Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Some great posting antibes, brutally honest but mostly true.
I think the East Coast (Miami, Philly, New York and Boston) are much better places for a European to move to. Those areas are are deeper culturally and you will find a somewhat Euro way of life, but different.
If you had to move to California I would say move to San Francisco, OC is a major change and is 100% suburbia with very little cultural value.
antibes:
the weather is awesome
Forget about the drab European weather
i've never been to Europe. I get the impression the weather isn't drab in much of southern europe. I'm came here from MD in '06. What country are you from?
antibes:
the weather is awesome
Forget about the drab European weather
i've never been to Europe. I get the impression the weather isn't drab in much of southern europe. I'm came here from MD in '06. What country are you from?
I'm a little bit of everything, really. Born in Europe, lived in Asia, the U.S. and different parts of Europe.
The weather is good in South Europe. Quite similar to California. The French riviera is what CA was designed from, the american way. But Europe has old cultures so its not all new like here, and accommodation, roads and so on can be cramped when new is adapted to the old.
I have to admit that I really long to get back to Europe right now. I travel to CA often and have been in SoCal for only a week now and already want to leave. I actually dont want to come back here. I dont feel there is anything here for me. What is there really to see and do? Shops? Movies? And then? Life becomes enjoyable when it is experienced in interaction with people, not walking from mall to mall. And interaction is not sufficient here.
Don't misunderstand; I love the U.S. But there is a undertone of "nastiness" here which I really dont feel much in Europe. People are a bit meanspirited here while they are polite on the surface. In Europe people are rather 'grumpy' and introverted on the surface but I feel they are much kinder as people. For example, whenever I am here I hear constant backstabbing and scandalmongering and criticism between friends, neighbours and so on. You feel that people have no compassion towards anyone but enjoy to kick on each other. I hardly ever come across this when I'm in Europe. Europeans feel uncomfortable being mean. In the past six months I havent heard a single bad word spoken about any friend or acquaintance of mine in Europe. Here, I've hear the complaints from the moment I arrive.
Europe is great if you're European and we love the honesty and down-to earth approach where things are real. But I think Europe can be hard to adjust to for an american. Reason being that this culture is so extremely superficial and shallow. I know it does not feel that way for americans because you are born into it, live in it. People just dont know how to be real and themselves. In Europe there is little artificiality so it must be a bit of a shock coming from a culture where emphasiz is put on the artificial while reality is not dealt with.
I always used to find it rather amusing that whenever I asked an american to just be fully honest, they instantly would become only negative. For us honesty is just honesty, truthfullness; it doesn't mean being negative or that truth being said should be negative in nature or be interpreted as negative.
For a European the US culture is first bright and exciting and later exhausting, and after awhile, empty and depressing. It is a lonely society where people live in their cars and are isolated in their homes. Few have close friends who accept them as they are, but they must always pretend to be someone else to be accepted. I know many Europeans here who just want to leave because they find it lonely and isolated. There is no real connection between people, between friends, between lovers. For us its not like that. In Europe you have to interact with people all the time as soon as you leave your house; you walk, take the bus, the train - there's constant interaction with life around you, good or bad. The lovely aspect here are that people are extremely positive. On the surface. Inside they boil with negativity because they are never allowed to be honest and let it out naturally when they feel like it, so its pent up for years...
Location: In the North Idaho woods, still surrounded by terriers
2,179 posts, read 7,016,755 times
Reputation: 1014
Wow...you are one very negative soul, Antibes. Unless you have lived all over the USA please don't generalize. I agree with you regarding OC...born and raised there, happy to escape many years ago...hate it now. But 99% of Americans are genuine people...many good folks here who are not shallow and not into "things". They generally do not live in the big cities and towns...they are "real" and they are "honest"...but for the most part they do not reside in So California. Just how it is.
I have travelled all over Europe, the British Isles, Australia...much more, and been in every one of our 50 states, and my experience is that if a person is open, honest and friendly that person will recieve those same responses from the people they meet. I currently live in AZ...been here 23 years now, but in a smaller town, not Phoenix.
You are entitled to your opinion and it seems to me you've had some very bad experiences with Americans in general...but please don't lump the entire country into your tiny sphere of narrow-minded knowledge.
For a European the US culture is first bright and exciting and later exhausting, and after awhile, empty and depressing. It is a lonely society where people live in their cars and are isolated in their homes. Few have close friends who accept them as they are, but they must always pretend to be someone else to be accepted. I know many Europeans here who just want to leave because they find it lonely and isolated. There is no real connection between people, between friends, between lovers. For us its not like that. In Europe you have to interact with people all the time as soon as you leave your house; you walk, take the bus, the train - there's constant interaction with life around you, good or bad. The lovely aspect here are that people are extremely positive. On the surface. Inside they boil with negativity because they are never allowed to be honest and let it out naturally when they feel like it, so its pent up for years...
I would agree...the US..especially California is not the place for you. You will forever be unhappy here. The things you look for apparently don't exist. Thanks for trying it, and the best of luck to you wherever you may go.
I'm a little bit of everything, really. Born in Europe, lived in Asia, the U.S. and different parts of Europe.
The weather is good in South Europe. Quite similar to California. The French riviera is what CA was designed from, the american way. But Europe has old cultures so its not all new like here, and accommodation, roads and so on can be cramped when new is adapted to the old.
I have to admit that I really long to get back to Europe right now. I travel to CA often and have been in SoCal for only a week now and already want to leave. I actually dont want to come back here. I dont feel there is anything here for me. What is there really to see and do? Shops? Movies? And then? Life becomes enjoyable when it is experienced in interaction with people, not walking from mall to mall. And interaction is not sufficient here.
Don't misunderstand; I love the U.S. But there is a undertone of "nastiness" here which I really dont feel much in Europe. People are a bit meanspirited here while they are polite on the surface. In Europe people are rather 'grumpy' and introverted on the surface but I feel they are much kinder as people. For example, whenever I am here I hear constant backstabbing and scandalmongering and criticism between friends, neighbours and so on. You feel that people have no compassion towards anyone but enjoy to kick on each other. I hardly ever come across this when I'm in Europe. Europeans feel uncomfortable being mean. In the past six months I havent heard a single bad word spoken about any friend or acquaintance of mine in Europe. Here, I've hear the complaints from the moment I arrive.
Europe is great if you're European and we love the honesty and down-to earth approach where things are real. But I think Europe can be hard to adjust to for an american. Reason being that this culture is so extremely superficial and shallow. I know it does not feel that way for americans because you are born into it, live in it. People just dont know how to be real and themselves. In Europe there is little artificiality so it must be a bit of a shock coming from a culture where emphasiz is put on the artificial while reality is not dealt with.
I always used to find it rather amusing that whenever I asked an american to just be fully honest, they instantly would become only negative. For us honesty is just honesty, truthfullness; it doesn't mean being negative or that truth being said should be negative in nature or be interpreted as negative.
For a European the US culture is first bright and exciting and later exhausting, and after awhile, empty and depressing. It is a lonely society where people live in their cars and are isolated in their homes. Few have close friends who accept them as they are, but they must always pretend to be someone else to be accepted. I know many Europeans here who just want to leave because they find it lonely and isolated. There is no real connection between people, between friends, between lovers. For us its not like that. In Europe you have to interact with people all the time as soon as you leave your house; you walk, take the bus, the train - there's constant interaction with life around you, good or bad. The lovely aspect here are that people are extremely positive. On the surface. Inside they boil with negativity because they are never allowed to be honest and let it out naturally when they feel like it, so its pent up for years...
WOW! you should get to know California women...it gets worse ten folds...as a man in California you are a second class citizen... women and children sit next to God in California!
I'm a little bit of everything, really. Born in Europe, lived in Asia, the U.S. and different parts of Europe.
The weather is good in South Europe. Quite similar to California. The French riviera is what CA was designed from, the american way. But Europe has old cultures so its not all new like here, and accommodation, roads and so on can be cramped when new is adapted to the old.
I have to admit that I really long to get back to Europe right now. I travel to CA often and have been in SoCal for only a week now and already want to leave. I actually dont want to come back here. I dont feel there is anything here for me. What is there really to see and do? Shops? Movies? And then? Life becomes enjoyable when it is experienced in interaction with people, not walking from mall to mall. And interaction is not sufficient here.
Don't misunderstand; I love the U.S. But there is a undertone of "nastiness" here which I really dont feel much in Europe. People are a bit meanspirited here while they are polite on the surface. In Europe people are rather 'grumpy' and introverted on the surface but I feel they are much kinder as people. For example, whenever I am here I hear constant backstabbing and scandalmongering and criticism between friends, neighbours and so on. You feel that people have no compassion towards anyone but enjoy to kick on each other. I hardly ever come across this when I'm in Europe. Europeans feel uncomfortable being mean. In the past six months I havent heard a single bad word spoken about any friend or acquaintance of mine in Europe. Here, I've hear the complaints from the moment I arrive.
Europe is great if you're European and we love the honesty and down-to earth approach where things are real. But I think Europe can be hard to adjust to for an american. Reason being that this culture is so extremely superficial and shallow. I know it does not feel that way for americans because you are born into it, live in it. People just dont know how to be real and themselves. In Europe there is little artificiality so it must be a bit of a shock coming from a culture where emphasiz is put on the artificial while reality is not dealt with.
I always used to find it rather amusing that whenever I asked an american to just be fully honest, they instantly would become only negative. For us honesty is just honesty, truthfullness; it doesn't mean being negative or that truth being said should be negative in nature or be interpreted as negative.
For a European the US culture is first bright and exciting and later exhausting, and after awhile, empty and depressing. It is a lonely society where people live in their cars and are isolated in their homes. Few have close friends who accept them as they are, but they must always pretend to be someone else to be accepted. I know many Europeans here who just want to leave because they find it lonely and isolated. There is no real connection between people, between friends, between lovers. For us its not like that. In Europe you have to interact with people all the time as soon as you leave your house; you walk, take the bus, the train - there's constant interaction with life around you, good or bad. The lovely aspect here are that people are extremely positive. On the surface. Inside they boil with negativity because they are never allowed to be honest and let it out naturally when they feel like it, so its pent up for years...
Appreciated your intriguing and pensive descriptors of US life. And, like you I have lived in, and traversed much of the globe. That has given me the opportunity to know and interact with many Europeans and Asians. Most of them that came to the US, and stayed, came here to improve the quality of their lives. Usually, that boiled down to getting money, a home, personal freedom and for some religious freedom. Never did one of them ever mention that they came to the states to be enriched by our culture. Some returned or maintained a rather consistent liasion with their native land. The majority of them that "pitched their tent here" encountered the "...loneliness, isolation, lack of interaction and mean-spiritedness..," that you poignantly illumined. However, they all did something that their returning colleagues did not. They made a commitment, generated resolve, displayed determination, engaged the landscape, sacrificed and overcame numerous challenges. America, unequivocally and with all of its limitations became their home.
The dynamics of state-side life that you find distressing, I would simply submit are conditions of the human heart that permeate the global family. Yes, of course, there are probably many societies that handle it much better than what we do here in the US. In some respects, many of the Europeans that I've known simply seem much happier in their own skins than some of my American friends. Yet, that too, is my own casual observation. Perhaps, over the years, we've lost much of our sense of gentile, courteous respect, unflagging love, intellectual and emotional integrity and eternal values that promote a healthy society - don't know for sure. In recent years, I've occasionally thought that the US was becomming more like Europe rather than Europe like the US. Nonetheless, given your perceptual phenomena, which for you are quite real I would recommend that you stay in Europe. Your current disposition mitigates making the States a viable residence. Shalom.
Last edited by Doc. T.; 05-07-2008 at 03:59 PM..
Reason: Tired fingers.
I appreciated a lot of what antibes and Doc. T said. I live in New Mexico, which is much more culturally and socially diverse than Orange County seems to be (never been personally), but I still encounter the same types of people who are too happy to confide their personal life, too eager to see me and then too eager to forget me when they move away/change jobs. I have some British friends like this too, but fewer of them.
What I love about my community in New Mexico is that I can walk to shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, friend's houses, museums, galleries, clubs, bars, work, school, and major bus and train lines and even the airport from where I live. In an incredibly sprawly city in the sprawly Southwest, from what others tell me I feel like this is a veritable miracle. And as much as the weather is nice here (though sometimes too sunny and hot for my tastes), it's the community aspect that makes me incredibly happy where I now live. I can count my real friends here on one hand, but I don't care about that - I feel part of a wider community that supports me and upholds my personal beliefs. I make minimum wage and yet I want for nothing, because I eat well and sleep well and play well. Screw everything else. Mall culture will depress you.
If you can find a community of friends and neighours where you genuinely feel you belong - i.e. if you can get what everyone else around the world wants - more power to you. In my experience, there are a lot of wonderful small communities across the US where you can find this. They're hard to find because they're off the beaten track sometimes, or in towns you've never heard of - but they exist. Most of them aren't in the new suburbia, though, where you're married to your car first, your wallet second, and your family third. The image of this life on TV is so depressingly pervasive. My advice, weird as this sounds? Watch some good independent films made in America. They give a more accurate portrayal of the weird, sad, beautiful, and wonderful out here. If you come here, expect to work very very hard and get trodden on. You don't realise you've been trodden on for about a year or two because there's free pizza and coffee all the time, but the pizza tastes like cardboard and someone probably peed in the coffee anyway.
Would I still move to the US if I could to do this all over? Yes. But I knew to expect loneliness, isolation, cultural insensitivity, unhelpful bureaucracy. Once I got past all of that, I was fine. Incidentally, I am planning to return to the UK in the next couple of years.
Wow!! I too am an immigrant, from Canada. I have lived many years in OC.
I have great, long term friendships with men and women. Sometimes, after work my conversations with friends/colleagues range from local politics, to philosophy, to poetry, books, movies, and music. Of course some people I know appear to be rather shallow, but those are the ones with which I have polite, shallow exchanges of pleasantries. Maybe if I took the time to actually get to know the shallow people, I would find that they too have interesting things to say.
OC is expensive! Believe it! It will be very difficult to live in a good neighborhood, with good schools on $80.000 per year. Rents are high. Right now, ( 5/9/08) in my neighborhood, Fountain Valley, a one room bachelor apt. is renting for $1.200 mo.
Traffic is hell! But the weather is heaven!
I'm a little bit of everything, really. Born in Europe, lived in Asia, the U.S. and different parts of Europe.
The weather is good in South Europe. Quite similar to California. The French riviera is what CA was designed from, the american way. But Europe has old cultures so its not all new like here, and accommodation, roads and so on can be cramped when new is adapted to the old.
I have to admit that I really long to get back to Europe right now. I travel to CA often and have been in SoCal for only a week now and already want to leave. I actually dont want to come back here. I dont feel there is anything here for me. What is there really to see and do? Shops? Movies? And then? Life becomes enjoyable when it is experienced in interaction with people, not walking from mall to mall. And interaction is not sufficient here.
Don't misunderstand; I love the U.S. But there is a undertone of "nastiness" here which I really dont feel much in Europe. People are a bit meanspirited here while they are polite on the surface. In Europe people are rather 'grumpy' and introverted on the surface but I feel they are much kinder as people. For example, whenever I am here I hear constant backstabbing and scandalmongering and criticism between friends, neighbours and so on. You feel that people have no compassion towards anyone but enjoy to kick on each other. I hardly ever come across this when I'm in Europe. Europeans feel uncomfortable being mean. In the past six months I havent heard a single bad word spoken about any friend or acquaintance of mine in Europe. Here, I've hear the complaints from the moment I arrive.
Europe is great if you're European and we love the honesty and down-to earth approach where things are real. But I think Europe can be hard to adjust to for an american. Reason being that this culture is so extremely superficial and shallow. I know it does not feel that way for americans because you are born into it, live in it. People just dont know how to be real and themselves. In Europe there is little artificiality so it must be a bit of a shock coming from a culture where emphasiz is put on the artificial while reality is not dealt with.
I always used to find it rather amusing that whenever I asked an american to just be fully honest, they instantly would become only negative. For us honesty is just honesty, truthfullness; it doesn't mean being negative or that truth being said should be negative in nature or be interpreted as negative.
For a European the US culture is first bright and exciting and later exhausting, and after awhile, empty and depressing. It is a lonely society where people live in their cars and are isolated in their homes. Few have close friends who accept them as they are, but they must always pretend to be someone else to be accepted. I know many Europeans here who just want to leave because they find it lonely and isolated. There is no real connection between people, between friends, between lovers. For us its not like that. In Europe you have to interact with people all the time as soon as you leave your house; you walk, take the bus, the train - there's constant interaction with life around you, good or bad. The lovely aspect here are that people are extremely positive. On the surface. Inside they boil with negativity because they are never allowed to be honest and let it out naturally when they feel like it, so its pent up for years...
could you be more specific as far as how Euros are more real as in mention actual conversations? I see what you mean to a point. it seems like people from the ny/new england areas have more what a European is looking for in that sense and others although I wouldn't know from 1st hand experience as I've only lived in the baltimore/greater dc areas before moving to OC.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Don't even consider a move to the US
