General Discussion

So, I learned her language and the languages of most surrounding countries (Europe is not very big), and told my employer when I was hired at age 23 that I needed to spend more time in Europe than the usual two weeks of vacation. Always a progressive thinker, he said hey, make yourself useful and take all the time you want.

It’s not a paradise here. The weather sucks. There is punishing bureaucracy, public transportation that is rarely on time, and double taxation. “Free” education and “free” health care are myths. NOTHING is free, although some things are financed in a completely different manner. The bureaucracy here invades EVERY aspect of everyone’s life here. You can’t tell an EU bureaucrat “that’s none of your goddam business,” because in the EU, it probably is. “Privacy” is a four letter word in the EU.

There are some differences that are positive, of course. Police brutality is rarer (police indifference and corruption are not). It is FAR more difficult to obtain a firearm, and if you do not pass regular inspections, the authorities WILL take away guns kept by offenders. Due to open borders and short distances, however, organized crime brings in all the weapons they want by car from eastern EU countries with loose controls and poorly paid cops.

Most countries have intact welfare systems, but they are stretched to the breaking point, and were not designed to accommodate people from outside their countries wanting a free ride. Unless you are good at cheating the system, welfare here does not provide for a life of comfort, and if you smoke or are alcoholic, you might find yourself going hungry the last couple of days of the month. My wife was a life-long social worker, and faced this every day. Local train stations are full of beggars, most of whom are locals (some foreigners, of course, especially exploited/enslaved women from Balkan countries).

There are always hundreds of reasons to move to a different country. Most boil down to three general categories: personal, political or professional, and often a combination of two of them. Phony marriages of convenience are the first thing immigration authorities look for, so don’t even consider it.

My own small story started out as personal which quickly became professional as well. Americans are welcomed in Europe IF they have their own money, their own job, their own health insurance, and speak the language of the country they seek to move to. Imagine some 30 year old guy wanting to move from Düsseldorf to Philadelphia when he has $3000 to his name, no place to live, no job prospects, no health insurance, and the only language he can speak is German. That’s just about how welcome a 30 year old guy from Philadelphia, speaking only English, would be, when asking to move to Düsseldorf.

IF you are blessed with ancestry that allows you dual citizenship, and you want the option, I say what the hell, go for it. I know an American woman who wanted to live in Belgium, but had no legal basis for a residence permit. But she found that one of her grandfathers was born in Luxembourg after January 1, 1900. Under Luxembourg law, that made her eligible for citizenship there. It took her a year and two trips to Luxembourg, but she got her dual citizenship, is now fluent in French, and living full time in Belgium. EU citizens are permitted to live anywhere in the EU.


Both of my daughters were born and grew up here in Germany. I got them both US citizenship at birth. Both went to college in the USA. One stayed on, and the other got a job offer she couldn’t refuse in Germany, and so moved back. Both daughters each had two children, and though the process is far more cumbersome now than it was when I got them their US citizenship (one day for each of them in the 1980s, eleven months each for their children within the last eight years), all my grandchildren are now dual citizens.

We have all been fortunate enough not to find ourselves in situations so intolerable that one of us feels that “I cannot take this any longer, and I MUST leave.”

But we have not spent any time in the shoes of anyone who feels differently, and therefore have neither encouragement nor condemnation for anyone who makes the move, is contemplating it, or can’t but wishes they could. Everyone has their own story, and it’s not my place to tell it for them.