The time change is one of the easy things.
Get up 6:00 AM LAX = 10:00 AM EZE
Lunch 11:00 AM LAX = 3:00 PM EZE
Supper 6:00 PM LAX = 10:00 PM EZE
Head home after a night out 2:00 AM LAX = 6:00 AM EZE
Moving From Los Angeles
- Thread starter stargatefix
- Start date
The time change is one of the easy things.
Get up 6:00 AM LAX = 10:00 AM EZE
Lunch 11:00 AM LAX = 3:00 PM EZE
Supper 6:00 PM LAX = 10:00 PM EZE
Head home after a night out 2:00 AM LAX = 6:00 AM EZE
garryl
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It's worse here.
Exactly. I am lucky I can choose my arrival at work, so I come earliest possible, to see some daylight later. My girlfriend and many friends are not that lucky. If you have monotributo or you are a teacher your life is quite a hell. Of course you can earn good, but you are working your ass off, just that later inflation, exorbitant prices and government takes huge part of what you earn.
If you want to live better life, go to Swiss or some other EU country (Spain could be good). It is not so much, how long you have to work per day, but general attitude of people around you. It is entirely different if your boss demand of you to take your vacation or let you know you shouldn't take it ..
It is hard for me to imagine family life here, but I guess if you are from similar environment this is not big problem (it seems portenos don't have any problems with drawbacks this city is offering, so it's just me and my too high expectations I guess).
camberiu
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How people from abroad imagine Argentines living their day-to-day life.
How it really is, specially during blackouts:
Girino
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Swiss has one of the highest cost of living in the whole Europe, and they are not immigrant friendly. Unless you are a top-notch professional with a hard science degree, they wouldn't probably even bother to hire you. Social life is close to zero. Living there as a freelancer is not a good idea, unless you are Tina Turner.
Always is about person's capabilities and wishes. I just know, that many USA citizens find it nice to live and work there, probably because is not too different (hard work, zero social life
). However, it has other option for spending your free time, which many people find way more suitable (like activities in nature, traveling etc.).Otherwise salaries, if you have one, are huge and I never heard Swiss people complaining about cost of living .. Of course, for us from outside, seems a lot of money, but not for them (think how much more you spare there, if you spare 10% of your salary, comparing to Argentina..).
They have a lot of immigrants, if not the most in Europe and they are benefiting greatly from that fact. Of course attitude may not be the best, but I never heard of real trouble there and friends living their seem to have nice time. But freelancers will never choose Swiss or any other expensive country, I hope, for obvious reasons.
garryl
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Who wants to live at a place with zero social life ? There is never a lack of social life in BsAs, but if you have to make a living here, that's a different story. It's what your priority is.
I've always found in my life that the amount of free time you have is pretty much directly related to how much money you make, which is usually directly related to how hard you work - and often where you live. People who don't earn much, or live in very costly places and don't earn as much as they want to, somehow often seem to think that people who make a lot of money don't work as much for their earnings. Or that if they work hard, they have no life outside of work. Except for very wealthy retired people or trust fund babies, the first is ridiculous. The second is a choice that some people make.
I believe that many people who come here looking for a better lifestyle with less work are often sorely disappointed.
In the States, there are plenty of places where you don't have to pay 2400 USD (as an example) for a nice place to live. In Houston, in the suburbs, I was paying $800 USD for a 30 year fixed mortgage on a 3000 SF house (5 big bedrooms, one of which I used as an office and one was available for guests) with a 3-car garage on a corner lot in a very nice neighborhood with two private neighborhood pools. I would never, ever, find anything like that here, for even double or triple the price - not to mention that the idea of finding a mortgage here is ludicrous, next to impossible, and doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the States. Nor in San Francisco would I find what I had in Houston. Heh. Or in many places in the US where people think they must live.
Closest I ever came here was renting a house in the 'burbs in a closed neighborhood for $1200 USD a month, plus as high as $450 USD a month for neighborhood expenses (though it started around 200 USD). The house was smaller than my house in Houston, the yard about half the size, no garage, 2 small bedrooms and two medium-sized (with one as my office and no spare), though I did have a pool in my backyard (took up about 50% of the space available) and my office opened directly onto the pool via sliding glass doors (damn how I do miss that place, truly). But the house was mostly poorly constructed (and it was an expensive neighborhood), had a water storage tank in the attic (with a lot of maintenance issues) that was completely required because the services were so bad out there that often there wouldn't be any water for a day or two and we often lived on what was in that tank. Many other issues there that didn't come close to living up to a good lifestyle for less or even equal money.
I've also never understood why people think there is no social life in the US and people only work to live. For that house I had in Houston, I worked about 40-45 hours a week and almost never on the weekends (though I did have to drive 45 minutes or so to work - but how many people have much longer commutes to get to a crappier job and/or one that requires many more hours here?). My ex-wife didn't have to work and was able to raise the kids as a stay-at-home mother while I took the kids to sports practice (baseball, football, soccer, swim team and I was a coach for soccer and a judge/official for the swim team) and helped the with their homework when they needed help. We often had couples with their kids over to our house for dinner during the week. Weekend lawn-cutting often turned into a beer/barbecue party as one neighbor would bring over a cooler full of beer to offer me a cold one while I was finishing up my yard, others would come over as they finished theirs, we'd sit in the shade and talk and drink beers (or the women usually preferred wine coolers) while the kids ran around in the sprinklers, then someone would go to the store to get some steaks and I'd fire up the grill and around midnight we'd part ways, half-drunk, full and happy. That wasn't a rare occurrence - it was just about every weekend during warm weather.
If that's not what people consider a social life, then they don't have the same idea as I do as to what a social life is. If people can't find that in the US at a decent price - I'm very surprised. I get that things have changed a lot in the last 10 years - and yet my folks live on 3 1/2 acres on a lake in the suburbs of St Louis and they recently refinanced their house for some repairs and landscaping improvements and are paying a low interest rate, with payments about 800 USD a month (their refinance was for about the same cost as my house in Houston was valued at the time I left Houston in 2006). If my wife and I didn't have three of her sisters here that are our direct responsibility for everything (and if I thought we could live without them!!), she and I would move to live with my folks and enjoy a really good lifestyle (food is definitely more expensive here than in St Louis suburbs - except for meat, for sure. I found the prices in St Louis to be less than here nowadays for much better selection and quality. And I bought shirts, shorts, jeans, etc, there with much better quality and about half the price as here!!). I still earn money in the States, my job would still be there. And the people are friendly and neighborly...
Here, I could never break into the social life in the neighborhood where we lived in the suburbs. The people were too "cheta" I guess and my wife and her family being Paraguayan was a huge strike against us. Outside of the closed neighborhood I couldn't find a house that big in decent shape at any price (at least that was close enough to the city - there were some good-sized casa quintas and more rustic houses out past Pilar or Escobar, but it was too far out, and one place that was about three times the size of our house that used to be some kind of church dormitory or something - but it didn't make much of a house). Here in the city we've managed to make friends with some of the parents at our girls' schools, but in the apartment building where we live now (and the one before this, for 4 years), we can hardly get the people who live here to say "hi" to us (again, could be the Paraguayan thing combined with the neighborhood, although there has been a lot less overt elitism here than in the closed neighborhood). Much less anyone has ever brought over a pie or a casserole (or even just themselves!) to welcome us to the neighborhood - not once in more than nine years here, anywhere we've lived. Maybe we've simply never lived in the right places. Probably has a lot to do with it, actually. But I prefer to live in a big place, close to where the girls need to live their lives for work and school (which has evolved into Microcenter, Recoleta and San Telmo over the years), in at least a decent place (as I mentioned in another thread, we've never gone without electricity in our current place for more than two hours, and that rarely, and we never lose water or gas, though sometimes the damned elevator doesn't work - but it gets fixed quickly) in the city close enough to where the girls' lives are.
I came here for business, I stayed here for love, but I would never feel that my social life is better here than in the States (but then, I'm not exactly a partier, not single, not without responsibilities - all of which preclude the majority of what an awful lot of expats I know look for in their social lives), or that I have to work less (I supported three kids and a wife there, I support three kids and a wife here with a good lifestyle even if not as good as I could have, say, in Houston or St Louis and these days certainly for less money, at least compared to the suburbs here).
My wife has her reasons for wanting to stay here in BA, but personally I'd be happier in Asuncion or Encarnacion in Paraguay. Or Cordoba or Mendoza in Argentina. Places where we can also bring our girls.
So mostly, to sum up, I'm saying that to move here to have as good a life with less money and less work than in the States is not the best reason to come here permanently, these days. Unless you've lived here for awhile and understand what you're getting into, and that the lifestyle is indeed what you are looking for, given how much (or little) you want to work. One can find better places in the States than where one lives currently, because there are as many cultures and economies in the US as there are in many different continents around the world (sometimes even to language!), without making such a huge change and taking such a big risk.
But then again - to each their own life.
I believe that many people who come here looking for a better lifestyle with less work are often sorely disappointed.
In the States, there are plenty of places where you don't have to pay 2400 USD (as an example) for a nice place to live. In Houston, in the suburbs, I was paying $800 USD for a 30 year fixed mortgage on a 3000 SF house (5 big bedrooms, one of which I used as an office and one was available for guests) with a 3-car garage on a corner lot in a very nice neighborhood with two private neighborhood pools. I would never, ever, find anything like that here, for even double or triple the price - not to mention that the idea of finding a mortgage here is ludicrous, next to impossible, and doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the States. Nor in San Francisco would I find what I had in Houston. Heh. Or in many places in the US where people think they must live.
Closest I ever came here was renting a house in the 'burbs in a closed neighborhood for $1200 USD a month, plus as high as $450 USD a month for neighborhood expenses (though it started around 200 USD). The house was smaller than my house in Houston, the yard about half the size, no garage, 2 small bedrooms and two medium-sized (with one as my office and no spare), though I did have a pool in my backyard (took up about 50% of the space available) and my office opened directly onto the pool via sliding glass doors (damn how I do miss that place, truly). But the house was mostly poorly constructed (and it was an expensive neighborhood), had a water storage tank in the attic (with a lot of maintenance issues) that was completely required because the services were so bad out there that often there wouldn't be any water for a day or two and we often lived on what was in that tank. Many other issues there that didn't come close to living up to a good lifestyle for less or even equal money.
I've also never understood why people think there is no social life in the US and people only work to live. For that house I had in Houston, I worked about 40-45 hours a week and almost never on the weekends (though I did have to drive 45 minutes or so to work - but how many people have much longer commutes to get to a crappier job and/or one that requires many more hours here?). My ex-wife didn't have to work and was able to raise the kids as a stay-at-home mother while I took the kids to sports practice (baseball, football, soccer, swim team and I was a coach for soccer and a judge/official for the swim team) and helped the with their homework when they needed help. We often had couples with their kids over to our house for dinner during the week. Weekend lawn-cutting often turned into a beer/barbecue party as one neighbor would bring over a cooler full of beer to offer me a cold one while I was finishing up my yard, others would come over as they finished theirs, we'd sit in the shade and talk and drink beers (or the women usually preferred wine coolers) while the kids ran around in the sprinklers, then someone would go to the store to get some steaks and I'd fire up the grill and around midnight we'd part ways, half-drunk, full and happy. That wasn't a rare occurrence - it was just about every weekend during warm weather.
If that's not what people consider a social life, then they don't have the same idea as I do as to what a social life is. If people can't find that in the US at a decent price - I'm very surprised. I get that things have changed a lot in the last 10 years - and yet my folks live on 3 1/2 acres on a lake in the suburbs of St Louis and they recently refinanced their house for some repairs and landscaping improvements and are paying a low interest rate, with payments about 800 USD a month (their refinance was for about the same cost as my house in Houston was valued at the time I left Houston in 2006). If my wife and I didn't have three of her sisters here that are our direct responsibility for everything (and if I thought we could live without them!!), she and I would move to live with my folks and enjoy a really good lifestyle (food is definitely more expensive here than in St Louis suburbs - except for meat, for sure. I found the prices in St Louis to be less than here nowadays for much better selection and quality. And I bought shirts, shorts, jeans, etc, there with much better quality and about half the price as here!!). I still earn money in the States, my job would still be there. And the people are friendly and neighborly...
Here, I could never break into the social life in the neighborhood where we lived in the suburbs. The people were too "cheta" I guess and my wife and her family being Paraguayan was a huge strike against us. Outside of the closed neighborhood I couldn't find a house that big in decent shape at any price (at least that was close enough to the city - there were some good-sized casa quintas and more rustic houses out past Pilar or Escobar, but it was too far out, and one place that was about three times the size of our house that used to be some kind of church dormitory or something - but it didn't make much of a house). Here in the city we've managed to make friends with some of the parents at our girls' schools, but in the apartment building where we live now (and the one before this, for 4 years), we can hardly get the people who live here to say "hi" to us (again, could be the Paraguayan thing combined with the neighborhood, although there has been a lot less overt elitism here than in the closed neighborhood). Much less anyone has ever brought over a pie or a casserole (or even just themselves!) to welcome us to the neighborhood - not once in more than nine years here, anywhere we've lived. Maybe we've simply never lived in the right places. Probably has a lot to do with it, actually. But I prefer to live in a big place, close to where the girls need to live their lives for work and school (which has evolved into Microcenter, Recoleta and San Telmo over the years), in at least a decent place (as I mentioned in another thread, we've never gone without electricity in our current place for more than two hours, and that rarely, and we never lose water or gas, though sometimes the damned elevator doesn't work - but it gets fixed quickly) in the city close enough to where the girls' lives are.
I came here for business, I stayed here for love, but I would never feel that my social life is better here than in the States (but then, I'm not exactly a partier, not single, not without responsibilities - all of which preclude the majority of what an awful lot of expats I know look for in their social lives), or that I have to work less (I supported three kids and a wife there, I support three kids and a wife here with a good lifestyle even if not as good as I could have, say, in Houston or St Louis and these days certainly for less money, at least compared to the suburbs here).
My wife has her reasons for wanting to stay here in BA, but personally I'd be happier in Asuncion or Encarnacion in Paraguay. Or Cordoba or Mendoza in Argentina. Places where we can also bring our girls.
So mostly, to sum up, I'm saying that to move here to have as good a life with less money and less work than in the States is not the best reason to come here permanently, these days. Unless you've lived here for awhile and understand what you're getting into, and that the lifestyle is indeed what you are looking for, given how much (or little) you want to work. One can find better places in the States than where one lives currently, because there are as many cultures and economies in the US as there are in many different continents around the world (sometimes even to language!), without making such a huge change and taking such a big risk.
But then again - to each their own life.
