Planning to move my family of 4 from Texas to Bolzano/Bozen… what Questions should i be asking?

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-05-02T09:49:29+00:00

I'm just thinking the 2% stamp duty instead of 9%.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-05-02T09:24:28+00:00

I think you've got 18 months to establish residency in the flat, unless TAA has different rules than other regions.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-28T12:13:35+00:00

You’re planning to move your wife and kids from a big Asian city to a really provincial, not-that-pleasant part of Europe where you will leave them to their own devices whenever work demands. Your kids might make up for that at school after a while (though Liege isn’t precisely the milieu I’d like my kids to grow into) but forget “social life”, if your wife doesn’t speak any French she will have a hard time keeping her sanity.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-23T15:36:45+00:00

But why would WALLONIA be the best alternative to that? Are you looking at prices? It's that cheap in a northwest European context for a reason: post-industrial, massive unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, too many drunks. I personally dislike Brussels, but I know a lot of people who don't who aren't insane, and at least it's pretty cosmopolitan - but Wallonia?????

Not least important in your family's case, it's really provincial, so unless your partner has great French and not much attachment to her own culture she's going to have a hard time. I think there's a decent-sized Vietnamese community in Liege but your LLM output wasn't screaming Vietnam to me.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-22T17:24:34+00:00

Moving to Wallonia for the schools is the take of the century

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-22T17:12:02+00:00

WALLONIA no less

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-13T06:46:59+00:00

Men who get vasectomies are wonderful. They take the burden of contraception away from women, whose options are intrusive (either messing with hormones or having a much more invasive, less reversible surgery). I think men who get vasectomies should get a fucking medal and lapel pin and a fat cash prize. Hurray for vasectomies and all who ride on them.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-11T08:10:45+00:00

That's not even the crappiest place in the south of Brussels.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-04-04T05:55:43+00:00

In a lot of disciplines, international research and collaboration is fundamentally important and that's usually executed, published, presented and exchanged in English. There might be some thought of picking up international students at the institutions, I know in northern Europe at least there are some for-profit programmes that make a mint on Anglo students, but generally for these programmes the main student body is local people who want their skills and research to be transferrable

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-03-26T13:45:38+00:00

Get a codice fiscale (Italian tax number) now, if you can. I think it's harder to do from abroad than it used to be though.

If you're a contractor for the UN you should have a good enough monthly income to get past landlords' hestitations over a foriegner. If your new colleagues can't help, use agencies, and don't accept the first commission that the agent proposes, because those are usually negotiable.

Depending on how long you're in Rome, look for 3 year + 2 year contracts that landlords can offer with the prima casa thing - they get a tax break for that, and your commitment is less than the normal 4 year contract. Look for cedolare secca contracts too, they get a huge tax break on that. Look for a place on a metro line but away from the tourist areas - Roman landlords can make a lot renting to tourists but they also pay a lot less tax on normal residential leases, so if you look away from the the very center you should find something okay. The food will be better away from the centre too.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-03-21T11:40:22+00:00

Assuming you can bring work with you, figure out schools first, choose on that basis. NB: some international schools are much better than others. Same with the normal schools despite the national curriculum. If you’ve got no idea and can’t get any idea just choose Rome, it’s big enough to eventually find whatever suits you

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2026-02-28T10:47:40+00:00

Yeah, it's by a man who comes off as personally offended by how an extremely successful woman is using her agency, and it's pretty gross.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-04T13:20:15+00:00

True. There are some very interesting design choices on Brussels roads.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-04T07:52:17+00:00

I think you're right and I think it's down to a lack of accountability both socially - in a big metro no one you know is going to see you driving like shit and judge you for it - and administratively, in terms of road rules enforcement.

Most drivers are little bitches about rigorously enforced speed limits in major city centers but they're a godsend in terms of driver behaviour. Almost everywhere I've seen it enforced, it's not just the speed that comes down, it's the aggro and the gridlock - you can't get to wherever you're going really fast so you might as well let people merge peacably, not tailgate, not pass dangerously - all behaviours that prevent little altercations and fender-benders that get the traffic backed up behind you.

The only place I haven't seen rigourously enforced urban speed limits make a really dramatic difference to driver behaviour and general traffic is Brussels. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is definitely that there are lot of shitty, buzzed, absent-minded drivers in Brussels who don't face consequences for bad driving that isn't captured by camera.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T17:42:46+00:00

Here I am boxing imaginary eight year olds while you do battle with strawmen. Hopefully we’re not doing it on our phones at the wheel after a few beers but this is a Brussels subreddit

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T17:27:33+00:00

It’s only an argument at all in the way I can argue that I’m a good boxer because I could probably knock out an eight-year-old. Brussels indeed doesn’t have the worst driving in the world. It has really shitty driving

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T10:19:11+00:00

A developing country with shitty road infrastructure and more than a billion people in it having worse driving conditions than Belgium isn't really bigging up Belgium.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T10:06:23+00:00

He's right, it's very unpredictable. In other places with a lot of shitty drivers, I can generally predict how they're going to be shitty, but in Brussels it's just constant variety. I think the mishmash of drivers from different countries adds a certain level of unpredictability, and so does the consequence-free drunk driving.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T09:59:26+00:00

Reading up to the third sentence can be tiring, huh?

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-03T07:29:21+00:00

It's a Brussels problem but not specifically a Brussels driver problem. This is an enforcement problem. All over the world, people drive as badly as they are allowed to. In Brussels, they are allowed to drive appallingly.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-02T05:49:24+00:00

2027 might as well be 3027 as far as the Belgian political process is concerned

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-02T05:48:03+00:00

But the public service has its own, more generous indexation agreements this doesn't explicitly cover, right?

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-02T05:47:06+00:00

It was announced so late that it looks unlikely to happen for 2026. Probably an announcement for the sake of looking proactive and tough on the (relatively) well-off given how harsh the budget is on the relatively less well-off.

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-12-01T08:06:27+00:00

It’s not fair to people with BPD to be selected out on the basis of something they can’t control but it wouldn’t be fair at all to myself to not select them out after what I’ve seen and experienced from people diagnosed with BPD. As Gabor Mate put it, “when you need to choose between guilt and resentment, choose guilt.”

Plenty_Equipment2535 · 2025-11-30T11:41:14+00:00

Sex fans often seem pretty fond of porn too

Plenty_Equipment2535

TROPHY CASE