Ireland has been in our plans for a number of years. My girlfriend (30+ years) has dual citizenship and her family has a home in Co. Mayo. I’m about 5 years from retirement so we’ve started looking for places in the same general area as we have friends over there too. We’ll definitely keep something over here…not sure I could take Dec-Feb over there.
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It is dark and wet from September to May. When the clocks change in the fall, the sun comes up around 9 and goes down around 4 (only slight exaggeration) and it is a complete gray slate sky for most of that time. It’s not really cold, rarely freezes that I recall, but it’s wet. Spring and summer are great, it wouldn’t be unheard of for someone to get off work at 5 and be able to play a whole round of golf after because it doesn’t really get dark until around 11 in the summer.
We lived there for a couple of years at the beginning of the 00s. It’s a great place to live, the people are the best, the scenery and history are amazing. But the weather can be off-putting.
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Re: Ireland and WA; I don’t mind cold/rain, but it was the long stretches of grayness that I really hated in the UK. That pall was often accompanied by a drizzle that was not enough to stop you doing things outside but was still enough to make it annoying (the Brits have multiple words for degrees of light rain the way the Inuit have multiple words for the different types of snow).
As I have said before, Colorado is my currently-preferred retirement destination. Yes there’s cold and snow, but there is over 300 days of sunshine on the plains where I plan to be. This is all on the assumption that the incoming Trump administration doesn’t end Social Security and MediCare.
If they blow up “entitlements” - you know, the things you have already paid for with 40 years of taxes charged specifically for those things - I do not see how I will be able to afford to stay here. France is an obvious choice as I used to be fluent in the language and hope that it would come back to me pretty easily. But Europe may well be under the cloud of USSR 2.0, so Central America would be the fall back.
Man, typing this out has me thinking about a famous quote from an inspirational leader:
We’re not going to make it, are we? People, I mean.
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We’ve been there as early as March and as late as November. Some of the best weather we’ve had was in mid-November and some of the worst was in early July. I’m ok with cold and rain…it’s the darkness that’s hard to take.
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Not that my Aggie wife will live anywhere else, but since we’re talking Europe and retirement…
I think I qualify for citizenship in Spain, except I’d need to pass a language test. Mi Espanol conversacional no es muy bueno. I’d need to get some more fluency. I’m not sure of Mrs. Hawk’s access to Italian citizenship or permanent residency, but that’d be something I’d be interested in, as well. I’m not sure I could live in England or Ireland…or Washington, for that matter. I gotta see the sun.
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FWIW, social media is telling me that Spain is becoming less welcoming to immigrants. Relatively affluent immigrant retirees are seen as driving up the cost of living, specifically housing, and this is generating some backlash. I mean, it is Spain, so they may not get around to actually doing anything about it for a while - hopefully sometime before they fix your internet - but still, it’s a thing apparently.
Portugal remains affluent immigrant retiree friendly, I believe. France still hates everyone.
Not the campaign ad we deserved, but the campaign ad we needed:
My great grandfather emigrated from Co. Clare in the 1890’s. So, by default, my grandfather was an Irish citizen. Had my mother known, she could’ve registered and my brother and I would’ve also been eligible for citizenship (at least, as far as I know from my basic understanding of the process). Alas…
As it is, if this country really is going pear shaped I’m looking in the other direction to Australia. I have several good friends there already and I lived in Sydney for six months in the early 2000’s. Aussie also makes a decent amount of wine so I might not need to switch careers.
From what I remember, the immigration laws aren’t quite as strict as the USA, but it’s not the easiest thing to do and certainly not as accommodating as NZ which is far more accessible. Of course, after two years in NZ I’d be eligible to emigrate to Australia directly, just like thousands of South Africans have done in the last twenty plus years.
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Obligatory:
Andor S2 is going to hit pretty hard when it comes out next April.
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If it is all the same to y’all soon to be ex-pats, I will stay in Austin and ride out the storm. This country will survive this.
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Well, good thing I’m not affluent. The problem with Portugal is that my grandparents were from Spain. Not that either are really on the table, just an interesting thought exercise.
And screw France.
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Remember when Biden was too old?
That was like three months ago.
He just nominated an AG who was investigated for underage sex trafficking.
And you know they’ll approve him.
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What, is there something wrong with a pedophile being attorney general? WOKE!
I knew this shit was coming but it still comes as a shock at how fucked we truly are.
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And he’ll create a special Locker Room Czar and appoint Jim Jordan to check everyone’s genitals. Thoroughly. Too bad Sandusky isn’t available for a role in this admin, he’d fit right in.
At this point we might as well appoint Laura Loomer as the “Mental Health Czar”.
It’s like a modern day re-telling of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.