dontfeartheringo wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 1:11 pm As of January 1, 2023, Spain joins the list of 49 countries offering Digital Nomad Visas. You can work remote and live in Spain, Germany, Portugal, Costa Rica, or a host of other counties.

Me, I'm eye-fucking Barcelona pretty hard. Heading there this summer to do a multi-week immersion and remote work experiment. (Spanish classes 9am-2:30, remote work from 2:45-8:00pm, which isn't even supper time in Spain)

For a like $39 a month, you get to participate fully in their national healthcare system.

You don't hate Big Cities, you hate Late Stage Capitalism.

https://nomadgirl.co/countries-with-dig ... mad-visas/

Curious if US employers are generally cool with this, as I expect the IRS still wants their pound of flesh. Or is it that you still pay US taxes and then the Visa cost covers your stay in the host country?

Otherwise I’d be curiois what qualifies as a big city for the purpose of this discussion?

dontfeartheringo wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 1:11 pm You don't hate Big Cities, you hate Late Stage Capitalism.

That could be a thing, yeah.

zorg wrote: Thu Dec 29, 2022 5:35 pm Otherwise I’d be curious what qualifies as a big city for the purpose of this discussion?

Kinda what is said about porn.. you'll know it when you see it. Like.. Boston probably feels more daunting than Charlotte even though I think it's smaller. But for the sake of this.. open to interpretation.

I'm still chewing on late stage capitalism (particularly the super-sized US version) being the problem.. maybe? I dunno.. I've been to Barcelona and a few other old world type places and just kind of just run into different problems there. But I'm certainly fed up with a lot of (most) aspects of the US for sure.

The most visible late stage capitalism element (blight aside) is zombies. The abundance of fentanyl and the current strength of meth makes for some very disconnected people. The journalism on the issue is troubling (check out Sam Quinones for the details). There are growing communities of people with intense problems that are not easily solved.

My kids and I walking into the library are confronted with the sight of a man lying with his cheek on the sidewalk obsessively probing the crack in the sidewalk with his fingers. The google map review of our local branch says "Great library, helpful staff, but there are too many homeless people," I kind of want to tell that person to fuck off if their complaint about our public institution is that it allows our societal failings to remain in view.

losthighway wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:16 am My kids and I walking into the library are confronted with the sight of a man lying with his cheek on the sidewalk obsessively probing the crack in the sidewalk with his fingers. The google map review of our local branch says "Great library, helpful staff, but there are too many homeless people," I kind of want to tell that person to fuck off if their complaint about our public institution is that it allows our societal failings to remain in view.

Nothing shatters the 'progressive' illusion of blue American cities faster than the way homeless people are treated.

I spent a couple of hours with my buddy who lives in Barcelona. He says that he'll believe the new visa program is in place when he sees it.. Apparently el gobierno has a follow-through problem.

That said, the cost of living in Barca is significantly less than any major US city.

Here are some numbers:

Summary about cost of living in Barcelona, Spain-

Family of four estimated monthly costs are 2,802.5$ (2,633.2€) without rent (using our estimator).
A single person estimated monthly costs are 794.8$ (746.8€) without rent.
Barcelona is 36.8% less expensive than Seattle (without rent, see our cost of living index).
Rent in Barcelona is, on average, 55.8% lower than in Seattle.

(from here: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Barcelona )

vs, say, Charlotte, since it came up:

Summary about cost of living in Charlotte, NC, United States-

Family of four estimated monthly costs are 3,932.5$ without rent (using our estimator).
A single person estimated monthly costs are 1,091.3$ without rent.
Charlotte is 15.9% less expensive than Seattle (without rent, see our cost of living index).
Rent in Charlotte is, on average, 12.3% lower than in Seattle.

If you work for a US company, you pay US taxes. that's just part of the deal, sadly. Unless you actually renounce your citizenship, the IRS is going to take its cut. That said, you will not pay State taxes. My buddy has private health insurance that runs about $100 mo. He says a typical night out, with a couple of beers and maybe some tapas, runs about $12-15 Eu.

Our friends/hosts in Barcelona were paying something like $1,500 USD for a Manhattan-sized apartment in 2012. Which, y'know, fine.. learning to live in smaller spaces is good. The bigger factor there was it was a 'passed down from generation to generation' type deal, so even that may have been atypical.

It doesn't take long in a city like that to figure out that space is a premium. Every inch has been built up for centuries, but with height limits because you can't surpass the churches/cathedrals (oh yeah.. get ready for the entire city to shut down for Catholic holidays you've never heard of). I don't know how the fuck loud bands exist there, which may explain why there really aren't that many of them!

My buddy is paying $850 Eu and says that's slightly high for the current market. He practices in a space with two other bands and there are 11 bands in the rehearsal complex. The amp situation is pretty dire, though. Lots of solid state garbage, but people take the train to gigs, so....

Yeah.. you should probably just stuff your suitcase with heads and sticks. Dunno if being closer to Turkey & Switzerland helps..

I love living in a big city. Chicago is larger than I need though as I basically stay within a 10-mile square. If the weather didn't suck so much of the time I'd probably never want to go anywhere else. Having said all of that, the lady really wants to retire in Spain. Up until recently that somewhere was Barcelona. The last couple of posts have given me some pause though. I was already a little worried about music stuff and knew I'd have to scale way back. But I need to be able to play a loud amp sometimes. Hell, my Princeton Reverb even gets damn loud in my small basement studio. And I'm going to still want drums.