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[G-Flex]

It's a big country, so you certainly have options. Do you have any friends or connections scattered around the US? The Internet is pretty good for that, at least.

[smigenboger]

Any interest in going out West in the US? Even one state over is different that what you may be used to. How is the Republic? Why exactly do you want to go there?

[Zrk2]

What about coming to Canada? Apparently Europeans love us.

[DJ]

The sad truth is, your best shot really is marriage. I'm from Bosnia, and majority of people who emigrate from here to EU (and it's a really big number) do so via marriage. There are checks, yeah, but as long as you live together it shouldn't be a problem. And who knows, it might actually work out. A cousin of mine who has UK citizenship married a coworker from Slovakia so she could stay in the country, and now they have two kids and a happy genuine marriage.

[Vector]

California is pretty cool.  We have a ridiculously high immigrant population, too, and it might be possible for you to get jobs teaching English.  Tutoring jobs also net a lot of money if you're an adult (40-80 dollars per hour, seriously... I was tutoring for 10-12 as a high school student, but I'm sure you can do much better), especially if you can do accent elimination stuff.  A year and a half of experience in a foreign country will really, really help.

Good luck, Sappho.  I have similar dreams, so it's good to hear about someone else's experiences.

[Sappho]

Wow, lots of suggestions, thanks guys.

smigenboger: Why do I want to live in the CZR... It's mostly the culture, I guess. I mean, there are downsides, but by and large, people here are very open and accepting. Very few people I've met here have been judgmental in any way and my circle of friends is full of such a wide range of people that you would never imagine them being friends with each other where I'm from. I'm talking teachers, DJs, bankers, junkies, people with high-functioning autism, uptight straight-edge folks, good-looking, scruffy-looking, young, old, one guy with mafia connections, and another guy who works as a lawyer for parliament. And people aren't afraid of each other like they are in the US. Kids can take public transport to school without their parents worrying in the slightest, and I've never heard of any violent crime. The worst thing you have to worry about normally is pickpockets. I feel safer here than I've ever felt anywhere. The police do carry guns, but they can't really use them unless someone is shooting at them first (and I've never heard of a cop shooting a gun, ever). I also love the food here - Czech bread cannot be found or even baked anywhere else in the world because they have special types of bread flour here. The beer is the best I've ever tasted, and also cheaper than I've ever seen it anywhere. There's loads of work for me as an English teacher (more than I can handle, in fact), and the cost of living is low enough that I can pay all my expenses and still save up enough money to pay my student loans every month in the USA, and then have some left over to go out every weekend. And the party scene here is unbelievable. I've always been shy and awkward and I never would have imagined myself going out dancing each weekend, but the clubs here are open all night and some of my closest friends are DJs, and knowing I won't be judged for anything I do really cuts down on the shyness. There's also a legal minimum of four weeks paid vacation per year for everyone, and a reasonably good social security system and I can expect to actually get a pension when I reach the age of retirement. And I'm not really a fan of American-style cities, but Prague doesn't really feel like a city. It's more like a great big town with grass and trees and parks everywhere and really good public transportation.

I could go on, but the short version is, I was unhappy in the US, and I'm happy here.

Zrk2: I imagine I might like Canada, but then I'd be in the immigrant situation again and I don't want to have to put in that work to live anywhere but here. Anyway, isn't it really cold in Canada? I have a really low tolerance to cold and I get pretty severe seasonal depression. :/

DJ: I'd be all for marrying for the right to live here, but I don't have anyone to marry. Several months ago, my flatmate told me he would marry me if it meant I could stay in the country, but he was really drunk and I doubt he remembers - and anyway I think he might be less willing now. (We've been having issues lately because I'm too dependent on him and he doesn't want to feel like I'm his girlfriend...) There's also the issue that in this country, once you're married, all of your legal possessions become joint possessions automatically. That means if I married someone with money, I'd have full access to it - meaning a lot of men might be wary of marriage. If you have any suggestions on finding a way to do this, though, I'd be all ears. This really does seem like the most effective possibility, if I can find someone.

Vector: California sounds like it might work out for me, actually. I currently earn the equivalent of about $15 per hour teaching English here, and that's considered a pretty good wage for a teacher. Obviously the cost of living is lower here as well, but if I could really earn $40-80 per hour, and there's a lot of work available, I could easily save up a good chunk of change pretty quickly. I'm 25 (I'll be 26 by the time I start fresh anywhere else), have an English teaching certification and a university degree, and actually I have 3 years of experience teaching EFL (one in Switzerland and it'll be 2 here before I go). I can train accents and pronunciation as well.  Do you have any suggestions about where exactly in California I might look if I was considering moving there? Is there somewhere with a reasonably low cost of living without a high crime rate - preferably outside of any major cities, although I know that might be too much to ask for.

Thanks a lot everyone. If you have more suggestions, please keep them coming. Yesterday I spent several hours looking into University programs for next year. Today I'll start contacting kindergartens about working for them full-time next year and ask them what they'd do for me with the work permit and visa situation. Hopefully I'll get an answer soon from the embassy about whether I actually have to go back to the US to apply now or if I can still do it in Vienna... And then I'll probably bum some valium off a friend of mine to keep myself from having a nervous breakdown.

[Vector]

Vector: California sounds like it might work out for me, actually. I currently earn the equivalent of about $15 per hour teaching English here, and that's considered a pretty good wage for a teacher. Obviously the cost of living is lower here as well, but if I could really earn $40-80 per hour, and there's a lot of work available, I could easily save up a good chunk of change pretty quickly. I'm 25 (I'll be 26 by the time I start fresh anywhere else), have an English teaching certification and a university degree, and actually I have 3 years of experience teaching EFL (one in Switzerland and it'll be 2 here before I go). I can train accents and pronunciation as well.  Do you have any suggestions about where exactly in California I might look if I was considering moving there? Is there somewhere with a reasonably low cost of living without a high crime rate - preferably outside of any major cities, although I know that might be too much to ask for.

So, the main thing is that you'll probably mostly be working with Asian and European immigrants.  Since you speak German, you'll have an advantage teaching somewhere with a high German immigrant population--and I'm not entirely sure where in California you'd be able to do that.

But if you can train accents and pronunciation, run for the Bay Area in one of the larger cities and look for the parvenu Chinese people.  Rural areas are not going to fly (probably), but there's a lot of places that really have a smaller-town feel.  Basically, anywhere smaller than Berkeley will work on both fronts.  But Berkeley is honestly a nice place to live, with good culture and good people, and lots of neat little shops everywhere.  It's not a very strip-mallish place and I can get groceries quite inexpensively.  Like... really inexpensively.  50 cents for a pound of onions, say, and 5 dollars for 3 pounds of organic beets.  My housing isn't cheap, but that's partially due to my deep hatred of living in the same room as someone else.  For your standards, you may be able to get a room for 200-300 dollars, especially if you're willing to share and live on the outskirts of town.  The bus system is great and everything's pretty darned safe as long as you aren't walking around late at night near People's Park with a laptop--honestly, I have more conversations here than at my home town, and you see loads of people reading on the bus.  Zombie novels and political treatises and math textbooks.  There's a certain number of pan-handlers, but they aren't irritating at all.  Just "Hello, can you spare some change ma'am, all right, god bless."

Honestly, I come from a smaller, richer area, and the people aren't half as nice or interesting to talk to.  Berkeley is fabulous.


College town -> good school system -> lots of rich immigrants moving in to take advantage of the school system -> lots of people who want to "fix" their English.

Don't move to Palo Alto, though you should consider working there--live in San Jose or something.  It will be extremely difficult to get cheap housing, especially because the university actively discourages off-campus living.  On the other hand, your language skills will go a long way there.  If you can somehow pick up Russian, they have an extremely high Russian population (though I'm not sure that they're going for accent elimination as much as other groups).  You might even be able to make a good amount of money tutoring German.  The parents there are extremely willing to throw money at academic causes, especially if you have more experience than I did (I got fleeced because I was so open-hearted and mostly ended up teaching kids whose parents didn't want to shell out cash).

It's good to advertise at the local high schools (but don't be worried if you get zero hits--they're swimming in paid tutoring and really only want the free ones).  If the old academic coordinators were still alive, I'd put in a word for you--but as-is, the best you can do is put yourself on the lists there and hope.  Introduce yourself to the teachers in the relevant departments.  If you can impress them, they may send exchange students your way.  Hell, advertise at the university.  You should be able to get some good money.

Also, don't move to SoCal.  There may be a lot of immigrants there, but they aren't the right kind--i.e., they aren't generally in the "rich and wanting to throw dollars at you" category--plus, I think the city would kill you.  I hated living there.

[DJ]

There ought to be some kind of a matrimonial contract that divides your finances, so the guy that marries you has nothing to worry about. And yeah, I was hoping you could marry your roommate, it wouldn't require any changes in your life and it'd look legit. I'd still talk to him about that, but don't put any pressure on him - he shouldn't get upset with you if he can refuse without any hard feelings on either side. If it doesn't work, try any of your single friends that you're reasonably close to. I understand it's not the easiest thing to ask, but if you explain everything it shouldn't disrupt your friendship. You may think nobody would do you a favour that big, but people can surprise you. They definitely won't do it if you don't ask, and if you like Czech Republic that much I think it's worth a bit of embarrassment.

[Sappho]

Yeah, I'll ask him. An additional problem with him, though, is that our current residence isn't legal. It's rented out in his name as a work studio, but it's not legal as a living space. My legal address is with his mother in another city, and his is with his sister in still another city. If he did agree to marry me, we'd have to find a new place to live, which would be very difficult as he has money troubles and owes quite a few months of back rent. Neither of us makes much money and getting a normal flat would be almost impossible. Since the police would be checking on us at our legal address for a while after we got married, this could be a serious problem.

As for other single friends, there's a shortage of those in this country. The tradition is for kids to get together in high school or college and just kind of stay together forever, get married young, maybe get divorced or have affairs later, but at my age there's very few single people around. I have one other friend who's single and only a couple years older than me, but he has no money either and still lives with his parents. I'm not sure how his parents would feel about his wife-for-residence-rights living in their apartment. I'll keep looking around for more options, but the pickings are slim.

On the other hand, I discussed it with an American friend today and she agreed that marriage would be the best option if I can manage it. There'd be no need to worry about visas and work permits - I'd just be able to live here like I want to and work like a normal person. It would be almost too good to be true.

[Kashyyk]

Well, I have no experience at all with this so all I can do is wish you luck. But if you somehow need a contact in the UK then all you need to do is call.

Good luck with all of it, and sincerely hope you make your way through.

[DJ]

Hm, maybe you two could rent a place in a more rural area? That should be significantly cheaper. And if the public transport is as good as you say, the commute would only be a mild inconvenience.

[j.h]

Sorry to hear my country screwed you over. It's true that dealing with bureaucracy here can be hard even when you're not a foreigner.
I have some advice for you, hope it helps:

I understand you want to stay in Prague, but have you thought about  Brno? It is smaller but there are some pretty good universities. You should definitely look at Masaryk University. It says the studies are free of charge for foreign students and they may even give you some money for accommodation and food. Moreover, if you study Czech literature and culture, you can get special scholarship according to this. I don't know if that's what you want or if you'd meet the criteria, but it's an option.
Brno is practically full of students so you'd probably find some English-teaching jobs easily. And parties too, for the same reason. Finding some place to live in Brno is also not that hard and it's definitely cheaper than Prague.

In any case, I have a friend who does some translating so I can ask her about some job opportunities.

[Sappho]

Wow, suddenly my worries are fading away. A very helpful person finally told me that a lot of the information circulating about the new regulations is entirely false, mostly based on bad translations from Czech and miscommunications. It looks like I do have everything I need after all! I will have to buy new insurance, but I don't have to do that until my visa is approved. I'm making an appointment for next week to apply in Vienna. OH HAPPY DAY!!!

Everyone, please lift a good Czech beer and say it with me: NA ZDRAVI! NA CESKOU REPUBLIKU!

[Il Palazzo]

Damn, and we almost made you marry some random guy.
Curses!

[Sappho]

Haha, I was looking into marriage and actually it didn't seem any easier. I probably wouldn't have been able to do it with the time I had left.