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Comment by Hard_Space | Hacker News Reader

As a native-born Brit who moved to Eastern Europe four years ago, there is some information in here I actually didn't know.

Also, as someone who has moved country twice (six years in Italy was the first time), I should note that this article doesn't deal with what I can only describe as general UK culture and the British character.

I would strongly advise anyone heading Britside to do what I did with Bucharest and have as long an 'exploratory' trip as you can to get a feel of the place: the way people look you in the eye (or don't); whether you sense hostility; and just the general social atmosphere. You can assess this kind of thing in a couple of weeks, usually, at least at a broad level.

As someone who gladly left, I'm obviously not the person to ask about whether you'd like living there. But it would be a good idea to stay with friends there, if possible, and scout that aspect out for yourself.

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Absolutely agree on checking the situation on he ground before committing to move to another country. The culture and the expat vibe are going to be important factors in your life from here on out.

We did a winter in Nicaragua with the intention of scoping out the possibility of buying a house. It looks pretty good on paper, until you meet the grumpy expat American surfers who will be your pool of future friends and see the soulless dusty plots of building land with all the locals cleared out except one guy with a shotgun whose job is to sit the same plastic chair all day every day... yeah. Pass.

Naturally this is written from the perspective of a US expat developer with the entire world to chose from, so it’s a bit of a different situation to the one discussed in the article.

> It looks pretty good on paper, until you meet the grumpy expat American surfers who will be your pool of future friends

Why would you move to another country and not make friends with the (native) locals?

Cost of living most likely. A retirement goes further in some countries.

That's not really an argument against learning the language and making new friends?

For most people, it’s not as simple as deciding to make friends with locals. People have various heuristics to determine the probability of rate of return (not financially speaking, but all around) on certain relationships, including differences in socioeconomic status, cultural background, age, etc.

The locals also probably already have their own friend circles (or tribes or whatever you want to call it), and it might take a lot of effort to break in, especially if there is a group of expats that are easier to communicate with.

It depends on the country and on how the locals view you. The locals may be very hesitant to make friends with you. Also, even if you and they are very friendly, you might just not have a lot in common with them. Of course, you should try to actually live in the country you move to rather than in some expat bubble, but you may find that your choices are expat bubble or just don't go. My choice would be not to go, but some are happy with the expat bubble.

That was kinda my point. It would be surprisingly difficult to settle in the little fishing village with the undiscovered point break that every surfer fantasizes about. Instead you’ll end up in one of the tourist towns that were never local villages in the first place, and thus don’t have any locals to hang out with, since they mostly live inland in towns jobs.

Puerto Rico, on the other hand does have towns full of Puerto Ricans all along the coast, so it’s possible to meet one of them who is not in the process of serving you a beer. That’s one of many reasons it ranks higher on my list of possible places to set up shop.

As a third-worlder from a loud country that's very happy after emigrating to Britain I had the opposite experience: the culture and the British character are big positives of living in London and the UK.

Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side, but I enjoy the quietness and helpfulness of the average Brit.

The only big negatives of UK culture for me are the general bad quality of produce outside of farmer's markets and the weird attachment everyone has to sash windows.

Same experience here. I'm originally from Italy, where the stereotype is friendly and warm people, I found Brits and Londoners in general to be quite easy to have a chat with, and relaxed around strangers especially after a pint or three. After 7 years in this country, my experience hasn't changed and I've grown very fond of the "British way" of doing things, the humour and mentality.

While I moved to UK, part of my family moved to Switzerland (the French part of it), and their experience with Swiss people hasn't been as rosy as mine with Brits.

YMMV.

The thing that prevents me from wanting to live in the UK is the food… I’m sorry if I offend anyone but the UK is one of the worst places in the world I’ve been to for food.

The great thing about globalisation is that you're not limited to the local cuisine anymore. Pizza today, curry tomorrow and perhaps fish & chips the day after.

I'm curious where you're from and what kind of food you like to eat. And what kind of food you tried, your experience with it in the UK.

In my experience the food here can be really good. Food and choice in the supermarkets can be bad, and typical foods of those in poverty (including those who were raised under the spectre of rationing here) aren't good, but proper, traditional British food has a lot of variety and interest, in both produce and dishes.

From NZ, lived in Australia, currently living in Singapore. Travelled to a few parts of Europe and all around Asia and America.

I had a few good meals in the UK. In london near soho there’s a little pie shop. Mums pies or something. That was good. And a couple of other places. But majority of the food IMO is terrible and expensive.

Edit: oh and I like food in Asia. Taiwanese, Thai, Malaysian. And a good burger.

The UK has more top restaurants than most countries, and one occasion had literally the best restaurant in the world - as judged by the French of all people who I guess don't give it out lightly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_3-star_restau...

in London you can have the best food in the world, but you'll often have to pay stupid prices for it.

I say that as an Italian expat in Manchester (where things are... not that good).

There's every kind of food in London.

I lived there previously and now I'm in New York. Food options in London are on par with NYC, and generally cheaper.

Sash windows are lovely because they are an enabling technology for upstairs window boxes. Nothing wron with modern, well-made sashes.

A Canadian friend who spent 3 months on a work assignment in London felt similarly. He said that compared to Toronto, British people were far more open to striking up conversation. In Toronto, if you walk into a bar by yourself, you can forget about trying to make small talk with somebody else unless they too are sitting alone.

Not to mention, there are numerous instances of people getting harassed on the train platform, or inside the train car, and no one steps up to help. They film the incident, but they don't intervene.

>>Not to mention, there are numerous instances of people getting harassed on the train platform, or inside the train car, and no one steps up to help. They film the incident, but they don't intervene.

Does this happen in the Tube, the MTA, or both? I unfortunately could see it happening in both depending on the time of day/night.

I was talking about the Toronto transit system. It's a safer city than London, but definitely not because of an abundance of good samaritans.

Out of curiosity why did you move from the UK to Bucharest?

I wanted to settle in Europe prior to Brexit finalizing, but I felt I was kind of done with Italy, having lived all over that country. Romanian is another Romance language, like Italian, so I figured (quite wrongly!) that it would be easy to learn. It was a right move for the wrong reasons, and I eventually found everything I was looking for here, including well-paid remote work (prior even to COVID).

Probably LCOL, 10% income tax, great food, and stunning women.

The comment about women is fucking weird, especially the "take your pick" vibe in the context of moving to a much poorer country.

> especially the "take your pick" vibe

I don't really think that's a fair characterization of the mindset of the average Romanian woman, tbh, but rather seems 'drawn from the headlines'. Nor do I think the OP you're replying to meant that.

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