899

marz wrote:

I left about 15 years ago looking for something challenging and rewarding that at the same time pays well.

Ended up in the states for which the cons (weather, work, pay, taxes) outweigh the negs (lack of countryside and land access, republicans).

No pros?

marz

Ben6899 wrote:

marz wrote:

I left about 15 years ago looking for something challenging and rewarding that at the same time pays well.

Ended up in the states for which the cons (weather, work, pay, taxes) outweigh the negs (lack of countryside and land access, republicans).

No pros?

oops, not thinking, but my cons are my pros. Mixed up pros and cons and positives and negs and ended up with con's and neg's. My bad.

I like the weather here in Texas, yes even when it cracks +100f. The opportunities for work just seem to be of greater number and quality. Pay on average is higher than UK equivalent jobs and taxes just a bit less.

Plus, house, car, electronics, BIKES and petrol prices are a lot lower than almost anywhere in the UK, especially the SE.

smoggysteve

Germany

1. Cyclists are given space by motorists.
2. Cycle paths are everywhere.
3. Only a few hours drive to either the mountains in the south to the flats of Flanders.
4. No extortionate UK prices
5. Better beer!!!
6. Warmer summers

robbo2011

schweiz wrote:

I emigrated and at first I'd said I give it at least five years, now it's been 9 1/2 years and I don't plan on returning to blighty soon...

cleaner
better weather
better roads
higher salaries
lower taxes
better healthcare (no NHS)
skiing
Alps

there's many negatives to living here compared with the UK, but for me, the positives outweigh them by far!

This kind of sums it up, but I would also add better public transport and far better quality housing to the list.

I have no plans to leaver either.

pete_s

SmoggySteve wrote:

Germany

Assuming that you emigrated to Germany, and to all the others who have moved to a non-English speaking country, how did you find picking up the language? Did it take long? How do you go about getting a job if you can't the speak the language in the interview? Did you learn before hand?

I'd love to emigrate to somewhere else in Europe, with France and Germany offering the best industry that I'm building my trade in (manufacturing), but have no idea how I'd talk to anyone to move there in the first place.

Pete

smoggysteve

I work in Germany as a British soldier posted here. I have been here for 12 years and I would settle here over UK any day. My wife is German and I think the culture and society is so much better then in the UK.

If you would like to go to a European country and not have to worry about the language barrier, go to Holland. Never met anyone who could NOT speak English

vitesse169

SmoggySteve wrote:

I work in Germany as a British soldier posted here. I have been here for 12 years and I would settle here over UK any day. My wife is German and I think the culture and society is so much better then in the UK.

If you would like to go to a European country and not have to worry about the language barrier, go to Holland. Never met anyone who could NOT speak English

Steve - I was in Germany '78-'83 & '86-88 as a soldier... I was in Detmold then Fallingbostel. Got to say they were big garrisons and many of the local German folk were not impressed with UK military.
I did sympathise with them as many just got trollied every night and had a fight. I did have a hiring for 15 months in Detmold as there were no quarters for us available, the immediate neighbours were good but most of the rest hated us even though we were not the drunk yobbish types and just wanted to live our lives... I guess its not quite the same where you are ???

smoggysteve

vitesse169 wrote:

SmoggySteve wrote:

I work in Germany as a British soldier posted here. I have been here for 12 years and I would settle here over UK any day. My wife is German and I think the culture and society is so much better then in the UK.

If you would like to go to a European country and not have to worry about the language barrier, go to Holland. Never met anyone who could NOT speak English

Steve - I was in Germany '78-'83 & '86-88 as a soldier... I was in Detmold then Fallingbostel. Got to say they were big garrisons and many of the local German folk were not impressed with UK military.
I did sympathise with them as many just got trollied every night and had a fight. I did have a hiring for 15 months in Detmold as there were no quarters for us available, the immediate neighbours were good but most of the rest hated us even though we were not the drunk yobbish types and just wanted to live our lives... I guess its not quite the same where you are ???

Was posted close to Detmold a few years ago. Paderborn, Sennelager. Garrisons are not as big as in days gone by, British army will be all but gone by 2020 thanks to Govt.

GavH

Must admit the thought of taking the wife and family off to live somewhere warmer, friendlier and better paying has occurred to me more than once.

Worked in Arizona a couple of years back and loved it. Great weather, nice roads, proper mountains on the doorstep, the expensive stuff we pay for in £ they pay the same price or less but in $ (except good single malt whisky!). Even met a bloke from Scotland who used to be Graeme Obree's manager and brother-in-law (might even still be his brother-in-law, not sure!) and runs a bike shop. I also love the way the treat their armed forces out there. I lost count of the amount of times I was stopped in uniform and told 'Thank you for your service'.

Wife has family in both Canada and Australia who keep asking when we're coming out for a visit. Pics of the Oz based family in the pool in their back garden, drinking beer and celebrating Hogmany was appealing that's for sure!

schweiz

pete_s wrote:

Assuming that you emigrated to Germany, and to all the others who have moved to a non-English speaking country, how did you find picking up the language? Did it take long? How do you go about getting a job if you can't the speak the language in the interview? Did you learn before hand?

I barely spoke a word of German when I moved to Switzerland, despite getting an A in GCSE German 10 years earlier! However, I had actually remembered more then I thought, so I recognised written words which helped.

Swiss German is very different from High German. Think of a drunken scouser, drunken glasweigen and a drunken geordie having an argument and trying to understand a word of it. Therefore you can do as many German lessons as you want, the German you hear in the street bears only a passing resemblance to the books and CD's! The company I worked for provided some free German lessons but they weren't the best to be honest. They lacked structure and as new people were joining the company all the time the courses would always restart and you'd get bumped up to the next course before you were ready.

Also we spent ages learning things like fruit and veg however I still shop in English...I don't think "Ich möchte fünf Bananen", I think "I would like 5 bananas". I know what bananas look like so I pick them up. What would have been useful to know before I went shopping is that in Switzerland you are supposed to weigh your own fruit and veg and put a barcode/price on the bag so it can be scanned at the till rather than the UK way of the cashier weighing the produce at the till. I had a trolley full of unweighed fruit and veg which annoyed both the cashier and the people behind me!

The best thing that I ever did was go to the pub on my own! It took two to three weeks before the locals realised that I wasn't there on my holidays and started to get inquisative. I started havin a conversation with one guy whose cousin worked in the Tourist office and spoke good English. Ten minutes later the cousin arrived and I was soon accepted into the group of people in teh corner of the pub! Lots of people helped me with German and Swiss German and some nights we would use tens of pages from the barmaid's order pad drawing pictures and writing the German and Swiss German words. It was all good fun for a couple of years but it cost me a fortune in beer and schnapps! I gained about 20 kg too!

If you put the effort in, don't spend all day watching cable TV, look at a newpaper regulary you'll pick stuff up. In Switzerland, I find '20 Minuten', a free paper like the 'Metro' in the UK is easy to read. The stories are short and the language used is not too complicated.

Another good way to learn German was to get a local girlfriend! Although my (now) wife and I speak English together and many of her family speak anything from good to excellent English, I'm forced to understand German at family events and my father-in-law only speaks German to me unless he sees I've completely lost the conversation.

It took me about 4-5 years to be comfortable speaking German to strangers and 6 years to feel that I could work in German. For the last three years, I've worked for a different company from the one I started at. Everyone speaks English well but the company culture is to speak German as it's an ex state-run company. Even the French bloke in the office keeps speaking to me in German! Needless to say my German has improved a lot in the last 3 years.

However, all my reports are still written in English! I can write short e-mails, but a report would just take long and would be riddled with grammatical errors.

As with anything, you only get out what you put in. You won't train to climb l'Alpe d'Huez by riding 10 km on the flat each day!

briantrumpet

Having been a serious "I love Devon and England and English weather" person, I'm seriously looking at options now. I escaped to a particular spot in the southern French Alps twice in the summer, and as a result am buying a small place there: Mediterranean climate, cheap local proper food, lovely people who don't speak a word of English and accept and understand my French well enough, precious few tourists, superb scenery and cycling roads & infrastructure. If I do do it, I'd like to go while I'm young enough to enjoy it, not wait till I go senile. Here's the local scenery:



I'm not sure if I could cope with many more Summers like the ones we've had, without going stark staring bonkers.

robbo2011

@ Schweiz,

Great post. I have only been in CH for 18 months, so I am still in the struggling with German phase. I understand most of what is said, but speaking is harder. I am getting much better thanks to lessons.

The problem I have is that I work in science, and the language for working in science is English. Therefore I speak and write in English all day at work. While this is good for a newbie here, it is no good for picking up the language. Still, I am slowly getting better.

My advice to anyone leaving the UK without language skills would be to find somewhere where they like speaking English, i.e. forget France.

Holland is good and so is Switzerland. In Switzerland, 20% of the population is non-Swiss and English is heard everywhere especially in the bigger cities like Basel and Zurich. But whichever country you go to, it is essential to speak the language if you want to properly integrate with the locals and be happy long term. It could end up a bit lonely otherwise.

FatTed

Been in NZ for 17 years, still not fully fluent in KIWI. For me a good move, weather is so much better, car drivers are awful, roads not a lot better, Cycling in the South Island is great.

capt_slog

I've never considered emigrating as a worker, whenever I think of myself in another country, it's always with enough funds not to have to work (lottery win etc).

Jersey would be a favourite I think but I don't know if that counts as emigration. Southern Ireland is another. If you think you're spotting a trend there, you might be right, I'd rather not have to learn another language but could if I had to (I've managed 'room and board' in France, Italy and Greece).

I think your perception of the UK depends on where you live. It's easier not have a "Daily Mail attitude" if you don't see so much that gets you down and don't have to mix with some of the complete sh1t that lives here.

schweiz

robbo2011 wrote:

The problem I have is that I work in science, and the language for working in science is English. Therefore I speak and write in English all day at work. While this is good for a newbie here, it is no good for picking up the language. Still, I am slowly getting better.

I work in the aerospace industry and it's exactly the same. The working language is always English. The first company I worked for had loads of brits and a smattering of Aussies, Kiwis, Yanks and Saffers. There were loads of Italians too but they all spoke English in the office.

I made the decision when I arrived that I didn't want to live in 'Little England' i.e. in the same apartment blocks or villages as the majority of the English speakers. It was that decision that forced me to go to the pub to seek my own social life and learn German/Schwiizerdütsch so I could understand. I know Brits who have been here for 15-20 years and can barely string more than two sentences together.

It was hard at first and sometimes I would be mentally knackered on a Friday/Saturday night purely from having to try and translate everything. I still struggle when there are multiple converations going on or if I don't realise someone is speaking to me as the 'translator' part of my brain goes into overload or switches off. My wife can tell when I've 'switched off' the translator if we're at a family do or out with Swiss people. I just have to give my brain a rest!

The worst thing is in meetings at work though. As I'm having to translate, the peripheral hearing that you have with your mother tongue is lost. I start listening, realise that that part of the meeting has nothing to do with me, switch off and then completely miss the audio cues that the topic has changed and I should now be involved. Then someone will ask me a question and I’ll be like a startled rabbit as the only audio cue that I’ve picked up is my name. I have missed the whole discussion and often the question I’m being asked!! Therefore, I find I have to concentrate 100% for the full meeting which, if it is all day, is very tiring!

robbo2011

I too, have decided to avoid the Ex-pat scene as I think it become terribly insular. Quite often when I am in Basel I go past the local Irish pub and see the sad old Ex-pats smoking a fag outside and drinking at all hours of the day. I want to avoid that...

There are loads of Americans in the village that we live in. so many in fact, that it has it's own baseball team!

the playing mantis

California. probably NoCal at a push over SoCal but theres not much in it. Great climate, great people imo, great way of life, great outdoors, great country.

If in europe, Netherlands as it has a nice way of life, but thats on limited experience of the rest of europe. and only then cos i know the netherlands a bit from going out with a Dutch girl for a year! but my knowledge of whats its like to live in other places of europe is limited with only brief holidays and brief work visits and talking to colleagues in europe to go on, so there probably plenty of comparably nice places. That said the dutch as a whole do seem to have a slightly better opinion of the english a bit more than other europeans i have met and are are far less arrogant than certain european nations. maybe germany too as the people seem to share common values and attitudes with us.

as for people coming here, social security is the number 1 reason for the majority these days....

ddraver

As an expat/Emmigrant I can help with the language stuff...

IMO, you have to move to a country where they speak English natively (or a language you can speak already) or be prepared to learn the language. The trouble I have in the Netherlands is that whilst they may all speak English, many of them don't like to, it gets boring, and a little humiliating, asking all the time (even the tramps speak english!) and most importantly, they don't speak English to each other. This makes it very difficult to make friends with Dutch people (quite apart from their very insular attitudes to friends).

I'm a geologist so as above, all the work in in english and most of my colleagues are not dutch, but if we go upstairs for Lunch, the Dutch people immediately drift into Dutch so you re shut out. I came over with the same desire to not be one of the expats outside "that" bar, but I found it very difficult. Eventually I moved in with an English Girl (not in that way) as I was just bored all the time.

On the other hand, if you re in a city with a large international community, you make friends with many many nationalities (all of whom have to speak english), and that aspect is great! I also live with French Guy and regularly meet germans, spanish, Italian, polish, greek etc people.

To summarise, obviously it helps massively to be able to rock up at the bike club and be able to say in English "Hi, I'm new here, which is the group that goes XXkmph, can I tag along?", but don't expect 30 Dutch Guys to discuss that afternoon's pro-race in english for your benefit - that will be in Dutch. You spend a lot of time sitting there feeling like a lemon. In my defence, I know very few ex-pats that speak Dutch. Some of the Germans have picked some up as they re very similar, but unless they ve found themselves Dutch partners (which is very difficult), they re as clueless as me.

briantrumpet

ddraver wrote:

IMO, you have to move to a country where they speak English natively (or a language you can speak already) or be prepared to learn the language.

Quite so. I suspect in Dutchland it's similar to Brittany - yes, most of them can speak English pretty well, but the flipside is that they might get a bit frustrated with English people coming over and just assuming that they don't need to make an effort to learn the language. (Mind you, the French in certain parts don't always help themselves in that respect, by being dismissive of our efforts, even when we do try.) Apart from anything else, I just think it's a bit impolite to move somewhere and not to mix properly with the locals (and that very much includes learning the language) - though I must admit, trying to chat on a French club ride would scare me a bit - I struggle enough in English sometimes, when you're sitting alongside a mumbler.

schweiz

In my club, no-one really speaks English to me for anything more than maybe a comical 'Hello, how you you do?' or some kind of 'Crazy Englishman' comment if I'm only wearing shorts and the temperature is below 22°C!! I've learnt over time that some people understand and speak more English than they let on but they're obviously not comfortable speaking it.

I remember my first few club rides where people would be asking me all sorts of stuff. With the wind noise, traffic noise and other chatter combined with the fact I was being spoken to in dialect made for some very short conversations for whoever happened to be on my right or left shoulder. I can now chat with them all, talk about pro cycling, make and understand jokes with them, take the pee out of others and understand when they're taking the pee out of me!

Also, we have a club training camp each year in Cambrils, Spain in May and the travel company we go with is from Switzerland so there are loads of Swiss cyclists there so I have to speak German for 10 days solid or get very bored and lonely!

briantrumpet

schweiz wrote:

Also, we have a club training camp each year in Cambrils, Spain in May and the travel company we go with is from Switzerland so there are loads of Swiss cyclists there so my language so I have to speak German for 10 days solid or get very bored and lonely!

I think that's the nub of it - you have to put yourself in positions where you just HAVE to learn - it might be uncomfortable at first, but just do it, and learn by necessity. And, as I said earlier, I think it is actually so much easier when they can't speak English at all - I feel much less embarrassed by not knowing a particular word in French if I know that they're not doing that double-translation thing, and thinking what an idiot I am for not knowing the word for "chain-link remover tool".