Deutsch Wolf
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- Joined
- Oct 16, 2009
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My parents had a villa in Cyprus for a while. When it came to selling it, the process was unbelievably convoluted and inefficient (think of every conveyancing etc nightmare you've had in the UK and multiply it by a million), and you can do far more business in English there than I imagine you can in mainland Greece.I think it depends on your situation. If you have a secure and adequate income, an affordable housing situation and relatively good health, the UK is fine. Plenty of things to be cross about but you can live your life in relative comfort. If you are challenged in any of those areas, then it's an unforgiving, hard place to be now. 14 years of the systematic and deliberate shredding of the post-war social settlement, backed up by a mass media with a clear agenda, has made life precarious for many.
We found Greece very hard to settle in. Very bureaucratic and complicated to navigate without good native contacts and a knowledge of the language.
You *could* live in Hamburg without speaking much/any German but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. In Germany as a whole outside of the major cities then you absolutely do need to speak the language to a competent level. They also bloody love filling in forms, so get used to wasting a chunk of your time on that.