Question for American expatriates living overseas: What has your experience been like?

Question

And please state which country you emigrated to. I have traveled extensively here in North America and abroad, and I have had much better experiences overseas than I have had in the States, Canada and Mexico.

I have a few countries in mind, but am also keeping an open mind about places I haven't been to.

Answer 1

I lived in the Netherlands for four years. I enjoyed it enormously, it's a great country. The people are well educated and polite, and many have a wonderful dry sense of humor. Most adults speak passable to excellent English. The first thing I noticed was how clean and neat the cities and suburbs were.

The food is wonderful, there are tons of exotic foreign restaurants, plus the traditional Dutch food.

The weather can be kind of dreary in the winter, lots of gray rainy days. Nice in summer, I don't remember it being hot at all, just pleasant.

It's very easy to get around, excellent bus and train service. Lots to see, great museums, castles, historic areas, parks.

As for being an American over there, my experience was quite a few years ago. I had a couple of encounters with anti-American sentiment, but they were exceptions to an otherwise delightful time.

Answer 2

As a child we lived so long in Canada that we just got the Canadian equivalent of green cards. I loved it, but most people love things as children.
As an adult I lived almost 6 years in Indonesia. It was always interesting (at the anniversary of our first year there was a revolution). I can't say I loved it with every fiber of my being and I can't say that I hated every second of it. Living in a city with such a huge gap between rich and poor certainly showed me something I could never see if I were living anywhere in the US or Europe. But for everything that made me hate it (beggars with leprosy, the filth, the poverty) there was enough that I loved that I had a good experience. It was, however, beyond strange to know that you are doing OK back home, but live like money was just flowing into your bank accounts. Eveything there was so cheap...

Answer 3

I knew a few that lived in the PI (Phillipines) but they came back after the Bases closed......it wasn't as good for them any more.

Eventually they all come home, even My uncle Jeff came back from Canada after Carter gave him amnesty for dodging the Draft.....The funny thing about that was the family understood him going to Canada, but after he returned he was thought of as a pariah.....We were happy to see him at first, but then we realized that he was a self centered Bum. He's working in a body shop makes ok money but he sits back complaining about how he deseves better, and how the gov't screws us over.....He's probably the biggest reason I'm a Republican today.