Growing up we always thought my grandparents were the weirdest people. They roasted and ate whole chickens, not cut up chicken parts from the grocery store. They drank tea and ate weird Russian tea cake cookies. They made their own sausage. They hunted ducks and deer. They ate raw beef.
Since moving to Europe I buy a lot of my food from neighborhood farms, roast whole chickens, make tartare, make cheese and sausage... hunting and fishing isn't so easy here though - I can do that when I visit relatives in the USA though.
How times have changed..
Everyone I'm aware of who moved because of Trump/Republicans are happy with their choice.
Expensive houses and low wages, vs appreciating assets and low labour costs.
I'll leave out my opinion on the topic but Switzerland has become noticeably more crowded in the last 20 years.
* https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asy... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)
A green card is probably equivalent to a permanent residence permit, those vary quite a bit between countries, and skills. Some countries might give a permanent residence in as few as 3 years, I believe quite a few have the 4 years threshold. Depending on what skills you have or how much you invest in the country you are moving to this timeline also shortens.
Rules have been changed now, citizenship in 8 years will become law on June 6th, also requiring language and cultural tests which weren't required before.
Continental Europe used to vary, Germany was stricter with 8 years to citizenship but permanent residence would vary depending on work skill and language skills.
Interesting how in a different comment you say
> I want the same for all Spaniards and will gladly pay high taxes if my family, friends, and my neighbors can also have that same opportunity.
For example, I thought if you’re resident in the US you might pay your main taxes there, but you’d need to “top up” in the EU.
What’s your specific workaround?
It's hard for me to understand this mentality...
Moving to Europe is a smart move, but, having complete freedom, I'd think about someplace in the southern hemisphere. I believe Chile and Brazil will be stable for the next 20 years or so and have good overlap with US timezones. And both are quite far from most of the impending clusterfuck happening in Eastern Europe.
Even by PPP, US looks better.
https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...
For those that don't have Twitter.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/07/21/reco...
My child’s situation is somewhat different from many others in the U.S. He never has to worry about money because he benefits from the security of multi-generational wealth. He simply finds Europe and its values to be culturally superior to the United States.
The american century is over, but I'm not sure what comes next will be better, we will see.
Most European countries have surprisingly strict visa requirements - and those apply to Americans as well. Unlike a short holiday trip, you can't just move because you feel like it!
The most likely path for the HN public is probably a "highly-skilled worker" visa, but that requires you to have a sponsoring employer in Europe - which means you won't be getting that fancy American salary. And you'll also have to pay local taxes...
If you know of one that does and is hiring, please share...
I think they stay for a few months. Maybe they just don't tell their company and the company still think they are working in the same place.
However, it's difficult to proceed to a residency permit in this situation, and you can't join the national healthcare system.
And, if they do, they might have legal issues brewing they are not aware of.
I know people who manage to do this, but it's difficult, and not really worth it unless you have a seriously amazing job.
Not sure about family, but you can get new friends here. When I go to the office, on my walk back home, I often pass by some very nice pubs overflowing with extremely happy and friendly people, and that is when I leave at 17:00.
You'll also get nice things like the metric system. And, in Ireland, one of the sanest political systems on the planet. It's so sane it's almost boring.
I took a nap at my desk for an hour (the license was needed on an airgapped system sneaker-netted over via an encrypted drive so I couldn't do this from home and the deadline had arrived).
Woke up and called back, different fellow, European. Every answer, in perfect english, was about 3 words long on average in a very dismissive tone.
I'd rather move to Australia.
The amount of "unaffiliated" Americans who move to Europe is probably negligible.
I don't have any connection to Europe. I just don't want to live under America's increasing fascism and would rather contribute to a just society.
It would be one thing if people who are "unaffiliated USA citizens[0]" moved to an imaginary place where the grass is greener. You could argue they don't know about all the problems of that place.
It's maybe more concerning if the people who flew Place A, because of all the problems of Place A, looking for greener grass in Country B, are looking around and going "hey you know what? Place A wasn't so bad after all. The grass only looked greener because it's plastic!" and then go back.
[0]: let's acknowledge we're just talking shades of the same color, when referring to a country that's 250 years old. Nobody's "from there" really
I once had a Native American on one of my teams. That, and a lot of my fellow Brazilians here are at least partly of the original people.
Which came from Asia, through an ice bridge between Asia and North America a couple ice ages back, so, in the end, I guess we are all Africans.
At the time I moved to Ireland, I learned a vicious gang war was happening in the northern regions of Dublin. Up to April 2016, when I arrived, four (four!) people had been murdered in that unprecedented violent event.
