Convince Me to Move to Your Country

[Muspelheim]

Move to Sweden! Because... Er... REASONS!

We are pretty environmentally friendly, we are disproportionally attractive according to a lot of visitors, and we have a pretty decent social safety net. Not to mention school is free, at least to citizens. Oh, and though I wouldn't like living there myself - don't like big cities - Stockholm is fricking beautiful.

Spoiler

Open image in a new tab to see it bigger. GORGEOUS. /biased opinion

Agreed, Stockholm is bloody beautiful. And those are words of a rival, a proud Son of River Gaut. It's an unusually beautiful city. It's very difficult finding a place to live to a reasonable price, though, save the poorer suburban complexes. The lovely view is worth the trip on the tube.

The only real con I can think of is the winters. They are rather long, cold and it's entirely possible to miss daylight for weeks if your schedule don't take you outside mid day. It can be a bit of an adjustment phase if you come directly from Australia.

As for politics, well... The conservative rich people parties are in power at the moment. But they're rather decent, and likely to be flung back out again if they get worse. Nowhere near the "We really wish this was the 1950's and think it will be if we pretend hard enough" gig the Australian winning party seem to have on.

Oh, and people generally really like Australians, too.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

AMERICA!

- We've got excellent healthcare for all for the rich, two political parties who, despite disagreement, will compromise with each other in dire straits, and guns. Lots of guns. I mean, like, millions of guns. OMG SO MANY GUNS.

- It's super easy to find success here, as long as you're a prostitute, are looking to open a dive bar, or presumably open a gun range.

- Freedom fries, baby.

- You'll be able to familiarize yourself with the greatness of Louie C.K.: or, the greatest comedian in the world.

 

[trollnystan]

Move to Sweden! Because... Er... REASONS!

We are pretty environmentally friendly, we are disproportionally attractive according to a lot of visitors, and we have a pretty decent social safety net. Not to mention school is free, at least to citizens. Oh, and though I wouldn't like living there myself - don't like big cities - Stockholm is fricking beautiful.

Spoiler

Open image in a new tab to see it bigger. GORGEOUS. /biased opinion

Agreed, Stockholm is bloody beautiful. And those are words of a rival, a proud Son of River Gaut. It's an unusually beautiful city. It's very difficult finding a place to live to a reasonable price, though, save the poorer suburban complexes. The lovely view is worth the trip on the tube.

The only real con I can think of is the winters. They are rather long, cold and it's entirely possible to miss daylight for weeks if your schedule don't take you outside mid day. It can be a bit of an adjustment phase if you come directly from Australia.

As for politics, well... The conservative rich people parties are in power at the moment. But they're rather decent, and likely to be flung back out again if they get worse. Nowhere near the "We really wish this was the 1950's and think it will be if we pretend hard enough" gig the Australian winning party seem to have on.

Oh, and people generally really like Australians, too.

You speak of Gothenburg I assume? Now there's a big city I could live in; beautiful, lots of water, and with a kind of small town feel to it despite its size. Was there a few years ago and fell in love with it.

And yes, we are very fond of Auzzies <3 We have a lot of them here actually. I think I've met more Auzzies than Americans in fact. My boss is even married to one!

 

[RandV80]

I'd say come to Canada... er, I mean Harperstan... but no one should come here with the crap currently going on. Escpecially if you're an enviromental engineer - they'd probably arrest you and sew your lips shut.

The only way out would be if you started working for the Oil Sands and the only words you could ever speak would be "Oil Sands. Good for Canada. Good for the Environment."

You think I'm kidding, don't you? I'm not.

Damn, Canada was on my short list.

And it still should be, just stick to the West Coast. The political situation was being over dramatized there, when really it comes down to regional interest and right now oil-centric Alberta holds the leading interest in the federal government.

Things are much different in BC though, not quite as much in the rural regions (which rely heavily on forestry and mining) but come to Vancouver/Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island and it's very liberal and much more environmentally friendly. And while it will still likely seem cold/rainy to an Australian we have the mildest weather in the country here, where it typically doesn't drop below 0C in the winter or rise above 30C in the summer. Biggest downside is that it's an expensive place to live, and the locals don't tend to be as open/friendly as other places. Plenty of transplants to make up for the latter though.

You'll of course have to do your thorough research, but Canada/Vancouver should still remain a top contender.

 

[Muspelheim]

You speak of Gothenburg I assume? Now there's a big city I could live in; beautiful, lots of water, and with a kind of small town feel to it despite its size. Was there a few years ago and fell in love with it.

And yes, we are very fond of Auzzies <3 We have a lot of them here actually. I think I've met more Auzzies than Americans in fact. My boss is even married to one!

True, true, it's a very pleasant place. It's great that the spirit of the small but large harbour city has managed to survive in some form. But it's a rather ugly, industrial city, it doesn't have genuine beauty like Stockholm has. As much as it is a bit of a sting to the silly ol' ethnic pride, I'd recommend tourists and visitors to Stockholm at first. Although they really should pop over west for a visit, too.

Speaking of... Another bonus of taking the Nordic route is that the Nordic countries are all rather small, with good infrastructure. Getting somewhere doesn't take very long at all, and is yet different enough to be a refreshing change of scenery. Like Norwegian fjords, Danish fields and so on.

(And if you get tired of booze and mummified fish, the continent and the lovely things there are comfortably close, too!)

I don't know too much of Australia, but I can imagine that getting across such a huge chunk of land can be a bit of a mouthful.

 

[jdavies655]

I'd say come to New Zealand.
You would be valued as an environmental engineer.
Our weather is better.
Our politics are basically the opposite of what Oz are doing.
It's close so you can easily go back to visit friends and family.
We are getting good internet in most of the large cities (30mbs to 100mbs ish ).
the environment hear is truly beautiful.
If i was to suggest a city i would say Dunedin or Auckland.

 

[Product Placement]

-Lovely scenic pictures of Scotland-

I see the pictures of Scotland posted some way above and I raise you one rural Southern England

I see your still photos of lovely landscape and raise you a video of lovely Icelandic landscape.

[vimeo=22415883]

As for Drummodino's challenge, I can tell you that we already have quite a few Australians living in Iceland, all very interesting fellas. I actually have a running theory that X% of humans have a desperate need to travel and get as far away from their birthplace as possible. These people normally ended up being the explorers of yore but since Earth is pretty much all explored already, they settle with finding a place on the other side of the planet. That would at least explain all the Australians, anyways.

At any rate, healthcare is good, personal freedom is excellent, 90% of the country speaks fluent English and winters in the capital region are very mild compared to other places further down south (I've been told that winters in New York can get worse).

All right, that's enough of me playing a tourist/immigrant agent for now.

 

[Drummodino]

If everyone who doesn't like Abbott leaves the country, he'll get voted back in

I'll still remain an Australian citizen so I should be able to do an absentee vote if I do leave the country.

How exactly are you planning on just moving though? Getting visas aren't that easy, getting permanent residence is even harder unless a company sponsors you.

I'm hoping that once I graduate I will be able to get a company to sponsor me to move and go work for them. I know it won't be easy, but I'm sure I'll be able to find a way.

Come to Germany! Just a few reasons.

But the biggest thing? The people. For some it's weird, for some it's great.
Apparently we stare a lot (everyone keeps telling me that, but I just don't notice it myself) at pretty much everyone.
People need a lot of warming up before they will call you their friend - but then, you'll have a friend for life.
The biggest difference, though? Honesty. Both in a good, and a bad way. We don't like smalltalk. Either say something that you want to say or don't say anything at all. We didn't even have a word for smalltalk before we stole the english one. So it can be a little bit cold at first - cashiers will NEVER ask you for your day, or how crazy the weather is, unless there is a tornado outside. We don't even have the concept of a "white lie" - the closest is "Notlüge", emergency lie.
That might sound nice, but it also means people won't sugarcoat anything. Go into a place to eat something and it's not too fancy? Don't be disturbed if the chef doesn't smile. We don't do the "I love my job" smile unless we really do.

So, yeah, Germany, if you want to have a good social net and people who are brutally honest in comparison.

Germany is a maybe. How is their economy holding up post GFC? From what I've heard they're basically supporting a lot of the Eurozone but I'm not too sure on the specifics.

That lack of smalltalk and brutal honesty is intriguing. Australia is probably the exact opposite, people here are very polite to strangers. It's kind of funny that the people we insult the most would be our closest friends. That would take some getting used to, but I can see the appeal.

..... you know what, Let's not convince you to move to the US, 'tis a silly place.

Haha yea I don't think I'll be moving there sorry!

Well, Canada and Australia have always been on good terms as far as engineers go. We have equivalency for a pile of stuff, so if you get your EIT status in Australia then you can come to Canada and practice with pretty minimal extra requirements. Its not like that with Canada/US, we have to take each others godawful exams before we can do anything. Additionally if you find a company to work for before you make the move they will help with your visa application, and if they like you they can opt to sponsor your permanent residency.

In fact when I graduated I had three or four friends make the leap over the pond to start their EIT term in Australia. Two mechanical engineers, a petroleum engineer and an environmental engineer.

Some people have mentioned tuition, which is cool if its an ideological issue, but if you are worried about getting more school for yourself you should know that the province is the one who helps pay down the tuition, and they don't typically help out of province individuals. There are a shit tonne of scholarships for out of province students though, so there is that.

Honestly I've been blithely unaware of most of the political happenings in Canada since before my second post second stuff. I can't really tell you what's good or whats bad.

Oh although: if you have an ideological issue with petroleum, oil sands, or forestry, then as an environmental engineer you will pretty much have to live in the eastern provinces. Out here in the west all our engineering jobs are at least in some way tied to those, particularly the larger firms. If you find a company in the western provinces big enough to be willing to sponsor a visa for you, guaranteed you will end up working on something for the oil sands or the forestry industry sooner or later.

Now that is an informative post! I didn't know that Canada and Australia's engineering credentials were that easy to transfer across. I am a bit of an environmentalist, but I'm not wholly opposed to working for a company like that. The way I see it is that for us to change these companies practices and get them to adopt sustainable models for the future, we need to have people actually working for them who are willing to fight for these changes. I know that may not make me the most popular guy around in that company, but the people within the company are ultimately the ones responsible for its behaviour.

Move to Sweden! Because... Er... REASONS!

We are pretty environmentally friendly, we are disproportionally attractive according to a lot of visitors, and we have a pretty decent social safety net. Not to mention school is free, at least to citizens. Oh, and though I wouldn't like living there myself - don't like big cities - Stockholm is fricking beautiful.

EDIT: Also, if you're a lazy fucker and don't want to learn the language, we all speak English. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find the opportunity to practise your Swedish as everyone and their half-deaf granny will want to practise their English on you. Seriously.

Agreed, Stockholm is bloody beautiful. And those are words of a rival, a proud Son of River Gaut. It's an unusually beautiful city. It's very difficult finding a place to live to a reasonable price, though, save the poorer suburban complexes. The lovely view is worth the trip on the tube.

The only real con I can think of is the winters. They are rather long, cold and it's entirely possible to miss daylight for weeks if your schedule don't take you outside mid day. It can be a bit of an adjustment phase if you come directly from Australia.

As for politics, well... The conservative rich people parties are in power at the moment. But they're rather decent, and likely to be flung back out again if they get worse. Nowhere near the "We really wish this was the 1950's and think it will be if we pretend hard enough" gig the Australian winning party seem to have on.

Oh, and people generally really like Australians, too.

Sweden is near the top of my list. I LOVE the look of the country, Stockholm in particular looks gorgeous. I was unaware that most people spoke English there, that is a definite plus. I would probably try to learn the language though, if only to show off to people back home in Aus

You need to come to Belgium. Just like Aussies we have mandatory voting and on top of that i often read we lack engineers (though i'm not sure if environmental engineers specifically are being highly sought after).

On top of that we're pretty left wing, state funded cheap universities, universal healthcare, decent welfare system, relatively high minimum wage (compared to others), etc. But unlike other countries where those things can quickly go away our political system which is based on complicated inefficiency will ensure no drastic change ever happen.

And when it comes to fun we have the best beer, chocolate and french fries. On top of that we're such a small densely packed country that you can get anywhere from anywhere driving 350 km max. And we're also the kind of people who celebrate the fact we don't have a federal government for a year by eating french fries, drinking beer and singing on the street. (others might get angry, we just don't care)

And lastly, since the Red Devils are finally playing good you would right on time to be able support our national soccer team when it actually has a chance to get somewhere during the world cup.

I've heard good things about Belgium. I do like your chocolate (well at least what is supposed to be Belgian chocolate, I get the feeling the real thing would be better). How hard would it be for an English speaker to get by?

I'd say come to New Zealand.
You would be valued as an environmental engineer.
Our weather is better.
Our politics are basically the opposite of what Oz are doing.
It's close so you can easily go back to visit friends and family.
We are getting good internet in most of the large cities (30mbs to 100mbs ish ).
the environment hear is truly beautiful.
If i was to suggest a city i would say Dunedin or Auckland.

New Zealand huh... possibly. I live in Western Australia, so it's still pretty far away. Not as far as the other options though obviously. I do feel that part of my desire to leave is to experience other countries and cultures and New Zealand may not be "exotic" enough to satisfy that urge.

 

[Amaror]

Germany is a maybe. How is their economy holding up post GFC? From what I've heard they're basically supporting a lot of the Eurozone but I'm not too sure on the specifics.

That lack of smalltalk and brutal honesty is intriguing. Australia is probably the exact opposite, people here are very polite to strangers. It's kind of funny that the people we insult the most would be our closest friends. That would take some getting used to, but I can see the appeal.

I am not an expert in economics or anything but from what i can tell and have heart were holding up just fine. As i said were one of the countries with the least depth problems. And i don't know how it's been in other countries but personally i have never notices anything different during all these different economy crisis. No increase in cost or anything.
It's true that we support a LOT of countries in the Eurozone, but we are also a really bit exporter of stuff for the eurozone, so a lot of that money flows right back to us.

 

[Olas]

Come to St. Louis Missouri, we have... the arch?

Ya, I'm gonna go with that.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

If you're into games (You have to be. Or else, why are you The Escapist?) America is the place to be right now. Besides that though? I wouldn't know what we have that other countries don't, honestly. The USA used to be a great place... Now? Not so much. We're definitely not terrible but we're not at the level we once were.

 

[RA92]

I would tell you to move to Bangladesh, but you're probably not hardcore enough.

Our main method of transportation, for instance, is train surfing...

http://files.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/overcrowded-train.jpg

The political opposition (doesn't matter which party) loves to take an active role on the street instead of the parliament by setting shit on fire/lobbing hand grenades, meaning your daily commute can take a turn for the worst without warning...

http://cdn.asiancorrespondent.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/BangladeshStrike-621x327.jpg

http://www.demotix.com/news/3084248/60-hours-strike-turns-violent-bangladesh

And you thought your religious right was bad?

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Images_of_Jihad_-_Bangladesh

(Thankfully, the largest religious party has been banned entirely in the name of a secularist government (read: pruning the opposition), but it seems to have just pissed them off more...)

...

Well, Stockholm's looking nice this time of the year.

 

[Me55enger]

I'll just leave this right here..

So when do you arrive?

(UK, in case you didn't guess)

You diamond. That is funny. And true. Say what you will about it's public image, I for one am proud of the NHS and happy it's there. It's a symbol of age-old socialism back in the day when Politics was for the people.

To reassert what my now good friend is saying, I'll just:

 

[squall9126]

Canada, 'nuff said. Seriously, out west in British Columbia, not Vancouver though. Kamloops is nice, so is Kelowna. Being from BC i'm a little biased but don't go to Quebec or Ontario, Quebec is full of french separatists and Ontario has Toronto, Toronto is horrible. plus if you choose Kamloops it's only a 12 hour drive to California.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Come to England- It's not like America!
Yeah that was my pitch.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Move to Sweden! Because... Er... REASONS!

We are pretty environmentally friendly, we are disproportionally attractive according to a lot of visitors, and we have a pretty decent social safety net. Not to mention school is free, at least to citizens. Oh, and though I wouldn't like living there myself - don't like big cities - Stockholm is fricking beautiful.

Spoiler

Open image in a new tab to see it bigger. GORGEOUS. /biased opinion

EDIT: Also, if you're a lazy fucker and don't want to learn the language, we all speak English. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find the opportunity to practise your Swedish as everyone and their half-deaf granny will want to practise their English on you. Seriously.

Isn't it really hard to get a job in Sweden if you don't actually speak swedish?

 

[CrazyCrab]

Luxembourg is wonderful, I'm from Poland but its so awesome here that I feel like its my new home.
I wouldn't be surprised if you never heard of it, but it actually really great. Its so strongly connected to other countries that it takes like 30 mins to go to Germany or France as well as a 1 hour flight to London. It has probably the highest GDP on Earth and everyone speaks whatever language they want - if you go to a bank you're free to speak French, German, English or Luxembourgish and 90% of the time it will work. I guess the party is pretty liberal, I was never too much into it, (we do have a prince but hes more of a celebrity than anything else) and there is pretty much everything here. And if you want anything else you just drive or take a plane - want to spend a weekend in Paris? No problem, its like a couple of hours. From what I know 40% of the citizens is Luxembourgish so I guess everyone is welcome ^^

When it comes to environment most of the country that is not the big city of Luxembourg is pretty much a giant forest and they're pretty big on keeping it that way (my mom`s ex boyfriend was into the same thing as you are and he came from Italy as they needed people). Its also one of the countries where European Union meetings often take place.

In any case, good luck finding your new home

 

[generals3]

I've heard good things about Belgium. I do like your chocolate (well at least what is supposed to be Belgian chocolate, I get the feeling the real thing would be better). How hard would it be for an English speaker to get by?

Well it depends. Socially speaking pretty well since most can speak at least a little bit English but for jobs yeah you might need to learn french or dutch.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

You diamond. That is funny. And true. Say what you will about it's public image, I for one am proud of the NHS and happy it's there. It's a symbol of age-old socialism back in the day when Politics was for the people.

To reassert what my now good friend is saying, I'll just:

It rains a lot but we love it and sarcastically complaining about the weather is how we say hello. Our country has a kind of charm to it that the rain and cold cant really remove.

We have tea, are good natured and NEVER take ourselves too seriously. Or very seriously at all. Our first response to dick heads is to mock them rather than get angry. We laugh at ourselves a LOT. And at everyone else. But we expect eachother to take the joke because we ALL do it ALL the time.

Our version of patriotism is to pretend to hate england. Its generally accepted the average briton really has no idea about anything but secretly we are proud that at least we KNOW we are a fairly useless lot. Ill let david mitchel explain:


The NHS is my favourite thing about this nation. It corrected my awful teeth which are now totally perfect. It provided me with free (although extremely ugly) glasses until I became old enough to wear contacts. It provided me with emergency care a week ago when my eye was extremely seriously infected and the doctors were battling to save it from destruction. The doctors and staff were polite, efficient (and had a plan to... wait a minute) and were extremely friendly. One of the interns went home after seeing me with my almost ruined eye (large laceration and infection, trust me I looked awful) and brought in firefly and serenity on his external hard drive so I could watch my favourite show with my good eye. He gave me portal two to play on his steam account and internet so I could facebook my friends and go on tumblr. The nurses commonly talked to me and the intern helped me with my biomedical lectures. I couldnt imagine a better hospital experience. I was waiting 2 hours from arrival to being properly medicated and cared for at A and E at rush hour (Late night) and I was IMMEDIATELY treated with anaesthetic to numb the pain when the doctor on call saw the state of my eye. He was honest, to the point and worked extremely hard to ensure the side effects were minimal. Im sitting here now with two very functional eyes and a small scar from the laceration.

Unfortunately any attempt to say how great my nation is destroys my favourite thing about it. So ill say i like it here and i think you would too.