I accidentally deleted your last message and my reply along with it! Grrr, now I don't have the links you sent. Do you mind resending to me? :-)
Hey John,
Thanks for sending me the further information on Poland. It’s good to know that we will feel at home and generally welcome when traveling in the region next summer. Here, in areas where there are scumbag type characters, I definitely don’t feel at home. So that in and of itself is a plus! ;-) Given that I generally don’t drink at all besides a very occasional glass of wine, I don’t have to worry about bars and soccer fans generally unless I completely and stupidly ended up in the wrong place. But I have pretty good situational awareness. So does my daughter because I am not a liberal and train her to take care of herself and not to blindly trust people. She takes both Kung Fu San Soo and Brazilian Capoeira as well because I want her to be able to defend herself against bullies.
In regards to things to do on the visit, the sailing ship parade sounds really cool as do all the castles. I recall there is an Incan / Polish connection with some of the southern castles like Niedzika. I spent some time in Peru so this would be very fascinating to me. So thank you for all of this! You’ve mentioned a few times the Swedes have been an issue. I don’t know much about this. I’m kind of surprised to hear this given their generally beta attitude these days. I guess things have really changed. That is one place I have zero desire to visit to be quite frank. It’s sad.
That’s great that you and your wife want to come live in the US. She should have no problem with the spousal visa. What kind of work do you do? It sounds like your wife may be a student? If so, I highly highly recommend listening to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USg3NR76XpQ and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04wyGK6k6HE. Even if she isn’t a student, it is really fascinating nonetheless. I think Jordan Peterson has a better grasp on the zeitgeist here in the US than pretty much anyone else.
Do you want to settle back in the Chicago area? If so, I would recommend the suburbs perhaps as the city is more dangerous than ever. My brother and sister in law live in the city. My mother lives up in the north shore suburbs which are very safe. But the city crime rate has gotten pretty bad. As for the Gary airport, I didn’t even know it was still in business for commercial flights. Cool that your grandpa designed it though!
I’ve lived all over the US, most recent departure has been in Savannah GA. But I’ve lived in the San Francisco bay area for almost twenty years now. So it is hard to leave, even with all the annoying liberals who I just tend to ignore or make fun of behind their backs. I like to wear my Liberal Tears t-shirt at home :-). We’ve been up in Marin county for about five years now in the same town as the radio host Michael Savage (if you happen to know him — another voice of conservative sanity in the bay area).
Business is booming in this area, especially now, much more than last year when it looked like Hillary was going to win. So this tells me that the libs are pretty fiscally conservative no matter what they say or do out in public. I’m a software designer, so this is still the place to be. I have my own business and have been turning work away fortunately.
It is very expensive, however. If you want a two bedroom two bath rental in the town I live, be prepared to may at least $4,000 USD / month for rent. Forget about buying unless you can outbid everyone on the planet. Everything is going over asking. Healthcare is generally really good in this area. If you had a sprained ankle, you would have gotten treatment likely the same day that you called your doctor or they would have sent you to aftercare. If you have a pre-existing condition (which it sounds like you do) you could get coverage without having to worry whether or not you would be covered. But thanks to Obamacare, the rates have gone through the roof this past year. As a self-employed person my personal coverage rate in 2016 was $572/month as I don’t qualify for any subsidies. You have to make less that $42K a year I believe to be considered. So I end up paying for all the illegals to have insurance (ah now I am a racist I know!). But as a single mom it gets kind of annoying to pay for people I see who clearly have no insurance in the shiny brand new Mission Bay UCSF campus where my daughter has her Celiac disease treated.
This year I lost it with the healthcare situation when my rates went up to $978 per month! Can you believe that?! This is just for coverage. Plus, I am very healthy and rarely need medical care. So I kept my daughter on the Blue Shield insurance policy and went on Liberty Health Share myself. My rates went down to $199 / mo and they negotiate prices for me.
I hope Trump can get some traction here with the insurance situation. But once people are used to freebies and handouts it’s really hard to take it away. So I think that is what he is up against with both the demon-rats and the RINOs.
If you have any other questions about living here and where you may end up, feel free to shout back to me!
All the best, Marie