I thought I would be here a long time, too, but I am leaving soon. Boring place unless you want to spend lots of money - and you can do everything in 3 weeks. Now that I have been here I understand what it is like to be a black man in the U.S. in 1940 - in other words prepare to be the perennial "back of the bus", last in line guy often. I can't count the number of times I have been waiting in line and a guy dressed all in white or a woman all in black just goes to the front of the line. Same in traffic, too. Every day I see something in traffic I never thought I would witness ... and the highspeed tailgaters, oh boy!!
My wife was hit by a local speeder - quoted the police - its her fault. The logic seems to go like this, "That accident would not have happened if YOU weren't here, so its your fault". When faced with a foreigner and a local, the police will decide against the foreigner 90% of the time. Traffic here is chaos. Costs are increasing - local price inflation is 14% per year, mostly house rents, but other goods are going up as well. Better have a built-in cost-of-living raise in your contract or your real income will erode rapidly. Also, the company I work for lied quite a bit about benefits and salary, so clarify, clarify, check with others before coming here. Foreigners are tolerated, more by some than others.
I thought I would be here a long time, too, but I am leaving soon. Boring place unless you want to spend lots of money - and you can do everything in 3 weeks. Now that I have been here I understand what it is like to be a black man in the U.S. in 1940 - in other words prepare to be the perennial "back of the bus", last in line guy often. I can't count the number of times I have been waiting in line and a guy dressed all in white or a woman all in black just goes to the front of the line. Same in traffic, too. Every day I see something in traffic I never thought I would witness ... and the highspeed tailgaters, oh boy!!
My wife was hit by a local speeder - quoted the police - its her fault. The logic seems to go like this, "That accident would not have happened if YOU weren't here, so its your fault". When faced with a foreigner and a local, the police will decide against the foreigner 90% of the time. Traffic here is chaos. Costs are increasing - local price inflation is 14% per year, mostly house rents, but other goods are going up as well. Better have a built-in cost-of-living raise in your contract or your real income will erode rapidly. Also, the company I work for lied quite a bit about benefits and salary, so clarify, clarify, check with others before coming here. Foreigners are tolerated, more by some than others.
G is right about the expenses.
My bottom line - go somewhere else.