Emmigration anyone?

[Curio]

I heard about this guy aged 55 who moved to the US and his health insurance was £1000 per month, which he couldn't afford.

I like the US, but apparently it's not as cheap as you might think.

I think i'm going to move to a developing country and then i'll be able to have servants. May be Thailand, India, not sure though.

I can only assume this guy had some serious medical problems which pushed his premium up. Good luck to him if tries to get it sorted on the NHS - he'll probably be dead and buried before he even gets on the waiting list...

As already stated - almost all full-time positions will offer you benefits here. Where I work, they even pay 60% if you're part-time as well.

As for the US not being cheap......our cost of living here is literally a third of what it was in the UK! No joke. In the UK both of us were working and we were slowly slipping into debt. Here, we're easily getting by with just me working!

 

[Loki]

Our famiy is in the preliminary stages of the visas application for America. Got an interview at the American Embassy in Belfast on the 19th of this month. Fingers crossed we should be over there in 18 months two years and start our own business off

Failing that then Its Toronto, Canada for us

 

[red11]

Our famiy is in the preliminary stages of the visas application for America. Got an interview at the American Embassy in Belfast on the 19th of this month. Fingers crossed we should be over there in 18 months two years and start our own business off

Failing that then Its Toronto, Canada for us

Good luck with this mate, sounds very good. But why Belfast for the Embassy, is there not one closer to you?

 

[Loki]

Good luck with this mate, sounds very good. But why Belfast for the Embassy, is there not one closer to you?

Thanks

There is one in London. We have appointed a compay to help us out with all the paper work and find us some property to rent till we sell ours and find a suitable vias qualifying business to purchase. For some reason its their preference to go through Belfast rather than London

This country is great but you can feel the decay all around. Luckily we have some good equity in our property which means we can invest in something and still put a decent deposit on a house in Florida. Taking a purely pragmatic view of things. If we stay where we are the value of our house is unlikely to rise that much. So if we move to anothe area for a house like we have would be a backwards step.

Its an opportunity too good to miss. If it doesnt work out then we get oursleves up dust ourselves down and start again. Lifes to short to get to 65 and say "Ahh I can now start to live now I have retired"

 

[D.P.]

I have succeed!

Will be moving to Lausanne, Switzerland to udertake a PhD and teaching assistant positions at EPFL. The PhD is in Swarm-intelligence, bio-inspired robotics and evolutionary neuro-cognitive architectures and robotic controllers.

It is part of a multi-centre EC funded project called Swarmanoids, based on the previous project swarm-bots http://www.swarm-bots.org
I will be working in collaboration with partners in EPFL Lausanne, University Lugano, Belgium University and Italian Nationional Uni, Rome.


My specific project is looking at developing a flying 'eye-bot' based on a helipcopter type design for vertical take-off/landing, hovering capabiltiies and holonomic movement in 3d space (unconstrained DoF). The eyebots will be equiped with cameras for navigation and survellience/search and rescue purposes. The eye-bots will form an aerial communication network with positioning and callabration base on swarm intelligence without the rleiance on GPS or other fragile technologies. These eye-bots will commicate with, collaborate with and control a combination of 'foot bots' and 'hand bots' Footbots are basic tracked robots capable to working togther to provide greater skills and to navigate complex environments, see the link above. These will transport hand-bots and objects or resources. hand-bots will be able to climb walls and work in the vertical space betwene floor and ceiling, the foot bot on th floor, the eye bots in the air and ceiling.

I will be designing the control system for the flying eye-bots and will be studying the evolution of communication and cooperation as well as neuro-controlers.

This is the labs website for those interested. lis.epfl.ch

The 1st rpoject meeting is in Brussels so i will be there 3rd-6th. I will then move to Lausanne on the 15th. Luasanne is a beatiful town by lac leman and hour from world class skiing and all the other alpine activities. The city is clean and tidy and has an amazing transport system.

You may think Switzerland is expenive but it is no more so than London and they pay you much more. I will be paid ~£20,000, cf UK PhDs at 12k. Things like transport appear expensive but I get half price rail card making it far cheaper than UK and much cleaner, reliable and conveneint. For £30 I can get a youth car which allows me to travel for free after 7pm, sepcially for going out at night! Accomodation costs will be lower than when i lived in Edinburgh (£250 a month including all utility bills, cf £320 without bills). Fuel is 65p a litre, 2nd hand cars are cheaper. Eating out at a resonable cafe/restaurant is cheaper than london. Taxes are also a lot lower in CH than the UK, not that that really applies to me being a student. The quality of life is much higher over there in any case, espeically if you are love mountains, lakes, climbing and skiing like me!