ROB wrote:I used to think I would spend some time living in the US. I would get a visa easily enough.
These days I have literally zero desire. It'll be a few week holiday at best.
I mean, we have fuckwits here too, but we manage to keep them suppressed enough most of the time.
A bunch of you moved to NYC after your Government supported Bush's war. You got work visas easily as part of the deal. For a while there was even an Australian burger place here (the owner told me you guys use pickled beets on your burgers and I found out I really like that).
Aside from the the increased risk of disease and having a bunch of fat people invite you to church, you would probably do better in some areas of the US than I would.
I am noticing parts of the US becoming like the Balkans when I was there in the 1990s. Similar language, similar culture but hate each other's guts. If you came to visit and I took you on a tour of the US I would be at risk in some areas but you would not. It would be better for a white English speaker who is not Canadian (often confused with US liberals) went off on their own to see the sites.
The problem with noticing what I see is that the people it is happening to have no reference point for it. They don't consider themselves The Balkans, they have never been anywhere so they don't see that Romania has superior infrastructure to ours and if told they would not really believe it anyway.
During the lockdown we were hosting a German man with a fashion internship and he really wanted to wait out COVID so he could go to Florida (not sure what the hell the deal is with Euros and Florida but it is thing for some reason) and Germany was offering free evacuations back home (many people in the US are not aware that the US was considered so shitty that European nations paid repatriation fees to get folks back safely) and I just told him that the shit will hit the fan. The US is a crazy place and it will get worse at least until the election, then if Trump wins it will get really bad and if Biden wins there will only be protections in places that want them and Florida won't be one of those places.
So he left and his parents still send my wife and I gift packages of food for our birthdays because we took care of their kid but mostly because we convinced him to leave.
So yep, don't bother. If I were you I wouldn't.
A good friend of mine moved to Sydney from Wisconsin about 10 years ago after getting married. These two years I have never seen anyone happier to not be here than he is.