I’ve done preliminary research to see what immigrating to New Zealand would require.
The short answer: a lot more money than I have (you can be guaranteed immigration if you bring “sufficient investment” into the country, which works out to around $3M CAD). My partner’s work scores us a couple points for immigrating, and mine would be sufficient if I made way more money at it (which I do not).
sigh
Maybe someday. I think I’d be happy in a pretty small house with access to nice walks. Big house would be better, sure, but I don’t need it.
My partner and I have talked a few times about emigrating from the US. Neither of us speak a language other than English; England seems a natural choice, just not necessarily right now.
We’ve also talked about taking vacations to various Scandanavian countries with a focus on assessing potential immigration targets.
And, of course, southern France, Spain, and Italy have been mentioned as well, for the climate.
Ultimately, neither of us have been to any of these places, so it’s just pie-in-the-sky dreaming for the foreseeable future; as long as my partner’s parents are alive and in Kansas City, that’s where we will live.
If you need any assistance, I went through the migration hoops recently, I will be happy to assist. There are several gateways, and not all have to be the massive investment one. Work visas or skilled migrant visas can be achieved (we did through the second one) and there is plenty of demand for qualified professionals here.
For the love of God, let the UK settle down first before consdering moving there!
I’d suggest Spain as on the east and south coasts there are lots of ex-pat communities and many areas where people can happily get by speaking English alone, although once you learn some Spanish it opens up so many more doors. Nothing so far that I’ve found in terms of English speaking gamers though - although lots of Spanish into their games here and a fair few game stores in the larger towns and cities.
Northwest France also has a large British expat community… it’s called Bretagne for a reason
And these days you can get by on English alone even here…
My partner has quite a few colleagues who speak very little German or none at all. My town has a university specialized in science and technology including an international department. Also there are lots of tech companies here which may play a role in the number of English speaking people.
Overall, I think English is still the language which will let you go everywhere. And work in the tech sector as well.
And just so you all know there are rumors on the internets that there is a lot of toilet paper or at least raw materials for toilet paper stuck in the ship-jam. So we can get out all those memes from last year around this time…
I used to do that. Had a huuuuuuge list on my Facebook page, but i stopped sometime in the late 00’s. Seen Pearl Jam 18 times alone. Eek.
Strangest one to arise in the list was Futureheads - only been to one of their gigs, but seen them 12 times. There was a period where they just kept supporting other bands!!!
I fortunately kept a decent record on Last.fm and have the stubs for 95% of them. For the last few I re-activated my Facebook account to find the event pages. I think I’m missing one support band from the MySpace days.
My highest band count is only 9 - but that is twice the next highest.
Damn, I just thought about it and the most I’ve seen any known bands is 3 times, and that’s just Clutch and Status Quo.
There are probably a few local Bristol or Leicester bands that I saw a lot, but none of them got famous enough that I could be hipster about it (other than the guitarist who went on to join The Sisters of Mercy).
My hipster claim is that I saw Los Campesinos’ 9th ever gig, the night before their finals exams. Hipster enough that most people haven’t heard of the band
But that mid/late-00s era was an odd one, with MySpace making bands big before they played a single show. Blood Brothers, Panic at the Disco. I miss those days!
(other than the guitarist who went on to join The Sisters of Mercy).