The least desired country to live in…

I thought Romania was great – really liked the churches with frescos on the outside and the people were triple friendly.

Flex, as for that comment about local muslims – grrr; i’d kill you if it wasn’t so damn ironic. Actually, hundreds of thousands of muslims from all kinds of enthnic groups live in Serbia. Once met an Iraqi family who live just down the road from me in Belgrade (they wander around in Arabic robes all day long speaking perfect Serbian – with a Belgrade accent).

As for undesirable countries to live in, here’s my list:

Hungary – flat and boring and weird and just downright depressing for some reason. Also, nobody has ever (EVER) been polite to me in Hungary, ever. And I’ve been to/through their funny little country a lot.

Australia+South Africa (but not New Zealand) – dunno why. Maybe its because I’m a Londoner and, frankly, we’re sick of Aussies and South Africans. Maybe its because of the Accents. Definitely the accents have something to do with it. Met a totally gorgeous girl a few days ago but when she opened her mouth and a twisted, deformed, Aussie version of English spewed out I just wanted to batter her face with a heavy object.

Any part of North America (Canada included) – Again, no real reason, just absolutely totally nothing in any way whatsoever attracts me to this part of the world. That and I think I’d commit suicide if I ever had to see a ‘mega-church’.

As for the UK, Burger-boy is spot on when he says:

I wish Aussies and South Africans would get the message and stop bloody coming here. :diablo:

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I think someone needs to pull that stick out of your ar*e

What’s wrong with Bulgaria? I own a flat there… As for Russia, I’d probably move there in a heart beat, as long as it was Moscow.

eew you like Moscow? I always thought that was one of the worst cities in Russia, them and cities in the Russian Far East.. very depressing, crime ridden, and bleak. But there’s lots of places I like in Russia, mostly in part due to it’s vast land mass and variety of regions.. most of my faves are along the Volga area like Chuvashia, Komi, and Bashkortostan. (which happen to be ethnic republics). Kamchatka can be nice but the people there are very xenophobic and I often get confused for a native of the region. It’s also pretty **** expensive. Altai Krai is really really nice, not much crime either, and great scenery! and oddly Yakutia, the coldest region, or at least its capitol Yakutsk, is oddly well off and pretty modern. But much around Moscow and St Petersburg is a pit.

Euro trip was funny. I love the part when they get robbed,
and all they have is a few dollars. They say “what the heck
can we buy with only $XX American???” the next scene
shows them being served a huge feast in an upscale restraunt.
They tip the waiter a nickel, and he slaps his boss, telling him
he’s going to start his own business…

Of course, the movie was probably written before the Euro
eclipsed the dollar. Regardless, it’s a standing joke that
American money is prized in foreign countries. Pretty funny.

Violence in America is over emphasized. the bad areas are
where the violence is rampant. The rest of the country is
pretty much as safe as it gets. A general rule is whereever
there is government housing projects, drugs or large
concentrations of welfare recipiants, there will be higher crime.

In other areas, overall violent crime in the US is very low. It’s
not like going to the great smokey mountains is the same as
going into Camden NJ… Anyone visiting the US from abroad
woul be really stupid if they ended up in one of these areas.
Even in NYC, the tourist places are pretty well removed form
the bad spots… except the bronx zoo…

What’s wrong with Bulgaria? I own a flat there… As for Russia, I’d probably move there in a heart beat, as long as it was Moscow.

Violence is there in almost all developed countries however here in the USA we have aquired an image that seems to send a message across that people get shot at and stuff..I spend 9 months or so at University of Southern California working on some stuff and stayed on campus right on the border with COMPTON which is notoriusly recoganized as one of the most crime laden areas in the continental US..Yes if u’re there say at midnight holding or wearing something expenisve people would come up and start intimidating u and in general there is quite a lot of violence in and around that area..U could hear gun shots late into the night atleast once a week however for every one place like compton california (basically LA) or say oakland california,or some areas of miami etc etc there are scores of other peacful communities who have never even heard gun shots ever in their lifetimes…I doubt that any person who would come to the USA to live would come with a dream to live in say compton california or brooklyn (projects) NY for a prelonged period of time. 😀 However i must add that it is getting a lot better,the authorities and the city is really pumping in a lot of money and i was surprised to some of the city funded developmental projects that have come up in that area..I still go there when i am in cali (atleast once a month) and stay at some of the places there (close to the airport)…there is quite a lot of police coverage now and the attitude of the cops and become surprisingly friendlier and u can sence a wave of security that sweeps in everytime u see a patrol car every fe miles. Same for Oakland it is moving in a positive direction aswell.

Mind if i ask why?

Yes it is weird… Singapore is the cleanest country I’ve ever seen. They are very strict with that but that is why many tourists adore as a place. Sendosa Island is very cool, plus the beautiful park with the thousands flowers from over Asia (don’t know its name) but the problem is that:

1) There are 3,000,000 living in an island the size of Corfu island (!)
2) If you want to buy a car, from what I still remeber (I visited Singapore in 1997) you will have to pay double taxation because the government wants to prevent traffic jams.

kursed, correct me if I am wrong with the statements above.

Undesirable?
Belarus. Despite the beautiful girls, the country is drab and boring (well, that’s what the girls are to compensate for i guess), i don’t like Lukashenko, and he doesn’t like me.

Anything zealously religious: Iran, Vatican City, Saudi Arabia, Kentucky. I’m not the guy for religious dogmas to adhere.

Sub-saharan Africa. I’m not hypochondric, but there are limits to the number of diseases i want in my immediate surroundings.

Anything too crowded. Parts of China and India come to mind. Or some areas of that little country i live in.

Desirable places?
Somewhere with generally open-minded people, a good combination of social- and wildlife (i do like my wild social life 😀 ), and not too remote to feel secluded. Europe is pretty much OK except for Romania (too depressing, apologies to those affected), Belarus and Albania (too many bunkers, too little else), as would be a number of areas in the Americas and Eastern Asia.

Have you ever ben in albania?

hmmm USA, Russia, Singapore to name a few for starts.

Mind if i ask why?

I don’t know why Aussies want to go to the UK cause Australia seems like a much better place to live in, but white South Africans have little opportunities these days, so once they graduate they want to start a carreer overseas. Same with Argentina. Did you know 1 out of 3 doctors in madrid is from argentina?

Take it from an expat Brit….. Australia is bloody paradise compared to home

Yes, but there are 700 gun killings a week in the states.

If you did any reseach on the internet you’d see that
Your figures are off by about 1/3rd.

According to statistics found on an an anti-gun website (not that you bothered to look) in 2002 there were 30,242 gun deaths in the US….while far far less than 700 a week.

Of that number, 17,108 (56%) were suicides….11,829 were homicides (most in poor urban areas). The stats seem to show if you get shot in the US, you’re probably the shooter!

I see that someone edited out your profanity and insult, nice to see the moderators on their toes…

heh, have you ever seen an American movie called Eurotrip, i think their presentation of Slovakia might make you hurl.. although it is incredibly funny 😀 😀

actually i have seen that movie, and though it seemed like a very stupid movie i often cried from laughter. The scene where the english hooligans went to paris, driving on the wrong side of the road was brilliant. 😀 Actually Europe is portretted quite realistic in this movie.

I wish Aussies and South Africans would get the message and stop bloody coming here. :diablo:

I don’t know why Aussies want to go to the UK cause Australia seems like a much better place to live in, but white South Africans have little opportunities these days, so once they graduate they want to start a carreer overseas. Same with Argentina. Did you know 1 out of 3 doctors in madrid is from argentina?

Well, I think every country has nice and depressing places. Belgium is one of the best places to live (quality of life), and not boring because we have a mixture of germanic efficiency and romanic chaos :D. Belgium is both northern and southern europe which is why i like my country so much.

I don’t want to offend the Dutch (sorry :)), but I wouldn’t like to live there. At least not in some places. The streets are more clean than in Belgium, everything seems to be better organised, people are more friendly, you can use your bycicle to go anywhere … but it’s so dull. Everything looks the same. I prefer our political incorrectness and the fact that we are still allowed to build a gigantic house with the most ugly kitch around it (a little windmill etc).

The worst place to live in Europe I guess must be Albania. I don’t know about Belarus, maybe I should go there once to find out about these gorgeous women (arthur you’re not the first i hear this story from). But for now I am perfectly happy in Belgium, with the country and the females :D!

heh, have you ever seen an American movie called Eurotrip, i think their presentation of Slovakia might make you hurl.. although it is incredibly funny 😀 😀

One cannot watch a Hollywood movie like that without being prepared for a certain amount of mockery.. I don’t mind that, most of current movies are being made for semi-intelligent crowd.. For those Eastern Europe is a funny grey place with soldiers patroling on the streets with AKs, ancient dirty ruins and white smoke coming from underneath of city sewer covers.. BTW, I almost forgot, it always rains there.. 😉

Or have the times changed?

From my own experience, some eastern bloc countries are totally OK.. Czech Rep., Slovak Rep., richer parts of Poland, Estonia, Slovenia.. They are usually being presented in Hollywood movies as grey dull places full of white smoke (I don’t actually know what the smoke should represent ;)) but the reality is usually pretty much different..

heh, have you ever seen an American movie called Eurotrip, i think their presentation of Slovakia might make you hurl.. although it is incredibly funny 😀 😀

Flex,

It was damn ironic.. and in some way somehow was not..

I meant that me killing you would be ironic.

Yes, we had a war, violence, killing, blah blah blah – get over it people. If people didn’t go to places where there had been war in the past nobody would ever leave their house and life would become all about internet gaming and cyber love… The first one doesn’t sound so bad but the second…?

I definitely reccomend the Croatian coast (if you like that sort of thing), the Montenegran coast+mountains (if thats what floats your boat) and the Belgrade nightlife+partying etc (if thats what you’re after). Belgrade at New Year is particularly good – great atmosphere! (Oh and the EXTI music festival in Novi Sad in July is amazing, brilliant, fantastic etc etc).

Yes, but there are 700 gun killings a week in the states.

Yes but the US is a big place and, the way I understood it, bad things only really happen in bad places. Nice people live in good places where bad things don’t happen so often. Tens of thousands of Brits dies from alcohol fuelled pub violence every year – you don’t need guns to screw up your day if your head hits a curb during a fight outside a pub and you end up paralysed for the rest of your life.

WORST PLACE TO LIVE!!!!!

Okaaay. I understand more where you’re coming from now.

Canada often gets a good write up with positive feedback. Polite, freindly people. Clean streets. A good mix of cultures. Then again….VERY cold winters. HUGE country, can take ages to get anywhere, depending on where you live, obviously. And dare I say, only going from what I hear others say, a tad boring…

San Francisco, Boston and Seattle seem nice places in the US. Never visited them. However, the images I see look nice.

Yes, but there are 700 gun killings a week in the states.

I recently saw a report on CNN on the situation in North Korea. Now although some things may have been slightly blown out of proportion by the channel to paint a darker picture, the situation there certainly wouldn’t entice me to pack up my belongings and make the move to Pyongyang! It would seem that getting rid of the little man running the country with an iron fist would be a priority for them. However, how does one do that without getting killed or sent to a concentration camp first!

I feel sorry for the North Korean people.. On the other hand, I am not willing to be harsh, but there is one saying here in Slovakia that says: Every country has a government it deserves… Kim Chong Il cannot rule by himself, there are crowds of people who are helping him..

I recently saw a report on CNN on the situation in North Korea. Now although some things may have been slightly blown out of proportion by the channel to paint a darker picture, the situation there certainly wouldn’t entice me to pack up my belongings and make the move to Pyongyang! It would seem that getting rid of the little man running the country with an iron fist would be a priority for them. However, how does one do that without getting killed or sent to a concentration camp first!