England or Ireland, because that's what's in my blood and I've always felt drawn there.

Yes, it does. I don't agree with everything you said, but upon re-reading your first post, I can see that I jumped to conclusions. My reply could at least have had a friendlier tone, I apologize for that.

Your post probably hit the wrong nerve in my brain - I tend to be rather outspoken when people are using national stereotypes to justify decisions or demands, so I read that into your post, while it wasn't necessarily there.

Thank you for the information. =)

Nevermind. As a Bavarian caveman I have no feelings you could have hurt anyway. :D

It's mostly cheaper than in western Europe, but not as nearly as the salaries are lover . As for everyday need, bread is from 0.35 to 0.5 Euro. Milk is around 0.6 - 0.8 Euro. Beer at the cafe is 1.2 euro minimum. Only thing that I know for certain that is pretty cheaper is pack of cigarettes. They can be found for as low as 1 euro. To bad I don't smoke, I could save ton of money compared to a western European smoker. :D

Monthly bills are around 120 though, for mine place at least. Heating, water, electricity, internet and so on. Mostly goes to the heating. Since I have central heating and that is most expensive one in here, round 70E every month. Only good thing is that I own flat were I live, so I don't have to pay rent to anyone.

Not to be confused, 200 euro a month is guaranteed income from mine mother's pension.. I'm unemployed, currently finishing faculty. So I mostly work honorary if I can find something. Other than that I get buy as I can.

To get on topic, (For once. I have a bad habit of off topic posting. Unless you haven't noticed.) I like it here in Sweden. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

Two things to think about if you want to live here.

1: Statistics and what people think about a country lag behind. We have conservatives ruling Sweden now, they're on the second term and things have changed. We're not like what the general public in other countries believe any more. Sweden have slipped in welfare and other scales. it's still great here compared to many other countries though

2: . What the conservatives have changed is that it pays of more to have a job and much less so to not have it or to be on sick leave. If you're healthy and have a job it's better but for all others, except the rich of course, they are conservative after all so the rich have reaped most of the benefits, it have become worse.
Oh and if you're thinking about getting a job in Sweden without education and work experience you're out of luck. It takes work to get a job and if you do get one without mentioned credentials you're going to get a low salary. That's another thing the conservatives are doing. They're trying to lower the salary and work conditions/benefits for ordinary workers.

All this said I would still recommend Sweden. We're falling from a great height so to speak so it takes a while for us to get down in the mud. :P

Hm. This makes me sound like a nationalist. That's frowned upon here...

Pretty cheap for bread. 1,90 EUR a bread in Belgium. But than again, salaries here are higher, so that makes sense.

I disagree. I think if a country is not a melting pot like the USA, you can say the majority of people there have a certain kind of personality. They can't help it. They were born and lived under one culture, one environment that can shape them all to be the same. Of course, some people due to other factors(few in numbers, I'd guess less than 10 percent of population), become different from the rest or choose to be different from the rest. The country of my dreams unfortunately does not exist.

Don't forget that we have spittoons everywhere.

Also, we're not having fun unless we're killin' something.

Ah. The ever present spittoons. Have you invented a portable one yet that you carry with you in a harness or something for "spitting as you go"?

I would rather say that americans doesn't have fun unless some one else gets hurt.
This might not qualify either because from what I have seen of american comedy it might be a truth. I'm not entirely sure though.

I'd like to live in Canada or Europe (once in there it's easier to travel from one country to another). Japan is cool too, but I don't know if I could 'live' there, but I'll surely visit it.
I don't feel represented by Brazilian culture, government, politics or people. The only place here that I'd gladly live is down south, where there's a strong "European" (mainly German) feeling.

*sigh*

I think I've done enough off-topic talk in this thread already, but ... okay. What's your actual evidence? Or do you just think that your argument is "plausible", as - for example - prejudice often is as well?

The thing is, if you actually _look_ and _test_ for such a "national personality" with reliable methods, then you're arriving at a different result. Let me quote the abstract from a pretty large study done in 2005:

"Most people hold beliefs about personality characteristics typical of members of their own and others' cultures. These perceptions of national character may be generalizations from personal experience, stereotypes with a "kernel of truth," or inaccurate stereotypes. We obtained national character ratings of 3989 people from 49 cultures and compared them with the average personality scores of culture members assessed by observer ratings and self-reports. National character ratings were reliable but did not converge with assessed traits. Perceptions of national character thus appear to be unfounded stereotypes that may serve the function of maintaining a national identity."

In short: If there are differences in "national personalities", then people are totally unable to observe and assess them correctly. The "national personality" that you deem inescapable is actually wishful thinking, though this wishful thinking may have a cultural function (which doesn't make it correct though). If you read the study, you'll see that out of 49 "national personalities" tested, only in one case the actual. measured personalities matched the alleged ones. And we're not even going into the variance of the data within each nation.

For the actual article, if you're interested, check: Terracciano, A., Abdel-Khalek, A. M., Adam, N., Adamovova, L., Ahn, C., Ahn, H. N., et al. (2005). National character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49 cultures. Science, 310, 96–100.

It's a great place to visit but not a great place to live. Especially if you are foreigner.

My wife loved Australia when she lived there for a couple years two + decades ago, and my aunt and uncle also recently lived there just a couple years back, for something like 18 months. Seems like I place I might enjoy, in part because they have a comparable gearhead and race scene, and in part because of its proximity to other places I'm interested to see, like New Zealand and others.

Spain was fun for us when we lived there a few years around 89-92 (we met there, I proposed in Granada, and we were married next door in Gibraltar), but that was the semi-sheltered military life, and things may have changed significantly since then. But we sure did enjoy the time there in the rugged Andalucian area.

But overall, I love it here - warts and all.