Member Advice on Living Abroad

...live. Most people are a member of trade union here, and if after working for a year you loose your job, the union will pay 80% of your wage and pay you for attend courses until you find a new job. I also like Sweden as it is not too far from home! A 2 hour flight courtesy of Ryanair and I can be back home seeing friends and family and stocking up on all my favourite goodies - namely good strong cheddar, sausages, bacon, Cadbury's chocolate and all ...
...things I'm sure you'll see among my Ciao reviews soon!) **Bad parts of living in Sweden** Sweden can be an expensive place to live both in terms of buying things and paying tax. Everyday food shopping is expensive with a loaf of bread costing on average £2.50! Swedish alcohol is renowned for being expensive with a beer or wine costing around £4 - because of this everyone buys their own drinks and no one ever buys a round of drinks! 33% tax on wages ...

helenmayclark 19.05.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Living Abroad

That may seem like a strange title, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be true. When someone asks where I'm from. or queries my accent, my reply is usually, "Well my passport says Canadian..." But that is far from the whole story. I was born in Geneva, Switzerland. My parents were Canadian, and my father was working for the United Nations. I stayed in Geneva until I was 14, and from 14 to 18 I returned regularly. But I'll start ...
...sense of not belonging, of being a stranger in my native land. As I was totally immersed in the culture from day one, I grew up speaking French fluently, and had no trouble interacting with people. Unless they knew my background, they wouldn't have known I was a foreigner. I attended the big International School and there mixed with children from all corners of the world, which heightened the sense of strangeness at my situation. Nobody really seemed ...

Quakerman 28.02.2005 · Read full review
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~ ~ I actually feel a wee bit of a fraud writing in response to Kate’s (mattygroves) challenge about living in a foreign country. The truth is, although I am a true Scot born and bred, I have lived here in the Republic of Ireland for so long now, (over 20 years) that I actually consider it my home in every sense of the word, and would give it every bit as much loyalty and allegiance as Scotland, the land of my birth. So what I intend to do ...
...two countries, and tell you a little bit about what it is I like about Ireland and the Irish, and what I dislike. ~ ~ The very first thing that struck me forcefully about the Irish is how laid back they are. There’s an old saying here (in fact, there’s quite a LOT of old sayings here) that says, “When God made time he made plenty of it”. A lot of Irish people take it fairly literally, which means that they never seem to be ...

the_mad_cabbie 08.03.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Living Abroad

Just as a bird leaves the nest to find its own way in the world, I have left England to find my way in the “New World”. I am now in my 13th month of living in Morgantown, W.Va., and loving every minute of it! Although I miss my “home” & my family and various aspects of village life in rural Sussex, I prefer the way things are now to the way they were before. >>> THE REASON <<< As with a lot of things, your motive for doing something is ultimately ...
...This is true whether it be a move to the next village down the road, to the campus at University in the next county or to a country 5,000 miles away. The more time you spend thinking about why you want to do something, will improve your chances of making the “right” decision. In my case my motive for moving across the ocean was to be with the woman I couldn’t live without, who was going to change my way of life forever. Sound slushy? Well, maybe ...

Luigi 05.03.2003 · Read full review
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As I lived and worked “Down Under” for over two years I thought I would try and contribute something to this new category. So here goes. I first visited Australia on business at the end of 1997, when I was based in Brisbane for three weeks. At the end of the trip, my company kindly offered to pay for me to go and visit Sydney for three days, as (in their words) “You never know when you will get the opportunity again”. So I got my very first glimpse ...
...on. I stayed in a hotel in Woolloomooloo. A fab name which I still find amusing. One of the little delights about living abroad is learning place names which are so very different from our own. Anyway, fast forward six months to July 13th 1998 and once again I was flying to Australia for a two week trip this time. However at the end of the two week trip, I was asked if I wanted to join the team for a longer (unspecified) period. I flew home to pack ...

helencbradshaw 17.03.2003 · Read full review
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Well, Germany’s hardly ‘the enemy’ any more, is it? But you’d be forgiven for thinking that I’d gone over to the dark side and foresworn all vestiges of Englishness if you’d heard the reactions of some people back at home when I told them I was moving to Germany. “What do you want to go and live there for?”, “How are you going to cope with the Krauts?”, and so it went on. What could I say ...
...but then I did originally only plan to stay for 18 months, at the absolute maximum. Now if I had gone home after that period of time, there’s no way I’d have got a ticket for that famous 5-1 victory in Munich, and I wouldn’t have missed that for the world! But that wasn’t the main reason for staying, of course... However, the main reason for those mixed feelings was that I had not had a particularly thrilling time when I ...

JVL 27.02.2003 · Read full review
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I spent my 21st birthday in the middle of no-where in the Dordogne region of France with 4 people who had been complete strangers just 2 days before (one of whom has been my constant sparring partner, ever since and will no doubt remain that way forever.) It was raining, cold and generally miserable. The thought “What the hell am I doing here?” crossed my mind more than a little... I had always thought that Living Abroad (in capital letters – a ...
...be very exciting and I’d always wanted to travel, so when I was offered a job doing administration and translation in France, I jumped at the chance, I didn’t even think about it – job offer to 21st birthday with strangers up a hill in the rain took just 9 days. I’d lived in France on a cultural exchange for a month when I was 16, so I really did think I knew it all! France doesn’t seem so far away or such an exotic location, but when faced with ...

lwperkins 05.03.2003 · Read full review
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I remember when I was called into my bosses’ office. I was a 25 year old pup who was tired of living in Houston. I have taken some temporary assignments in Philadelphia and Chicago, but it was not really what I was looking for. What I really wanted was an assignment outside of the United States. I kept on bringing up the fact that I had four semesters of German in college so when he told me that they found an assignment for me I already was thinking ...
...Then the revelation came: San Juan, Puerto Rico. I could not believe my ears. I did not speak Spanish and come on, Puerto Rico? I mean I was in banking not rum making. I did a little research that night and discovered that Puerto Rico was smack in the middle of the Caribbean and since it was a commonwealth of the US, the visa issue would be much easier. So I decided what the hell, it is only for two years. The first step was Spanish training. I ...

Scott_Howitt 17.03.2003 · Read full review
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In his book "Me Talk Pretty One Day," American humorist David Sedaris chronicles his experience as a 40-something American expatriate in Paris. His struggle to master French isn't an easy one but at least he's not alone. The support offered by other students in his language class is invaluable: "Be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay." OK! I can totally relate to his experience. ...
...I had pretty good grammar, I had no experience speaking, listening and responding to the language in a real life situation. And textbook German rarely covered emergencies like going to the dormitory maintenance guy to replace a burnt out light bulb. I was still relatively new to Germany when said emergency arose. I slipped the old light bulb with its blackened interior and broken filament into my pocket, looked up the word in my dictionary (that's ...

tastebud 26.02.2003 · Read full review
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Having experienced life as an ex-patriot, as we called ourselves, in two highly-contrasting locations, I was tempted to write two separate opinions. However, on reflection I realised that I would have missed the point had I done so. It would be all too easy to make an op about living abroad into a rather self-indulgent travelogue, trying to describe what has to be experienced to have any real meaning (such as the dust storms and the heat in the Middle ...
...some things are universal and I want to try to distil some of the universal "truths" that emerged from living as a British teacher in Gibraltar and Ahwaz in Southern Iran. These two places are as far apart in terms of everyday life as you could imagine yet many common threads became evident as I thought back over the time we spent in each. I went to Gibraltar in 1969 as a recruit of the Service Children's Education Authority (in other words, to ...

Floon 25.02.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Living Abroad

If “living” means “visiting” then I’ve “lived” in more than 15 countries in the last 15 years. But living doesn’t mean that to me. To “live” somewhere in my mind means a long term stay, at least a month but usually more, for purposes other than tourism – for studying or working for example. With this definition, I’ve “lived” in 4 countries outside the UK – Italy, ...
...holidays are usually involved - I haven’t spent an August 1st in the UK for as long as I can remember – but now I’m here for the long haul. I never moved around much in the UK – the only move I remember was from my home town to Manchester for uni, so most of my “moving” experience is abroad. My first job abroad took me to Germany. I was 16 years old and spent the summer working there. It’s not an overstatement ...

zoe_page 21.02.2003 (27.02.2003) · Read full review
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I have been reliably informed by mattygroves that living on a college campus in America for 4 months qualifies as “living abroad” so I have decided to take up the challenge and write about my very short time living in another country. I like to think that what follows is a snapshot of life in the States rather than a comprehensive review. WHAT I LIKED Way of Life I was based in a small town called Huntingdon in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania ...
...and it has quite a rural feel to it. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are its two major cities, Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the east. Huntingdon is in the middle of the two. But even though I was hours from the big cities, Huntingdon still had a 24-hour culture, which I found fantastic. I could buy anything I wanted at any time of the day or night or use the computer suite at the college at 4 in the morning – this was very different ...

AnitaM 02.03.2003 · Read full review
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I've always thought that living abroad must be a marvellous experience. What is it like though for those who are left at home? Over the years I've had quite a bit of experience of being the one left at home! When my daughter was small I always told her that there were no glass ceilings, there was nowhere she couldn't go, nothing that she couldn't do. Little did I imagine the extent to which she would take this to heart and what this would mean in ...
...University" she said one day "is English and French Law". Helen has always been determined and once she'd decided that was it. Her third year at University was spent in Paris where she obtained the Diplôme de Droit Francais. Strangely this actually brought her closer to home than when she was at University in England as it was only a two-hour flight, instead of a six-hour drive. The year spent in France matured Helen and she came home with a formidable ...

SueMagee 25.02.2003 · Read full review
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Some people like change, travelling, and new horizons. I am not one of them! So when it became clear, over ten years ago now, that our family would need to move for two years to Colorado Springs in the USA, I found the idea very stressful. Indeed, of all the countries in the world, America was probably the place I least wanted to live. However it was the right thing to do for my husband's work, so we began the process of applying for visas. Not as ...
...moving in January 1992, but changes in the rules meant that nobody was quite sure what kind of visa we should be applying for. As my husband was seconded from a British agency rather than being employed in the USA, he could not apply for a work permit. He thought he could apply for a religious visa, since it was a Christian mission agency sending us to another similar organisation - but a lawyer in the USA advised us that these were only for ordained ...

Kukana 16.08.2003 · Read full review
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One could pen an entire A to Z on The Netherlands or as we more commonly call it, Holland. Holland is a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural society steeped in tradition where I spent 4 wonderful years living and working there. After spending all of my working life grinding a living out in engineering in the North-East of England, I sat back one day and asked if this is how I envisaged my life for the rest of it. I answered a firm no, which then got my ...
...Well, emigrating became a choice, which was coming more to the forefront of a list of ideas designed to give me the change which I yearned for. Finding employment was done this side via a recruitment agency specialising in occupations based around my career and within no time a position had been found in Eindhoven which is situated in the south of Holland. My family and I had agreed that I was to go out there, initially for 3 months, coming home ...

GeordieNo1 08.03.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Living Abroad