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I sort of straddle the fence, but spend most of my time
in Europe these days. If you come here, there are all the
pluses you want and minuses you do not want to hear about.
There are restrictions on civil liberty that would make Americans
scream, and yet the Europeans take for granted. Here in Germany,
you have to register with the local police when you move to a town,
and then de-register with them if you move away, and then must re-register
with the police in your new town of residence. When I asked why they thought
this was necessary, the answer was "to be better able to track criminals."
Great--to Germans, every citizen is a potential criminal, so the State has
to keep track of all of them. When I explained that in the USA, there was
no such system, and that if you wanted to move somewhere, it was your business
and not that of the local police, they thought we were totally lax. The German
system is used in one form or another by most European nations, and is only
lenient if you are an immigrant from an Islamic or Balkan country, in which case,
you are a poor wretch to be pitied and allowed every transgression including
armed robbery and assault, because you were underprivileged. I know a guy in
France who attacked in his shop by a Bulgarian wielding a hammer. The guy was 70
years old. His head covered in blood, he managed to get the hammer away from the
Bulgarian and then subdue his attacker with it until the cops came. The Bulgarian
was not arrested or even charged with anything, but the 70 year old shop owner was
charged with assault and battery.
The violent crime is increasing everywhere, and it is catching most western European
countries by surprise, as it did not use to be the norm here.
Taxes are very high, here, as well. You definitely get something back for it, as
education and most medical care is provided, but be prepared. The local equivalents
of the IRS have Gestapo-like powers, and they make use of them. They are always right,
and you are always wrong, especially in France, where the Napoleonic code is still the
guiding light (sort of "guilty until proven innocent").
Living space is at a premium, and very expensive compared to most U.S. locations outside
of San Francisco, Manhattan, or Boston. Less so in Eastern Europe (with corresponding
lack of basic services), but they are catching up rapidly, and Moscow has surpassed
Oslo and Geneva in many respects as the most expensive city in Europe, despite the huge
rich/poor gap there (it's scary in Russia).
Language is vital. You can no more live comfortably in Prague speaking no Czech than
you can in Des Moines speaking only Czech. Hungarian is indeed a task to learn. Budapest
is an interesting town, and I got by there with German and Russian, but Magyarul (Hungarian)
is one true bitch to learn. If you know ANY Slavic language, the others are not too
difficult to learn with some help, but if you don't know any Slavic languages, they are
a chore, though not on a scale with Hungarian or Finnish. If you know German, then Dutch
and the Scandinavian languages are easy to learn, with Swedish being the easiest. The Latin
languages are not difficult, either. French, Spanish and Italian are all similar, and not
overly hard to get a basic knowledge of. But: be prepared to learn them again, once you have
mastered the basics. These languages and cultures have been intact for over a thousand
years, and that means LOTS of local differences and TONS of slang expressions they will
never teach you in school. Just because you can read Unamuno does not mean you speak Spanish,
it only means you can read it. I got the same thing the first time I went to Russia. They
looked at me and asked if I had been asleep for 90 years. The only Russian I knew was out
of Dostoyevsky novels, and I had no knowledge of Soviet era slang at all, and my speech
reflected it. They understood me just fine, but their 20th century slang went right by me.
One Soviet official once told me that American vodka wasn't bad, but that Russian vodka
was just a tiny raisin better (HUH?). That's one of those "they forgot to teach us that
one in school" expressions. Local dialects sometimes differ widely from the standard
language. Swiss German is so different to understand that Swiss programs shown on German
TV have subtitles in German for the Swiss German, even though there is no difference in
the written language, and most Germans consider having to listen to an accent from Saxony
as torture as understood by the Geneva Convention.
OK, now you know the pitfalls. Their bureaucracy is maddening, too, but you get used to it.
The good news is that once you're in, you are IN. Tightly knit communities, circles of friends
with whom you can leave the keys to your house (as they will with you), wonderful food and
historical old cities, short distances between everything, dozens of different countries
at your doorstep (sorta), and you never run out of interesting places to go or people to be
with. My wife is European, and loves to visit the USA, but does not want to live there. Period.
Maybe when her mom and brother are no longer alive, and then only New England, nowhere else
in the States, and not as long as Bush and his demolishing of civil liberties are in effect.
She loves being able to walk to the town square through a park with a 1000 year old castle,
and buy fresh stuff three times a week from farmers, just like they have done here for the
last 800 years. She likes to be able to run down to France or Switzerland for the weekend,
and have traveled no farther than the distance from Boston to New York. Plus public
transportation is unbelievable here. Trains, trams, buses, go nearly everywhere, although
the various infrastructures need to be overhauled--they have been taken for granted too long,
and delays once unthinkable ten years ago are now the norm.
Our daughters, on the other hand, who grew up here (Rheinland), have attended school in Hawaii, L.A.,
Washington, D.C. and, now, New York, and love it there. They like coming home for visits, but
for now, they want to stay in New York (neither of them would even consider Dallas--they spent
way too much time as kids here in Europe to adjust to that). So, go figure. You find what suits you,
and you give it a shot. As long as you're not a serf, there is always that road out of town, and it's
a big world out there.
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