Would you ever consider moving to continental Europe? And if so where?

Brian?

Alun wrote: »

When I lived there, in Veldhoven, we had BBC 1 and 2 on the local cable.

Ah ok. I didn’t see it listed myself. I just use IPTV.

ancapailldorcha

Brian? wrote: »

Ah ok. I didn’t see it listed myself. I just use IPTV.

You could get BBC and ITV when I visited Ghent for training.

McGiver

Deleted User wrote:

Not my experience. I guess they were reacting to you.

No, they weren't. I insist. The rudest in Central Europe.
They're very different than the rest of central Europe. And that's something - Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks are all sort of rude in a central European way. Hungarians beat them all.

Mister Vain

Mad_maxx wrote: »

I found Hungarians to be the rudest and surliest people I've ever met

The women have terrific racks though

I'd have to agree. The staff in grocery shops and restaurants practically throw the food at you. It's not a place I'd return to in a hurry. Prague and Vienna are much better.

McGiver

Mad_maxx wrote: »

I found Hungarians to be the rudest and surliest people I've ever met

The women have terrific racks though

Agreed. Lovely people indeed, unless they're grumpy, complaining and rude, which is most of the time unfortunately. Else they're a lovely friendly lot, of course. Good wine.

But I've heard something about porn or somethin

McGiver

Mister Vain wrote: »

I'd have to agree. The staff in grocery shops and restaurants practically throw the food at you. It's not a place I'd return to in a hurry. Prague and Vienna are much better.

Better but still rude, for Irish standards
Shop assistants in Prague are like - why are you even here, I really want to die and not be doing this job at all [rolling eyes].

Strumms

CelticRambler wrote: »

Ah yes - Paris in the summer. The city Parisians love to leave, because of the stifling heat, unbreathably polluted air, and infestation of tourists! :pac:

They love to leave because of the stifling heat ? Unbreathable polluted air ? The majority head south where it is warmer ffs..Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Provence to name four

The air quality is relatively good for a capital city... neither Paris or indeed any French city comes in the top 500 cities in the world for air pollution, WHO will be back this... I don’t know why you are suggesting it would... given the prevalence of excellent public transport, metro, RER, trains, buses, trams, river boats... most polluting industries are outside the city too... car usage is not that big considering the population, a lot of buses are environmentally friendly, 100% of the fleet will be ecologically friendly by 2025.

Mister Vain

McGiver wrote: »

Better but still rude, for Irish standards
Shop assistants in Prague are like - why are you even here, I really want to die and not be doing this job at all [rolling eyes].

I thought the young people in Prague were friendly but the older people really don't like tourists.

McGiver

Mister Vain wrote: »

I thought the young people in Prague were friendly but the older people really don't like tourists.

Friendly yes but more like bored-desperate-disinterested is the right description.

And yes, older people are grumpy and passive-aggressive. If you're a foreign tourist it's even worse

Strumms

Strumms wrote: »

They love to leave because of the stifling heat ? Unbreathable polluted air ? The majority head south where it is warmer ffs..Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Provence to name four

The air quality is relatively good for a capital city... neither Paris or indeed any French city comes in the top 500 cities in the world for air pollution, WHO will be back this... I don’t know why you are suggesting it would... given the prevalence of excellent public transport, metro, RER, trains, buses, trams, river boats... most polluting industries are outside the city too... car usage is not that big considering the population, a lot of buses are environmentally friendly, 100% of the fleet will be ecologically friendly by 2025.

Still, though. You’d miss the sea.

McGiver

josip wrote: »

And in Goteburg in November there were days when the fog didn't clear and the street lights never went out.
I found that tough.
Did ye get the same sea fog up north?

Gothenburg vs Skåne makes a difference, but yeah winters are long and days short there I hear, the latitude makes a difference. I've always been in Scandinavia only in summer.

josip

McGiver wrote: »

.. I hear, the latitude makes a difference. I've always been in Scandinavia only in summer.

Ah yes, the rabbit season.

seenitall

The surliness and the hostile customer service is something that all the post-communist countries have in common. It’s a legacy combination of half a century of having little to smile about, and then also being guaranteed your job, almost no matter what, as every job was a state job, effectively.

To be perfectly honest, it is actually one of the reasons I left my country originally. I was brought up with a bit of manners anyway, so it ground my gears no end to be addressed like I’m a POS on their shoe by various people behind various counters. I remember, on first coming to Ireland, and chatting to a guy at a party, he asked me how I found the Irish, and I happily replied: “The Irish are so civilised!!” Upon which, he choked on whatever he was drinking, looked at me more carefully, and pronounced: “Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard that said!”

seenitall

seenitall wrote: »

The surliness and the hostile customer service is something that all the post-communist countries have in common. It’s a legacy combination of half a century of having little to smile about, and then also being guaranteed your job, almost no matter what, as every job was a state job, effectively.

To be perfectly honest, it is actually one of the reasons I left my country originally. I was brought up with a bit of manners anyway, so it ground my gears no end to be addressed like I’m a POS on their shoe by various employees behind various counters. I remember, on first coming to Ireland, and chatting to a guy at a party, he asked me how I found the Irish, and I happily replied: “The Irish are so civilised!!” Upon which, he choked on whatever he was drinking, looked at me more carefully, and pronounced: “Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard that said!”

I think staff here have gotten less friendly even in Ireland . It’s the scanning. Pre scanning they would have time to talk.

Stovepipe

I was in Budapest for a holiday and found the staff in shops ranged from indifferent to nice and friendly. A local told us about the old surly attitudes but we really never got much of that. If you went into a shop and got treated like ****, you simply took your business elsewhere and the majority of staff understood that.

Mister Vain

McGiver wrote: »

Friendly yes but more like bored-desperate-disinterested is the right description.

And yes, older people are grumpy and passive-aggressive. If you're a foreign tourist it's even worse

Phenomenal women though.

I couldn't care less if someone in the shop doesn't have the chats with me!
None of ye should go to Finland if ye think eastern Europeans are unfriendly

seenitall

Deleted User wrote: »

I think staff here have gotten less friendly even in Ireland . It’s the scanning. Pre scanning they would have time to talk.

I appreciate that, however I’m not even talking about having a bit of “A nice day today, isn’t it?” etc. It’s simply not having to expect to be glowered at, rudely snapped at with snide remarks, and generally treated like an emotional punchbag for whatever issues of the moment they are having in their lives. You had to be there to get it, I guess! :pac:

(Any foreigners inevitably only get the softer end of the spectrum of this phenomenon, however, since it is very often the case that when one is obliged to speak a foreign language, one is immediately on the back foot linguistically, so there is not that much scope to express all the rudeness and disdain as adequately or as eloquently.)

Mad_maxx

seenitall wrote: »

The surliness and the hostile customer service is something that all the post-communist countries have in common. It’s a legacy combination of half a century of having little to smile about, and then also being guaranteed your job, almost no matter what, as every job was a state job, effectively.

To be perfectly honest, it is actually one of the reasons I left my country originally. I was brought up with a bit of manners anyway, so it ground my gears no end to be addressed like I’m a POS on their shoe by various people behind various counters. I remember, on first coming to Ireland, and chatting to a guy at a party, he asked me how I found the Irish, and I happily replied: “The Irish are so civilised!!” Upon which, he choked on whatever he was drinking, looked at me more carefully, and pronounced: “Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard that said!”

Not sure i agree

romanians , croatians , moldovans , bulgarians , none of those are surly and unfriendly , very warm people

czechs and hungarians are cold and unfriendly

poles , lithuanians , ukranians and russians , are somewhere in the middle

so its not all a legacy of the communist system IMO

seenitall

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Not sure i agree

romanians , croatians , moldovans , none of those are surly and unfriendly , very warm people

czechs and hungarians are cold and unfriendly

poles , lithuanians , ukranians and russians , are somewhere in the middle

so its not all a legacy of the communist system IMO

YMMV!

jester77

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

You could get BBC and ITV when I visited Ghent for training.

Easily pick it up on satellite, I'm much further east in Hamburg and get a signal most of the day, there is a few hours where the signal is out of range. But west of Bremen won't have that issue.

Also, most decent sized cities have dedicated English only cinemas.

ancapailldorcha

jester77 wrote: »

Also, most decent sized cities have dedicated English only cinemas.

Halleluiah!

snotboogie

McGiver wrote: »

Southern Norway (Oslo region), southern Sweden (Skåne) and eastern Denmark (Copenhagen) are drier and hotter in summer than Dublin and twice as much as South and West of Ireland - you can dream about that dry and warm summer in 80% of Ireland where it pisses all the time and you get 20 C.
I got serious sunburns there. Forest fires in Norway are common in summer now. 28 C easily. Nice, almost, proper summer.

Yes, winter is much colder, but you've four seasons. And you can go skiing and play ice-hockey

I'd agree there is a debate to be had about Ireland vs Scandinavia in terms of weather but I don't know why anyone would choose to move to the region unless you get a great relocation offer or were moving there with a partner. Its got worse weather than most of Europe, a very insural society where it is almost uniquely hard to break into friend groups and generally all round ****e crack, poor expat scene even in big cities, its extraordinarily expensive with ridiculously high start up costs for life and its very poorly connected to the rest of Europe. The costs are similar or worse than dynamic cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and even Dublin but the opportunities are far less. Its a similar price to turn up in London and start from scratch as it is in Stockholm and you'll get 100x in terms of job options and more again in terms of social options. The same is true to a slightly lesser extent in Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin etc vs any of the major Scandinavian cities. Weather and cost immediately rule out Scandinavia for any non job related relocation.

jester77

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Halleluiah!

If you decide on Germany, there are lots of good film festivals, Fantasy Film Festival would be my favourite.

ancapailldorcha

snotboogie wrote: »

I'd agree there is a debate to be had about Ireland vs Scandinavia in terms of weather but I don't know why anyone would choose to move to the region unless you get a great relocation offer or were moving there with a partner. Its got worse weather than most of Europe, a very insural society where it is almost uniquely hard to break into friend groups and generally all round ****e crack, poor expat scene even in big cities, its extraordinarily expensive with ridiculously high start up costs for life and its very poorly connected to the rest of Europe. The costs are similar or worse than dynamic cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and even Dublin but the opportunities are far less. Its a similar price to turn up in London and start from scratch as it is in Stockholm and you'll get 100x in terms of job options and more again in terms of social options. The same is true to a slightly lesser extent in Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin etc vs any of the major Scandinavian cities. Weather and cost immediately rule out Scandinavia for any non job related relocation.

Going to be honest, most of that sounds like heaven to me. The only job I saw in Sweden was for a social media engagement person with a game company I'm fond of that nobody's ever heard of. I'd have went for it but the salary would have been awful and there's no point in trading one expensive city for another without something in return.

ancapailldorcha

jester77 wrote: »

If you decide on Germany, there are lots of good film festivals, Fantasy Film Festival would be my favourite.

I like the idea of Germany. I'm not someone who goes out and drinks a lot. I much prefer the cinema but hate the idea of dubbing and subtitles for English films. A small trifle I know.

josip

snotboogie wrote: »

I'd agree there is a debate to be had about Ireland vs Scandinavia in terms of weather but I don't know why anyone would choose to move to the region unless you get a great relocation offer or were moving there with a partner. Its got worse weather than most of Europe, a very insural society where it is almost uniquely hard to break into friend groups and generally all round ****e crack, poor expat scene even in big cities, its extraordinarily expensive with ridiculously high start up costs for life and its very poorly connected to the rest of Europe. The costs are similar or worse than dynamic cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and even Dublin but the opportunities are far less. Its a similar price to turn up in London and start from scratch as it is in Stockholm and you'll get 100x in terms of job options and more again in terms of social options. The same is true to a slightly lesser extent in Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin etc vs any of the major Scandinavian cities. Weather and cost immediately rule out Scandinavia for any non job related relocation.

I can only comment about Sweden, but one of the 'great' things about living there is that you don't have to think.
There are rules for almost everything and since most people follow them, society runs very smoothly.

When I lived in Goteborg, all the street parking was zoned and coded. Different sides of the same street swept every other week kind of thing and even if you had a permit you'd still have to move it.
On those days I used to move it to a space that was marked "Avgift" (Free).
The 3rd time I parked there, I got a parking fine.
I was confused until the guys in work explained that the Swedish for free is "Gift" and "Avgift" meant the opposite.

I was doing my best to fit in and decided to pay my fine as any upstanding Swede would do, so I wandered into the local place to pay fines.
I presented the fine and they started processing my details.
All went well until they asked for my car registration, 96 D 2266."
"Nej nej"
Swedish car registrations have 3 letters and 3 digits.
They explained that my car registration couldn't fit in their system.
I helpfully suggested that maybe they could just put in the first 6 characters of my reg and I could still pay.
She looked at me as if I had suggested she should go home and eat her children.
"Nej, nej that wouldn't be right."
She checked with a colleague; equally emphatically certain, no way that the fine could be paid.

So I wasn't able to pay the fine, even though I had really tried.
I reluctantly left the office, leaving her shaking her head looking at the fine I had been issued with, wondering how all this was going to be reconciled by the system.
They probably needed counseling afterwards.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I like the idea of Germany. I'm not someone who goes out and drinks a lot. I much prefer the cinema but hate the idea of dubbing and subtitles for English films. A small trifle I know.

Why are subtitles distressing. Anyway the English cinemas don’t have them.

ancapailldorcha

Deleted User wrote: »

Why are subtitles distressing. Anyway the English cinemas don’t have them.

Irritating, not distressing. Just a bugbear. Fine on non-English films and programmes but I think it'd annoy me on the mainstream Hollywood stuff. I go to the cinema quite a lot so it's something I was wondering.

RobertKK

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Not sure i agree

romanians , croatians , moldovans , bulgarians , none of those are surly and unfriendly , very warm people

czechs and hungarians are cold and unfriendly

poles , lithuanians , ukranians and russians , are somewhere in the middle

so its not all a legacy of the communist system IMO

I really agree with this about the Romanians and Bulgarians, some of the friendliest people I have ever come across.

Mad_maxx

josip wrote: »

I can only comment about Sweden, but one of the 'great' things about living there is that you don't have to think.
There are rules for almost everything and since most people follow them, society runs very smoothly.

When I lived in Goteborg, all the street parking was zoned and coded. Different sides of the same street swept every other week kind of thing and even if you had a permit you'd still have to move it.
On those days I used to move it to a space that was marked "Avgift" (Free).
The 3rd time I parked there, I got a parking fine.
I was confused until the guys in work explained that the Swedish for free is "Gift" and "Avgift" meant the opposite.

I was doing my best to fit in and decided to pay my fine as any upstanding Swede would do, so I wandered into the local place to pay fines.
I presented the fine and they started processing my details.
All went well until they asked for my car registration, 96 D 2266."
"Nej nej"
Swedish car registrations have 3 letters and 3 digits.
They explained that my car registration couldn't fit in their system.
I helpfully suggested that maybe they could just put in the first 6 characters of my reg and I could still pay.
She looked at me as if I had suggested she should go home and eat her children.
"Nej, nej that wouldn't be right."
She checked with a colleague; equally emphatically certain, no way that the fine could be paid.

So I wasn't able to pay the fine, even though I had really tried.
I reluctantly left the office, leaving her shaking her head looking at the fine I had been issued with, wondering how all this was going to be reconciled by the system.
They probably needed counseling afterwards.

Those Lutherans eh

strandroad

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Irritating, not distressing. Just a bugbear. Fine on non-English films and programmes but I think it'd annoy me on the mainstream Hollywood stuff. I go to the cinema quite a lot so it's something I was wondering.

You get used to them easily if it's of any comfort. I can watch a foreign film subtitled in another foreign language and I don't even notice anymore.

Dubbing kills me though, and it might be hard to avoid if you have children.

Strumms

No problem to watch a film with subtitles, dubbing I just can’t do.

I got into the habit of watching everything with subtitles, cos my boyfriend wasn't a native English speaker and he found it handy, he didn't miss anything.
I find myself reading and watching at the same time, hardly even notice I'm doing it.

I found subtitles helped me with the language, English program with foreign subtitles or the other way around, I could notice the difference sometimes between what was said and what was wrote.

McGiver

seenitall wrote:

The surliness and the hostile customer service is something that all the post-communist countries have in common. It’s a legacy combination of half a century of having little to smile about, and then also being guaranteed your job, almost no matter what, as every job was a state job, effectively.

This is indeed true. But there are deep regional cultural and temperament differences on top as well.

Bulgaria vs Czechia or Slovenia vs Estonia are all totally different temperament and cultural background.

Furthermore, the post-communist effect is seen almost exclusively in people older than 45 years. Younger than that didn't live through the pre-1989 period much to be too much affected by it. That includes myself

McGiver

Mister Vain wrote:

Phenomenal women though.

From an Irish or Austrian perspective?

Austrian - very low bar.

Now, Prague is somewhat of a cliché. Regarding your observation, Prague is not the best in fact, but most people never leave it so it sticks. Try other cities, especially the 2nd city Or even Bratislava.

seenitall

McGiver wrote: »

This is indeed true. But there are deep regional cultural and temperament differences on top as well.

Bulgaria vs Czechia or Slovenia vs Estonia are all totally different temperament and cultural background.

Furthermore, the post-communist effect is seen almost exclusively in people older than 45 years. Younger than that didn't live through the pre-1989 period much to be too much affected by it. That includes myself

Ah yeah... I’m just at that boundary, age-wise, that you are referring to, so I’ve seen plenty of this type of customer service all over Eastern Europe, in my time. I’ve been to Czechia recently, and it didn’t seem as bad this time, that’s true.

Where I come from, it’s still not great; there is also a lot to be said for the state of the national psyche at any given time. Czechia has taken great strides economically and socially in the past 30 years, it’s really doing well now. There is a sense of thriving and prosperity. I have a Czech friend who said that she never meets any Czech people in Ireland, to which I said: “Sure, why would you? They’re not coming here to work and live cos they have it good enough where they are.” (Sure, there are some, but not nearly as many as some other EE nationalities.) In contrast to that, young people from my region abound in Ireland now. Seems to me sometimes that half the country is working and living here (as well as in some other host countries in the EU, to be fair). So straight away that tells you a lot about the general prospects of the youth in the source country. And that will in turn inform the general mood/surliness/cheerfulness of the populace left behind. Again, these things, these slight differences in a nation’s mood and outlook usually stay under the radar for an average tourist visiting the country. Customer service remains one of the few points of reference where one such tourist can notice their effects.

fits

bubblypop wrote: »

I couldn't care less if someone in the shop doesn't have the chats with me!
None of ye should go to Finland if ye think eastern Europeans are unfriendly

Don’t agree with you. The Finns I encountered are really friendly and definitely not rude. A lot are very shy though. Went on a few forays into Russia ( St Petersburg) and I’d say there are similarities to what seenitall is talking about. Beautiful country but I was relieved to get back to Finland.

fits

fits wrote: »

Don’t agree with you. The Finns I encountered are really friendly and definitely not rude. A lot are very shy though. Went on a few forays into Russia ( St Petersburg) and I’d say there are similarities to what seenitall is talking about. Beautiful country but I was relieved to get back to Finland.

They're not rude at all.
But posters here may think they were. They don't go in for small talk and are not nosey.
I love the Finns and I love Finland.

HalloweenJack

When it comes to the weather, Ireland is a very safe option. There's no extremes either way. I can't stand Irish weather and the long winters wreck my mental health but I can also appreciate that its good to have some balance.

In the Czech Republic, it was mid-thirties and humid in the summer then -20 at the start of February. From December to March, it was always 0 or under. It was a bad year but its not much worse than the norm. It was great to experience it but its not for mem

Where I am is one of the hottest cities in Europe and we have two months of 40+ in the summer and pretty much from May to October it never drops below 30 in the daytime. Jan/Feb are cold though and the worst thing is the houses are built for summer so they can't hold any heat and most don't have central heating. I suffer winter here a lot more than back home as a result. This year, it got as low as -5. Not fun when you have no central heating.

The Canaries is a lovely spot and it seems to have a pretty steady temperature all year round. The problem is all the foreigners.

snotboogie

HalloweenJack wrote: »

When it comes to the weather, Ireland is a very safe option. There's no extremes either way. I can't stand Irish weather and the long winters wreck my mental health but I can also appreciate that its good to have some balance.

The "four seasons in a day" climate makes it impossible to plan any outdoor activity in Ireland. The long dark winters are also terrible for mental health as you mention. We also are not immune to extreme weather as flooding has devastating affects nearly every year here. I think we have one of the worst climates of any populated region.

bocaman

Would like to live in Italy, Venice to be exact. Just a pipedream now and unlikely to happen.

CelticRambler

snotboogie wrote: »

The "four seasons in a day" climate makes it impossible to plan any outdoor activity in Ireland.

Expecting perfect weather every day in the summer turns any outdoor activity into a catastrophe in other countries, if the weather doesn't cooperate. I've (not) attended far more "cancelled due to weather" events in the last ten years in France than I did in 20 years in Ireland. The most recent one was last August. It wasn't entirely cancelled, but had been organised as a Covid-aware outdoor event to round off a month-long exercise and suddenly had to be relocated to an indoor venue with all the Covid-implications of same.

snotboogie

CelticRambler wrote: »

Expecting perfect weather every day in the summer turns any outdoor activity into a catastrophe in other countries, if the weather doesn't cooperate. I've (not) attended far more "cancelled due to weather" events in the last ten years in France than I did in 20 years in Ireland. The most recent one was last August. It wasn't entirely cancelled, but had been organised as a Covid-aware outdoor event to round off a month-long exercise and suddenly had to be relocated to an indoor venue with all the Covid-implications of same.

I never said you can expect perfect weather every day however the weather in France is far more predictable than it is in Ireland.

snotboogie

snotboogie wrote: »

I never said you can expect perfect weather every day however the weather in France is far more predictable than it is in Ireland.

You move from comparing Ireland to Paris and now Ireland to France. France is big. Pick an area.

I would guess that Paris gets more sun than Dublin but similar rain.

Tyrone212

Has anyone ever lived in Iceland? What did you make of it?

Tyrone212

Tyrone212 wrote: »

Has anyone ever lived in Iceland? What did you make of it?

Not as Icy as you’d think.

Don’t get me started on Greenland.

snotboogie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You move from comparing Ireland to Paris and now Ireland to France. France is big. Pick an area.

I would guess that Paris gets more sun than Dublin but similar rain.

I never once mentioned Paris

seenitall

Last summer in London was absolutely scorching. Now, if we could get those kind of days here in the west of Ireland even a third of the time, we’d have something approaching a proper summer, and with all the beautiful beaches here..... ahhh heaven (one can only dream).

The frustrating thing is that London is really not that far away!

Graces7

McGiver wrote: »

Gothenburg vs Skåne makes a difference, but yeah winters are long and days short there I hear, the latitude makes a difference. I've always been in Scandinavia only in summer.

I lived in Orkney many years and daylight in winter 4-6 hours. The summers made up for it and you get used to it.