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Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo
The season passes are actually pretty reasonable if you live close enough to make use. Of course half the fun of disney as a grown up is the food and booze and that’s still Theme Park Priced.

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IronClaymore
Jun 30, 2010

by Athanatos
If I had a decent amount of funds...well if it was truly vast I'd like to build a no-poo poo evil fortress somewhere in the outback. Like one of my Minecraft builds with its own nuclear reactor. With a giant-rear end tower to look out over things. And hydroponics and machinery and turret fixtures.

But actually I'd probably just buy a really nice apartment and keep going to work whenever I wanted and not worry about getting paid.

EvilMerlin
Apr 10, 2018

Meh.

Give it a try...

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

The season passes are actually pretty reasonable if you live close enough to make use. Of course half the fun of disney as a grown up is the food and booze and that’s still Theme Park Priced.

The Food and Wine Expo is just incredible. I've gone the past three years and loved it.

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord
Probably Monterey, California. It's the central coast, but it's not exactly "beach weather" coast. Lots of overcast, fog, frigid water. It's a smaller city with lots of historical and modest developments. Of course you have the multi million dollar homes overlooking the Pacific which are drop dead beautiful. There's enough going on in Monterey that makes it more eventful than my current town, but still on the quieter side, even with the tourism due to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Hell, I can probably live there *now* with my very modest income, though it would be an apartment a bit more inland. Should money be no object, you bet I'd be in the beachfront housing though. The town has a lot of sentimental value for me. My parents would take my brother and I there for a few weeks every summer. The aquarium, cannery row, the wharf, the little cute malls, the guy with the monkey that would do tricks for quarters.

My biggest fear is living there and getting tired of it. I really wanna keep that place special.

dino.
Mar 28, 2010

Yip Yip, bitch.
Between the gorgeous weather, really good quality produce, tons and tons of cool things to do that are easily accessible, and very friendly, welcoming people, Quito, Ecuador. Year round, the temperature is balmy and comfortable enough to not need a/c or heating.

There’s extensive mass transit, but taxis are cheap and pretty easy to hail anywhere in the city. There’s a range of restaurants, from very fancy to divey. And even if you don’t speak the best Spanish, most places have English menus that you can point at, and the waitron will know what’s up.

There’s a bunch of cool cities to explore outside of Quito, all with their own interesting little things to see. There’s a (albeit touristy) town called Otovalo where they have a giant open air market selling everything from hammocks to hand carved jewellery. We wandered into a Chinese restaurant where the owners spoke Spanish with a Chinese accent. Looks like the South Americans have their own Chinese food. It was very good and pretty inexpensive.

To get there was a round trip of less than $2.

But more than anything, the people are friendly. In all the places I’ve travelled, I’ve never met such a friendly city. The coastal regions have that same friendliness, but also more of a bit of an eye roll for foreigners. Quito is pretty welcoming though.

His Divine Shadow
Aug 7, 2000

I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.
Were I live now, in rural western Finland. Basically anywhere else is a downgrade.

tim0mit posted:

Working outside in the winter can really suck. Also I get bad seasonal depression which makes it even worse.

Working in winter is bad but mainly because I have too small a shop so I gotta do a lot of stuff like welding outdoors and that area is buried under a meter of snow right now. In this scenario I assume I could afford to build another workshop / storage, which is basically heaven. I am already living so very close to the ideal life I think, just want some more economic security.

His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Feb 11, 2019

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

In the spirit of recommending where you already live, Lausanne in western Switzerland is pretty great. It's a big enough city that there's plenty going on, the setting on Lake Geneva with the Alps in the background is stunning, and while you're close to France it's still an hour away from loads of great places to ski.

Awesome in the summer too with the lake, easy access to nice countryside and the mountains. Not in any way cheap but it does say "if you could afford it"

View from the woods behind my place

knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Feb 14, 2019

underage at the vape shop
May 11, 2011

by Cyrano4747

knox_harrington posted:

In the spirit of recommending where you already live, Lausanne in western Switzerland is pretty great. It's a big enough city that there's plenty going on, the setting on Lake Geneva with the Alps in the background is stunning, and while you're close to France it's still an hour away from loads of great places to ski.

Awesome in the summer too with the lake, easy access to nice countryside and the mountains. Not in any way cheap but it does say "if you could afford it"

View from the woods behind my place


whats your cost of living if you dont mind me asking?

greazeball
Feb 4, 2003



I've been following this thread for a while and also want to recommend where I live which also happens to be Switzerland. In my case Bern.







(not my photos)

The city and landscape are really gorgeous and the quality of life here is just amazing. I feel like the people in Bern are relaxed and friendly and the city is small but has pretty good amenities. It's really central so it's easy to get anywhere in the country if there's something going on in Zurich or Basel or Lausanne. There's great hiking and biking in the area, river swimming in the summer is fun as hell (see videos below), and there are tons of festivals and local things here and in all the towns and cities around. We sleep with the windows open and it is utterly silent and it's only a 10 minute bike ride to the train station. Every time I go into town I cross a bridge and see the view from the third photo and it doesn't get old: the city is surrounded by trees and the river and the Alps behind everything is just stunning. I guess it's pretty boring if you like nightlife and *events* but I'm in my 40s now and I don't need that so much. The restaurant scene is pretty bad, I guess is the one drawback.

I feel like the cost of living is commensurate with the salaries here. My wife and I live well and are managing to put money in our pensions as a college professor and a non-profit department head. Switzerland's expensive to visit (very), but when you're in the system and taking advantage of the offers and paying for things in bulk and in advance, it feels pretty OK. Sticker shock is still a bitch, but I've been back to San Francisco and Dublin where I used to live, and prices have been going up a lot there whereas they don't seem to be climbing so fast here.

Anyway, here are the videos about swimming in the Aare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4tvWsgrFWA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgYD2pa6Q8

My wife has colleagues who can jump in the river outside her office and float home after work in the summer! I'm a little jealous but their neighbourhood is too shady so I'll stick with the bike.

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


When was in Zurich for a day I literally said to myself "I will live here some day." And goddamnit, that needs to happen.

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

underage at the vape shop posted:

whats your cost of living if you dont mind me asking?

As Greazeball says, the high cost of stuff is offset by the pay... I think. My apartment is 3200Fr a month for a very nice 3 bed place in an ok part of the city. Bills and various esoteric insurance costs on top of that. 1Fr = $1 basically

Groceries are expensive with I think the standout item being beef, a côte de bœuf can easily be over 100Fr /kg and filet or entrecôte even more. Beer is also oddly expensive with cans of regular stuff 2.50Fr and craft beers maybe 4ish (in a shop). Fruit and veg is about 2x what it would be in the UK.

You can estimate what salary you might expect in Switzerland for various jobs on a government website:
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/wages-income-employment-labour-costs/wage-levels-switzerland/salarium.html

Tax is then pretty low but depends where you live.

JIZZ DENOUEMENT
Oct 3, 2012

STRIKE!

greazeball posted:

I've been following this thread for a while and also want to recommend where I live which also happens to be Switzerland. In my case Bern.







(not my photos)

The city and landscape are really gorgeous and the quality of life here is just amazing. I feel like the people in Bern are relaxed and friendly and the city is small but has pretty good amenities. It's really central so it's easy to get anywhere in the country if there's something going on in Zurich or Basel or Lausanne. There's great hiking and biking in the area, river swimming in the summer is fun as hell (see videos below), and there are tons of festivals and local things here and in all the towns and cities around. We sleep with the windows open and it is utterly silent and it's only a 10 minute bike ride to the train station. Every time I go into town I cross a bridge and see the view from the third photo and it doesn't get old: the city is surrounded by trees and the river and the Alps behind everything is just stunning. I guess it's pretty boring if you like nightlife and *events* but I'm in my 40s now and I don't need that so much. The restaurant scene is pretty bad, I guess is the one drawback.

I feel like the cost of living is commensurate with the salaries here. My wife and I live well and are managing to put money in our pensions as a college professor and a non-profit department head. Switzerland's expensive to visit (very), but when you're in the system and taking advantage of the offers and paying for things in bulk and in advance, it feels pretty OK. Sticker shock is still a bitch, but I've been back to San Francisco and Dublin where I used to live, and prices have been going up a lot there whereas they don't seem to be climbing so fast here.

Anyway, here are the videos about swimming in the Aare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4tvWsgrFWA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgYD2pa6Q8

My wife has colleagues who can jump in the river outside her office and float home after work in the summer! I'm a little jealous but their neighbourhood is too shady so I'll stick with the bike.

This is gorgeous and I am shocked the river in the middle of the city is so clean

KYOON GRIFFEY JR
Apr 12, 2010



Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:

This is gorgeous and I am shocked the river in the middle of the city is so clean

it's all out of bedrock in the alps, it's pretty incredible

the Rhine near Schaffhausen is super clean as well, that's where i tend to be

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

KillHour posted:

When was in Zurich for a day I literally said to myself "I will live here some day." And goddamnit, that needs to happen.

As someone who lives in Zurich, it's pretty nice. I lived in Lausanne for 6 years and found it kind of small, and it's very much a college town. Not in the US sense of the word, but in the European sense of the word like Salamanca or Bologna. Like, non-college people live there, but god forbid you take the Fri/Sat night buses: someone is 100% guaranteed to vomit all over it on your way home.

In a perfect world where I could work remotely, I think I'd live in Lausanne from like May to November, and then somewhere that's not grey all the time from November to April, like Marseille or Tunis. Switzerland is actually reasonably warm in winter, people have some weird idea of it being a winter wonderland, but snow is on the ground only a small minority of winter in any of the main cities (none of which are high altitude), and with global warming this is going to be even less of an issue. It's significantly warmer than, say, Boston, but, drat is it grey. Wikipedia says 55 sunshine hours in January in Zurich vs. 163 in Boston.

Besides the weather, the big downside of Switzerland is that locals are generally very slow to warm up to outsiders. "Outsider" meaning "anyone not from my hometown and who didn't go to high school or grade school with me." Whenever I go back to the US I'm amazed at how genuinely friendly everyone is to strangers. Like I lived in LA for a few months about 10 years ago and I walked to work, and I got invited by two different people to different house parties because they saw me walking down the street and wanted to hang out. I'm a male fwiw.

Also if you're a foreigner, Swiss German is yet another major obstacle to overcome as it's a hard language to learn and it is not mutually intelligible with standard high German. It's always hard to make analogies for stuff like that, but say akin to Spanish vs Italian. So if you learn high German it's not particularly hard to learn Swiss German, but you can't learn Swiss German first unless you're a child, because no one teaches intro Swiss German. For adults it's always taught as a C1 or C2 level course, afaik.


PS: you can get a 500 mL beer for 50 centimes in a regular Coop if you don't mind drinking absolute garbage: https://www.coopathome.ch/en/supermarket/drinks/beer/blonde-lager/cans/prix-garantie-lager-beer-24x50cl/p/3461333

GORILLA BASTARD
Jun 20, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

greazeball posted:

I've been following this thread for a while and also want to recommend where I live which also happens to be Switzerland. In my case Bern.







(not my photos)

The city and landscape are really gorgeous and the quality of life here is just amazing. I feel like the people in Bern are relaxed and friendly and the city is small but has pretty good amenities. It's really central so it's easy to get anywhere in the country if there's something going on in Zurich or Basel or Lausanne. There's great hiking and biking in the area, river swimming in the summer is fun as hell (see videos below), and there are tons of festivals and local things here and in all the towns and cities around. We sleep with the windows open and it is utterly silent and it's only a 10 minute bike ride to the train station. Every time I go into town I cross a bridge and see the view from the third photo and it doesn't get old: the city is surrounded by trees and the river and the Alps behind everything is just stunning. I guess it's pretty boring if you like nightlife and *events* but I'm in my 40s now and I don't need that so much. The restaurant scene is pretty bad, I guess is the one drawback.

I feel like the cost of living is commensurate with the salaries here. My wife and I live well and are managing to put money in our pensions as a college professor and a non-profit department head. Switzerland's expensive to visit (very), but when you're in the system and taking advantage of the offers and paying for things in bulk and in advance, it feels pretty OK. Sticker shock is still a bitch, but I've been back to San Francisco and Dublin where I used to live, and prices have been going up a lot there whereas they don't seem to be climbing so fast here.

Anyway, here are the videos about swimming in the Aare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4tvWsgrFWA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgYD2pa6Q8

My wife has colleagues who can jump in the river outside her office and float home after work in the summer! I'm a little jealous but their neighbourhood is too shady so I'll stick with the bike.

I noticed almost everyone in those videos was pretty slim. So definitely not America. Looks beautiful.

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer
The Big Horn Mountains area of Wyoming. One of the most beautiful spots in the US I've ever seen, and the "cold-rear end winters, sometimes chilly summers" is my ideal temperature zone. I went camping near Cloud Peak Mountain one August weekend and the temperature got below freezing at night, and I was like, "Yes....this is my homeland."

Vietnamwees
May 8, 2008

by Fluffdaddy
One of the moons of Saturn.

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PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Rabbit Hill posted:

The Big Horn Mountains area of Wyoming. One of the most beautiful spots in the US I've ever seen, and the "cold-rear end winters, sometimes chilly summers" is my ideal temperature zone. I went camping near Cloud Peak Mountain one August weekend and the temperature got below freezing at night, and I was like, "Yes....this is my homeland."

Well ya better get making plans soon, I hear Wyoming is getting pretty crowded :v:

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