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"If you lived in another country, what would you miss?"

While here in Spain I tend to get along fine with what I have. Ok, so I´ve brought a kettle along with me for a decent cup of tea (the water always goes ´frothy´in the microwave), but other than that there´s not much else that I´m missing.

This got me thinking, what are the things I would miss if I moved here permenently? Well, for one it would be an English keyboard. I can never find the @ key when touchtyping (it´s Alt Gr + 2 by the way) and many of the other symbols have moved, plus I keep pressing the ñ key.

Other things I´d miss are the TV (and, yes, I could get a 15 euro per month subscription + a 600 pound satellite system to watch BBC, C4 and Sky), the green countryside, my friends and some of the food (cadburys chocolate is available, but expensive).

Other than that, I get fresh fruit here and sea food tastes much better, the weather is more trustworthy (though we had thunderstorms for the WHOLE day a couple of days ago, which cut off the electricity for an hour) and the internet connection is just as fast as I can get at home, even though we´re in a rural area here. The plumbing and the flies are the only complaints.

This house is a bit old too, with a dodgy bath and no toilet seat (my father-in-law hasn´t got around to fixing a new one on, I may do it myself before I leave), the kitchen is old and the oven is only a glorified grill. Oh and the house doesn´t have air conditioning or heating, the latter made last christmas an interesting experience!

So what would you miss if you lived abroad?, where would you go? What would you like better?

I feel like I've been repeatedly walking in to a brick wall - of course, I'd really miss the football!

Sure, you've got La Liga and Serie A elsewhere, but NOTHING compares to life in the Premiership.

As I heard Big Brother on the TV in the other room, I can safely say, that's one thing I wouldn't miss even in the slightest! :P

I've felt for the past few years that I'm coming to the conclusion England bores me and I'll need a change soon in my life. But I know there would be things that I'd miss.

There are things in my life I'd like to be able to forget, put behind me and move on from. But I'd also be moving away from a large chunk of what has helped me to become who I am.

I've always thought Australia would be a pretty good place to move to. So many seem to do it these days - my best friend did it 11 years ago and NO-ONE's heard from him since!!
Unlike Japan (another idea I have), there's no problem with the language ("just the accints, mayte!").

Apparently they're always looking for carpenters over there - great news for me! It took me long enough to decide on doing that; don't think I could manage with much else.

If I lived in any other country, surely I will miss the 3:00 am shopping in my pj's and coat at the 24/7 Walmart SuperStores (Wally World) around the corner.

I think I shall miss the clusters of fried food franchises along every two mile intersections.. strip malls with a Starbucks and a bank within every Supermarket and the Dollar Tree, Payday Advances, and Tae Kwon Do schools all side by side.. and the parks of outlet stores for when you want to blow some serious cash.

Tis the ambiance of suburbia..

I probably won't miss all the 1800 calls to refi my house or for fantastic deals on sattelite cable.

Just another day in Nottingham.......:(

Smedlos wrote:
> If I were to move to another country I'd probably
> choose Canada as it's quite like England.

All the gun owners? :)

I'd miss the culture the most, going round town on a Friday and / or Saturday night with the mates then stopping off for chips on the way home.

Assuming I couldn't get them abroad I'd miss a few TV and radio programmes. If I were to move to another country I'd probably choose Canada as it's quite like England.

I'd love to go live somewhere else.
I want to settle down now too, but I don't mind where in the world.

Pb, how've you found it there? I suppose you'd need the language at a very good level to work there permanantly.
Still, there are places in the world where it could be workable with just English.


I don't think I have enough experience living abroad to know what I'd miss. But I'm not a fussy eater.

What would I like? I don't know. I don't have too many problems with it here. Bar Middlesbrough lowlives. But those are a minority of people here, and you get some lowlives everywhere, I'm sure.

But I'm kind of bored of English women. That's not a great reason for leaving the country is it?

I think I just want a change.

When I was in Tenerife for two weeks one of the obvious things that I liked was the constant warmth and sunshine, though I did miss cool mornings, simply because they were refreshing and meant I didn't sweat buckets constantly. The absence of any wasps was also a plus.

This may sound obvious but I missed English. By that I don't mean I'm not an able linguist or can't cope with foreign culture, just that I couldn't speak a word of Spanish and the large majority of tourists to Northern Tenerife seem to share private jokes with the locals. The tv programmes were even smuttier than here which was amusing. Bullfights, beach football & a Japanese style torture show were notable exceptions of enjoyable tv. I missed ITV and BBC etc, though Sky News was in English. There's only so many low-budget, CSI-esque German crime shows a man can take!

Mostly I miss being unable to recognise food ingredients or brands except the obvious like 'Coke', though most the food was better than I get here. The teabags I took from home so nothing missed there.

Having just had two weeks away in Ireland, I didn't have too many issues as it's not too far away, and UK TV is available; and I did have a laptop with mobile Internet available for occasionally using MSN and checking my email (T-Mobile's wonderful 3G service providing me with a fantastic 20 Kbps); the problem was, whilst I was gone some of my friends had come accross a great local pub (Where I live, there are 25 or so in the local area) and generally seemed to be having a great time... it's other people I seem to miss!

I'll be finding out soon when I move to Singapore. I think probably the quietness of my little town. You can go for walks in the summer and very few people around. In Singapore which is a city I'll have to get use to it being crowded I guess. I've never lived in a city before. Lots to look forward to though. Being able to stay out all night and be safe, no Chavs, good public transport, cinemas costing £3 and ushers leading you to your big comfy chairs.

I will miss a few foods but I'm sure they'll be replaced but great food :D