Hacker News Reader

Comment by geekam | Hacker News Reader

Would you mind sharing which country are you working and what are the visa restrictions, if any?

Note that only having 22 days is pretty low by European standards. Here in Sweden we have 25 days by law, and many people have an additional week or two.

4 weeks of annual leave, plus a ridiculous amount of public holidays in Australia. We'd be pretty close in standard.

had a quick glance through his history, and it's ireland. (I'll remove this if you want OP). Can I just throw in that Ireland has some definite advantages, however living in Dublin is painfully expensive, and the money here (for lower level positions at least) is less than that of the UK

You are correct, it's Ireland. As far as visa restrictions go it seems to be somewhere between extremely difficult UK and relatively simple Germany.

Cost is all relative, I guess. Pay is lower than SF, but I also am paying less than half of what I would for my apartment. Given that I was spending a lot of money to take what vacation I could in Europe anyway I actually save a good deal on vacation budget this way too.

I find I have to be careful in conversations because I sometimes gasp at how cheap places are, perhaps insensitively. I guess I just got used to apartments always being $2000+. Of course, it still stings that a "cheap" pint is €5 (I remember two dollar beer night in college not so many years ago!)

> but I also am paying less than half of what I would for my apartment. Out of curiosity (I understand if you don't want to say) but roughly how much are you paying for your apartment, and how close to the city is it? I'm paying almost 1500 USD for my 2bed apt not far from the city centre, and the landlord is increasing the rent in September (I'm leaving anyway). The saving of ~500 dollars per month I would imagine doesn't last very long when you factor in everything else. I don't know what income differene you have, but a month ticket for bus only is 140 euro, (190 dollars), a beer is €5 (cheap in the city centre)and I find shopping in general to be more expensive than home (outside Dublin, but still in Ireland).

No problem; it's useful information. €800 (about $1080 at the moment), and next to Dublin castle, for a 1 bedroom apt in an old building with quirky plumbing. As I mentioned, it's not the fanciest area, but it suits me nicely. Bull and Castle is nearby and has a nice array of craft beers too. Work is less than 10 minute's walk away. A place like this in SF close to the office, tourist attractions, and not terribly high crime would be $2 grand+, I think. Something like this: http://www.padmapper.com/show.php?source=3&id=193107035&src=...

I'm not sure what $500 per month you refer to, but I'm guessing transportation costs. I have generally preferred living in places that didn't require owning a car, and find it makes a huge difference. I was in Berkeley for a while, and Santa Monica after that. Note that in Santa Monica I found it necessary to share a car with the gf; You can get around SM fine with a bicycle but LA remains a desolate suburban hellscape.

In San Francisco, a _1 bed_ apartment would often be over $2000.

Well, I mean, Dublin's very expensive, but it's not as expensive as San Francisco, say.

You sure about that? A quick glance at http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun... tells me that there is a difference in rent, (I know it's not accurate) but I know that the rent in Dublin has increased from that figure. Most people I know are now paying 1400-1600 USD for 2bed apartments, so I guess SF could have changed too.

I think the main difference is that in Dublin you can get cheaper without going terribly far from the city center. The sense of scale here is drastically different; the "suburbs" are 4 km from the city center. I live right in the middle of the city (not the poshest part, admittedly) a 5 minute walk from work and a 10-15 minute walk from basically every major attraction, and pay €800 per month for a 1 bedroom. By comparison, I used to pay $650 for one bedroom in a Victorian in Berkeley near Ashby BART, and that was 4 years ago before rents quite blew up. That $650 was stunningly cheap, in my view; my friends had higher rents for worse places. Fortunately I had awesome roommates.

Also, while it is certainly possible to live in SF without a car, it's even easier in Dublin, which saves money as well.

And again, I'm just a sucker for Europe. I was spending $2 grand a year on plane tickets to get over here, and now it's an €80 (or so) flight away.

> but I know that the rent in Dublin has increased from that figure

1270USD is about 950 euro; at a pinch, you can still get a city centre 1 bed for that, though a bit over 1000 would be more common. I'm also a bit suspicious of its restaurant costs; they seem high for Dublin, and its telecoms costs, while reasonable a few years ago, are now too high.

geekam - I don't see any contact info in your profile; email me if you want to chat re: visa stuff. gettingoutofamerica.com can be helpful as well. I actually have meant to start my own repository of immigration information at pond-crosser.com but haven't gotten around to really getting it up and running.

Sorry, I just saw your response. It is tough on HN to follow up.

Email me at geekamja@gmail.com. I am not a US citizen though, I just work here on a visa. However, the whole process of Permanent residency is so long and slavish.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com