hot wasabi peas

Other reasons?! Steve666 doesn't need other reasons!

AdrianTO

What are you going on about? Yes, I spent 5 years in London as a student. Should I say that I spent the majority of my life, including ALL MY WORKING LIFE in N America? Does that make you feel better?

And yes I CAN stay home all day, but it doesn't mean I do. I work from home, what this means that I can work from anywhere. So, quite often I take my laptop and go down to a place offering free wifi, have a coffee and do some work.

What is your point anyway?

steve666

Oh you ALWAYS have to have the last word! You're like this EVERY morning!!

steve666

I kill cats...

YYZlover

Here's another one who works from home (currently on the couch still in my PJs) I don't need an office because I go to my clients and not the other way around.

Anyway - as someone who has moved around a lot I think I have some authority on the subject. I've lived in Spain (I'm actually half Spanish), Sweden, Canada (Toronto), UK and was engaged to a German for 2 years so commuted there and have spent a shedload of time in Germany.

I've just moved back to Sweden (where I was born) after 4 years in UK. My business is registered in UK and I don't know what to do next. I can't decide if I am to move back to UK in 6 months or so or if I should move to Germany. The latter is looking like the best plan as according to projected turnaround time for PR applications, CIC in Berlin takes 8 months in comparison to London's 49 months (or whatever it is).

My ultimate goal is to move back to Canada. I have ZERO interest in staying on the European continent and I feel more Canadian than my biological nationalities. Patriotism has nothing to do with where you where born or where your parents came from. It has everything to do with where you feel at home. Toronto is my home. It is my shelter from the storm.

As for putting up with the winters, well, being Swedish and having lived in Toronto the winter 83/84 (Those who were there know what I mean) yes, it is cold. But it is a different kind of cold. It's drier. The winters in UK had me dress armer than winters in Sweden. The damp was driving me up a tree. I'd be freezing in the summers. I'm, as I said, back in Sweden now and it is November. By all counts I should be walking around looking like the Micheline man but I don't. I'm wearing less winter clothing than the rest of my family, hardly put on a coat when I go outside. It's a much drier kind of cold here than in UK and the Canadian winters are drier still.

It's the same for the heat. I can put up with the summers in Spain better than the ones in Sweden/UK as it's a drier kind of heat.

Standard of living in UK is appalling unless you are LOADED. I borrowed a condo in YYZ smack downtown (Wellington) 18 months ago. I tiny studio or bachelor (chose appropriate word) but far better equipped with a much higher standard than in UK. The rent was CAD$900 (Slightly more now) and for that the tennant had washer, dryer, fully equipped kitchen (hob, oven, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, freezer), electricity, heating, air-condition, 24/7 security, alarm, bathroom w. bath, free access to fully equipped rooftop gym, exercise pool, sauna, patio's with BBQ areas and for another $150 a place in the garage.

Now - I had a slightly bigger place in UK my first 3 years there. A 1 bedroom ground floor apartment for CAD$975 including, fridge, freezer, hob, oven, washing machine, bathroom with shower. No where near as good quality as in Canada. No security, no gym, no access to garage, no security oh and add another CAd$300 a month for electricity, gas, water and the wonderful council tax. And the rent was a "mate's rent". Would have gone for loads more, really.

Sure, the place on Wellington is not the cheapest I could certainly find cheaper still but then again, that standard and the location, I'd be more than happy to pay the extra dollars for it. Finding something similar for the similar price in London/Birmingham/Manchester is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

Anywhere outside London and the you're limited to pub food. Quality in restaurants go down hill quick. In Canada you can find a Sushi bar, and a good one, even in Georgetown.

10 years ago things in UK used to be OK. It's gone down fast and is declining still. It was declining even when I was living there.

Sweden isn't much better either. Recent political scandals is shaking the government. Unemployement is high and they make it impossibe to work your way out of it.

Spain, cost del sol in particular, e bit of a warning for you. It is EXPENSIVE! House prices has skyrocketed. Fortunately for those thinking about going there I hear it is about to start declining. Unfortunately for my cousin who just bought a place for about half a million €. That's around CAD$700k. They had been looking for quite a while before they found the place they live in now.

Every country has it's positives and negatives. Every city in each country is different. It is more of a personal issue and what is more important for the person.

To me, being happy and feeling at home is more important than anything else. I've never felt at home in the 40+ years of my life living in Europe. I did feel perfectly at home and happy the short time I was living in Toronto.

Adrian, if Spain floats your boat than go. Just be prepared that cost of living is not as cheap as it was 20 or 30 years ago.

Good luck

Novocastrian

^^ Good post YYZ. Nice to hear from you again.

BTW I'm in Germany at the moment. Enjoying it, but I still prefer Toronto.

gryphea

Just to answer the original post

1. Where we are going we have access to world class ski resorts within 1-2hrs drive- Castleford snowdome just doesn't cut it. We also like mountains.
2. We can also both work in our chosen professions unlike other countries with world class ski resorts, where they are not desparate for people like us and there is a language barrier and a political barrier to obtaining work. None of these other countries have specifically been to UK to recruit and NONE would pay our relocation.
3. We feel like an adventure
4. Here we are wholly reliant on TWO salaries to pay for our one ski holiday a year- in canada we can ski on one salary if needs be. Following our homework we should be much more comfortably off.
5. We are not going for ever - we like the UK
6. WE are also rebalancing our lifestyle, my OH will have less of a commute and therefore less family time. Sure we could probably achieve this in the UK if we wanted to (but not at the same salary). His new work seems far more family oriented and the work seems to have far less demanding clients where money is less tight. There are also some specific career objectives that are bing met in Canada which are hard to meet here and now.

I realise our motivations are different to other people and sometimes I do wonder why people are swapping simliar lifestyles in UK for similar ones over there!

Gryphea

YYZlover

Thanks. I know we're going off topic here but I've settled in again now. Still have loads to do with my cottage here on the farm so am sat and sleep on the couch in my parents house. Horse settled as well. He got here a couple of weeks after I did. Still gagging to get out already.

Where and for how long? I'm likely to go to Hamburg and Hannover next week and then Munich in December on business. Would be great to hook up.

/YYZ

Novocastrian

I'm in Mainz until Nov. 23rd. Are you travelling from Hannover/Hamburg to Munchen by train or car, rather than flying?

PM if you prefer.

Edit: oops. I misread your post... it's two separate visits right?

monique

How right/smart you are.

iaink

You are looking at it from the perspective of 7000 square km of the GTA, not the remaining 9.9M sq Kms of canada, outside the major metro areas,
Friendly people, cheap housing, low crime, low stress. You dont need to look 3500miles away to Spain to avoid the commuter drudgery and overcrowding of the GTA...but the same argument can probably be made for people leaving London for Canada.

R I C H

Much of what you say I agree with, but these two comments stretch the truth somewhat.

'Appalling' is way too strong a term to apply to the general standard of living in the UK - perhaps in the major cities if you're not loaded then life's not likely to be a bed of roses, but I don't think you need to be particularly wealthy to have a comfortable existance in many parts of the UK.

The second comment is silly - somewhere like Ludlow (pop. 10,000) has 7 entries in the Michelin Guide, and there are countless good places to eat outside of the capital.

mc_dub

plus there are those of us that would never pay for the over-priced under-sized "food" that most of those restaurants serve anyway

AdrianTO

For those of you in Canada who say that you work from home, is this the type of work you could have done anywhere? Or did moving to Canada afford you the opportunity of this lifestyle?

One point I do want to make, with all the complaints about how bad things are in the UK. You do realize that the reason you can sell up move here and buy a huge house here is because things are so DAMN GOOD in the UK, right?

You think Canadians could afford to do the same thing? No way. The British are buying up second homes, vacation properties, inverstments, all over the world. Do you see very many Canadian doing that? NO. Only the fortunate few. Whereas the British have the economic power to invest all over the world.

If you decide to go back to the UK, do you realize how hard it will be for you to get back into the housing market at anywhere near where you are now? There is no way that house prices in Canada, at least outside of the major centres are rising anywhere near what you get in the UK. And specially London. It will ALWAYS be an economic powerhouse. It has been the centre of power for hundreds of years. A property investment in London is gold. London is at the point where people are saying it may very well overtake New York as the financial capital of the world.

iaink

No, its because of property value inflation. If you are on the housing ladder you can cash in the huge increase in value of your home over the last 5 or 10 years as equity and get away from paying a large mortgage by moving to canada at a favourable exchange rate. On the flip side, property costs are so high in the UK now in general, it takes two wages to pay the bills, which sucks if you want to raise your own kids, and makes buying any sort of starter home a major struggle for many. Much of the prosperity you see in the UK is rooted in personal debt.

However, property prices in Canada, especially in the large cities are no longer the bargain they were 5 or 10 years ago , and the exchange rate has tanked with the strong CDN $, so its becoming less and less of a motivation, unless you head to somewhere more rural. You are correct though in general about being able to return to a similar house in the UK if you abandon canada, unless you are in Calgary or one of the other property hot spots.

I dont work from home, but my 20min drive into town is totally hassle free, that was never the case in the UK. For me canada is a much less stressfull place to live and raise kids...but I am not in the rat race in a big city.