It sounds like you’re experiencing the same flight reflex that hits me from time to time. The news provides sensory overload, and triggers your gag reflex. You feel like if you have to look at one more flying monkey running for office ,you’ll just get out the old sniper rifle and climb up into a tower somewhere. But when I start thinking that maybe a villa in Tuscany is the answer, I realize that every place has its problems, and that trying to escape one set by running to another is pointless. What happens when the novelty wears off and I realize that decent medical care is spotty and I don’t speak the language? How do I manage the affairs I leave behind in the U.S.?
I combat it all by trying to shut it all off for extended periods. I don’t watch the news or read the papers for a week or two, which provides blessed relief. I NEVER go to fast food joints or chain restaurants. At some point, I hope to stick my head in the sand and just leave it there, if the Ms. will let me.
No matter what country you live in, or what part of the country you live in, you can find good and bad.
I lived in Germany for 14 years, loved it. However, the weather sucks big time, prices are ridiculous, years of wurst and beer do take a toll on the German waistline…but on the flip side, they are less television oriented, the kids are more eager to go outside and play.
I also grew up in a small town in Illinois. If I had to live there now, I would go stark raving mad. So - give me a large city, pretty much anywhere in the US or Europe and I can do quite nicely, thank you.
You need to find your niche, and from your brief comments, maybe you should find someplace more condusive to outdoor activities for your entire family.
Oh, and as far as getting ragged on in foreign countries - hell, all I have to do is go to my local redneck bar and I can get a lot worse. Plus - perhaps now you know how it feels for some 25 year old German kid to go travelling anywhere in the world and have some drunk rant about Nazis in his ear at the local bar. Actually, the heated debates I had travelling in Europe were usually quite entertaining - and as others have mentioned, even the biggest critics of US policy were the ones eager to pay for my bar bill and get a chance to vent and maybe disprove some myths, or verify the truths. And over the years, I heard quite a few doozies about the USA that were considered “fact” by the local populace.
So - flee if you will, and I am a big fan of foreign travel and adventure - but make sure you are moving forward, and not just running away. There is a difference.
I’ve got a bad case of wanting to get the hell out, but not because of obesity. I’m thin. Wife and kids are thinner.
Anyway, because of some really nasty stuff that’s happened lately, and that I don’t want to go into, I’m getting the impression that in the US, if you don’t watch your ass every second and keep your nose cleaner than a surgeon’s hands, this country is out to get you. Seems like our internal attitude towards our citizens is right in keeping with the Project or the New American Century. So I’m thinking maybe Canada would be a bit more genteel. Or Costa Rica, for that matter.
But maybe this is just because I live in Texas, where the attitude toward just about everything is “Lock 'em up and forget about it.” It would probably be a lot easier if there were a better place within the US than the Gulag state. Anybody got any ideas along these lines (please don’t say Vermont; I can’t afford it)? For that matter, where are places not to be. Seems like Virginia, Florida, and Arizona are about as fascist as Texas.
This is probably an incoherent post, but I’m fairly distraught.
I’m sure I’ll be castigated for being naive, but I really don’t see the opressiveness that some, like kelly5078, see. Maybe it’s being in the great Garden State. We have a modest house at the end of an ordinary street. Nobody much tells us what to do. The young person in our home is considerate of the neighbors when she has a party, but nobody tries to tell us how to live. We don’t have to “watch our ass every second.” I am trying to imagine what we could be wanting to do that would cause the big bad government to intrude on us, and I sure don’t feel like anybody’s out to get us. 'Course we don’t especially want to deal drugs or keep dangerous animals on our property or fill the yard with old household appliances. Not that I’m saying kelly or anyone else here does.
I also agree with chefguy that sometimes for one’s own sanity it’s necessary to just turn off the t.v. and ignore the news for a while.
You don’t like the stereotype of Americans that the media perpetrates, but you feel like a “freak” because you don’t buy an SUV?
I think the problem is much more about you and a not about America at all.
I’m different and people don’t like it so I wanna leave…
Being different. How hard is that? If someone actually gives a crap that you don’t have an SUV (and this isn’t just you projecting what you see on TV), WHO CARES?? Why does that person have any bearing on your life or how you live it?
North. If Vermont is too expensive, Maine and New Hampshire are similar but cheaper. Maybe Washington state.
I have never heard a bad word about Minnesota, and I’ve known people both from there and who moved there and never left. But that’s mostly the Minneapolis area, which (from what I understand) is not the most expensive city to live in, but being a city is not as cheap as the sticks.
This is IMHO, so I don’t need no stinkin’ cite!
Seriously, that is just what it is, MHO. I’ve lived (grown up in) several western European countries (Mainly the Netherlands and Germany), and have lived in the US for about 15 years now. To me, the fundamental difference is the one I described. Other than that, the differences are minimal: Holland especially is looking more and more like the US, the TV is not that different, music largely the same. But the reason they would have to threaten grievous bodily harm before I’d move back there is that the place makes me feel confined, and I feel restricted in what I can and cannot do. (for example, you can shop for groceries after 5 pm now - and that’s a fairly recent improvement- but you have to go to a special store Asinine.
The concept that a citizen has to register with the local government, and any changes had better be reported promptly - that would bother the sh*t out of me. For starters. And I’m not the only one, there are more Dutchies moving Stateside than vice-versa, and if expressed in percentage of respective populations,.
If you decided to leave and it didn’t work out, would you not be able to return? Would it scar your children, ruin your marriage, destroy you financially? If the risks seem reasonable compared to the gains, then go. Hopefully we’ll all still be here when/if you come back.
My parents didn’t like our local schools and packed my sister and I off to Mexico. It’s not that the schools in Mexico are perfect, or that the local schools were horrible, but what Mexico could provide hit more items on their list of desirable attributes (as you seem to feel with Ireland vs. US). It was tough to go and tough to return, eventually, but both were surmountable with support and understanding. I’m grateful every day for the education I received, not just in school but culturally as well.
Plus, I’m much happier now that I’ve cut back my news media to a daily paper and occassional magazine. Shopping at WalMart can make you want to jump ship, too. Them people ain’t right.
I’ll just note here that I’ve had that connection to the earth in Chicago, Minneapolis and, to some extent, Omaha. I like living in Tucson and would recommend that or a big, health-conscious city such as LA, Chicago or New York (or San Diego, where I lived for the last 7 years–not too much to do between the ages of 18 and 40, but a great place to live–most people are shallow there, though, and this is probably true in LA as well). I always liked Baltimore, but I haven’t been there since I was little and lived between Baltimore and DC.
Either way, good luck. I would seriously consider moving to another country but in all likelihood would probably be happier in Chicago–I’ve only been there once, but I definitely got the feeling that I would love my life if I lived there.
I can’t blame you at all for feeling the way you do.
And Arizona is conservative, but it’s getting more progressive. Retro vs. Metro recently changed our status from ‘Retro’ (backwards) to ‘Metro’ (progressive). Tucson seems pretty liberal and progressive, and it really doesn’t get much more progressive than Minnesota. California is up there, and it’s looking like Washington is too.
