We often toast in the language of the liquid we’re drinking

Imagine if you landed a job in Europe from a European company. You’d definitely not be able to go back

Ost - Danish

We live in not-our-native-language country, and I try to fail at using the local language multiple times per day. If it’s an easy convo and I succeed it doesn’t count for me.

It’s nice, pushes my language use out of its comfort zone. And when I fail I apologize and try to regroup. Definitely has resulted in some miscommunication lol but it’s gotten me far fast.

I’ve seen so many people here who know a LOT and are so scared to use it since it won’t be “right”

Legal things would be a mess.

Your visa is valid until the end of the month. Halfway through the day?

I see this argument all the time. Forget all the tradition, “people like noon near solar noon”, all that.

Date changes mid day some places and not others would be a nightmare for so many things.

What’re you doing on the Tuesday half of June 15/16th?

I agree, if the US also used their tax dollars as intelligently as the Danish government does as well.

Seems like a pipe dream, but I hope at least parts of the US become more modern in those ways in my lifetime

It has no business being that good

I pay quite a bit in Denmark, but used to live in the US.

I pay more taxes now (not THAT much more but definitely more). However I see what I get for my taxes here: healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere, etc., and sooo much support for people. It makes me proud to pay taxes here, even though of course I always want more in my pocket and I want more for my money.

In the US I hated the taxes because I paid more than rich people (as they pay nearly none) and I didn’t feel like i got a lot from them.

No problem with taxes as a concept, but I hate how the US uses tax money

I have a hard time imagining making an argument where alcohol and cigarettes are legal and weed is not. In terms of harm it does to people acutely and over time. I understand the position of “nothing like that should be legal” and “everything should be legal” even though I disagree. But I think if you choose one, weed might be the least problematic?

No, it’s not easy to test for driving. But alcohol is and TONS of drunk driving incidents happen still. I think that’s more a function of not having non-driving options to socialize over alcohol.

I’ve got the closest thing to a software engineering job I’ve ever had and it’s similarly miserable. I have a coworker who I really like and mostly the rest are like you describe.

I can’t wait to get out of this role and back to having a more normal job. Nowhere near you, but I’ve worked a bunch of places in the US and none have been like this

Bro I have my first “big company” job after working smaller places for over a decade. This feels so real. I’m dying.

I moved from the US to Europe and I keep joking that the largest QoL upgrade has been my unbelievably dumb microwave. It has a power knob, a timer knob that is spring wound, and when it hits 0 it physically hits a bell like an older toaster.

I fucking love it. It was like 20€

FEIE is like $125k usd

Yeah, certainly depends exactly where you go. A capital city and a rural town will feel extremely different on English speaking (and cultural/political views at that).

I think it’s quite possible to do though. Happy to chat or answer any specific questions you have, especially if they’re Scandinavia based.

It’s a tough choice to do something like you’re talking about but extremely fulfilling. I wouldn’t trade the decision for the world at this point. I wish you the best of luck!

US ex pat here:

I think you will find more success in this if you find a place or two you want to live in and run TO something instead of AWAY from something. It’ll always be a bit of both, but this post reads more like (very understandably) “get me out of here” than “I want to be somewhere new”.

Being an ex pat has plenty of hard aspects of course. I think some of them are made quite a bit easier when you passionately dive into the culture and life in a new place. At least to me it would be impossible if my head was still in the US.

Of course you’re doing nothing wrong! Just some advice if it gets a bit more serious.

Like many in the thread: Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, UK (not that they’re doing fantastic right now), Netherlands would be my top choices with your criteria. Most large companies will be more likely to have English speaking as the working language and you’ll learn the local language (s) while living there. Best of luck!

How has it been to find friend circles and such with being ostracized by the church/your community?

Glad to hear you and your son are out

Diez :)

10 is optimistic imo

I couldn’t find any properly dumb tvs in a recent search and got a Google TV. You can set it up in “dumb mode” at startup and it never does a thing online. Can even do firmware vis USB if you felt like it for some reason.

Happy with it so far! 4k and OLED, a decent price imo as well. I’d rather it be fully dumb but this is close enough.