Official MSNL Moving Abroad Thread AKA Everyone Panic and Flee

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I'm sure all of you have heard of the new legislation coming in and are worried how you're going to pay for that new Audi or keep yourself smoked up to the level you're used to.

Since all the recent panic, I'm assuming people are pretty curious about moving abroad. I did this with BillyJex starting in March of 2008 and have been traveling all over the world for the past year and it's been a blast. The people I've met (Cowpig, Bikini Wax, Jlande, Ahnuld, Requin) have all been A+ people and I would not have met them otherwise.

I'm from the USA and was pretty well traveled, but I've never lived anywhere else until now and the experience has been awesome.

My Trip Has Included the Following US friendly, English Speaking places:

• Australia
• Montreal, QC - Canada
• Asia
• Buenos Aires, Argentina in January 2008(obv not English friendly)

Here's a thread for Australia: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...w-life-149252/

I organized the famous Montreal Degen Night - Here are two links to see the fun that we had.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56...brella-283974/

http://www.constantcolorup.com/?p=22

There are considerable poker communities in both Montreal, QC, Thailand, and Buenos Aires so it's easy to make a social circle with similar minded guys. Before you go - bla bla poker people suck except for me.. You should realize that everyone has the "holier than thou" attitude and most poker people are ****ing cool cats. College aged, social, outgoing, sometimes slightly nerdy (myself included) young kids with money and the ability to do fun **** when they want.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the entire process whether it's about
-Visas
-How To Find Nice Places To Live
-Cost of Living
-Foreign Banking/Currency Exchange
-Non US Sites and the Game Climate etc.
-How to make friends and influence people
-Quality of the Girls in Said Places (gf so I did not enjoy the festivities, but I still look obv)
-Any other questions.

If you just graduated college, with the current climate - I think now is the perfect time to travel. To people who say "zomg friends back home" - They'll still be there when you get back and hopefully the UIGEA will be repealed and it will be the glory days all over again. Moving abroad will give a both a better view of the world, opportunity for softer games, and save you tax money as well.

If you're looking at moving to a specific area, chime in and I'm sure other people will help. I don't post as much in the strategy section anymore so consider this my well (as if I'm interesting enough). Maybe people can make there plans for Grinderville here. I'll try and drum up some more pictures of the various places if I can be bothered.

I'm sure Billyjex will chime in as well and give you 25+ crowd the old mans view on traveling the world.

I almost forgot the best part. You get to act like a backpacker when you tell you friends back home all the exotic places and brag about how life experienced you are. (If you actual travel for those reasons, then... you're kinda toolish)

Cheers,

Max

[DerekJCEX]

nice nice. i will definitely contact you if this eventually becomes a necessary move. thanks

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Surfers Paradise - Australia



Sydney - Australia

[thac]

How is it with regards to still paying taxes in USA and then paying taxes in other countries? Do you feel uber-****ed doing that? I mean, it seems retarded, but I don't know 100% the details on it.

[smartalecc5]

Where will grinderville be?

Where was your favorite place to travel to?

Similarly, what place surprised you the most? Both for the best and worst?

[RickOSU]

sup max,

i've always considered moving out of the US for a few years after I graduate so this thread is pretty interesting to me.

with that said,
what city do you consider the best overall for the combination of nightlife, scenery, friendliness of the people, women, and poker? why?

also, do you speak any foreign languages?

[c_hoop]

can someone help your average retard out about what exactly the new legislation entails?

muchas gracias amigos (already practicing my spanish)

[cashy]

Originally Posted by smartalecc5

Where will grinderville be?

rumors say austria D:

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I think there's a double taxation rule or something like that. Australia and Canada, and most of Asia does not tax gambling winnings. Most of the world AFAIK doesn't tax gambling winnings which is why the USA is super lame in a regard since the still levy taxes on their citizens even when they are living a broad.

If you're out of the country for 330/365 days in a rolling period, You're eligible for a 85k deduction. You still have to pay S/E tax but there are other write-offs you get for being out of the country.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/...=97130,00.html is a link with more information on it.

I'm obviously not a CPA so you'll have to talk to yours to verify everything.

[Andykay]

I live in Sydney and it rocks. However as I indicated in another thread I might be looking to do some kind of six month sabatical elsewhere in early or mid next year. I think I need to mix it up.

Montreal was kind of on my hit list but i'm pretty open to suggestions.

-Andy

[Tokyo!!]

did your gf come with you to all these locations? if not, how'd she handle you being away for months at a time?

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Originally Posted by smartalecc5

Where will grinderville be?

In my opinion Grinderville should be in a warm English speaking place near the beach. However, if you like the cold, then Vancouver or Montreal are great places.

My favorite part of Montreal was that you could walk anywhere you wanted to. All of my friends lived a short 5 min walk away so we'd get to have lunch, dinner, breakfast on a whim. It's that proximity to everything in the city + the college nightlife, bars, great restaurants which make Montreal amazing.

The thing that sucks about Montreal is that 6 months of the year, it's cold and I can't wear my rainbow sandals everywhere. Summers in montreal are ****ing awesome though. Fees, Hugo Busto, Apoc, and Lucid dream came to Montreal for a few weeks and we had a good time. It was awesome having dinner with 10-12 fun guys, shooting the ****, drinking, and just relaxing.

In real life, most people make their friends after college through their jobs, and then through friends of friends etc.. When you're not in college and have a job that doesn't directly bring you into contact with any of these other people, you're **** out of luck.

That's why being in a town with other poker players is great because you have instant rapport. The colleges provide more people to meet + girls.


So Grindertown has to have the following:
- Colleges Nearby/Younger Crowd
- Great Food
- Well Priced Easy to Obtain Housing
- Preferably Warm Weather
- Other Poker Players Nearby

I wouldn't suggest Surfers Paradise in Australia. It's way too transient - most of the people coming in and out are backpackers. Sydney or Melbourne would probably be great though. Magic Ninja knows a lot about Melbourne so you can probably bug him via PM if you have more questions about there.

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On the same note, I haven't been to Buenos Aires yet but if you look at this thread in ELD forum: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79...ussion-254745/

It seems like they have a decent community going on there. The great thing about a place like Argentina is even the 100NL players can ball on a budget. Immersing yourself in a culture seems like a sick easy way to learn the language better. Probably 30%+ of you out there have taken spanish in high school so you could brush up on it quick and be operational. I think putting yourself out there in a foreign element is one of the unique and great things about traveling. Most of the places I've been to so far have been very similar to the United States (girls differing in various shapes and sizes and hair colors mmmm).

It's a unique experience that would definitely beat the doldrums of everyday grinding and eating at the Taco Bell down the street. Ask Hugo_Busto or LozColbert about Argentina. Hugo just moved in recently and he's a very normal and awesome 26 year old ginja who just moved down there for a bit with his 30" and his balls to pursue his life long dream of becoming a Tango Master.

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Originally Posted by smartalecc5

Similarly, what place surprised you the most? Both for the best and worst?

I've only completed 3/4 of my journey, but I guess I'd say I was surprised at how sick the ocean views you can get in Australia are for decent prices.

When I was in Australia, the AUD was at an all time high .97

It's now near .69 which means you have a **** TON more buying power.

For the equivalent of like 1800 USD, you could get a trickkked out Ocean View Luxury Condo 2 bedroom everything in there you need.

As a half white person, it's always been my dream to live near the water. It's in my DNA. I could think of nothing cooler than walking out to your 35th story balcony, smoking a cigar and watching the bikini clad girls sunbath - (in a completely non creepy way of course). There are 2+2ers I know who own close vision telescopes for spying. They will remain nameless (yet still creepy).


What surprised me and pissed me off was the bandwidth limitations in Australia. The highest plan we were able to get was only 60GB a month and it was god damn 120$ AUD a month.

Since we had 4 people with us using the internet and constantly coming over, we sucked through that so fast which made me have to go over to DanJ's house to steal bandwidth to download the latest episodes of Gossip Girl.

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Another thing that suprised me was how many Middle Easterners there are in Montreal. It's like a Dubai festival there, which leads to the greatness that is a hookah bar on every corner.

A chicken kebab in every pot. A BMW in every garage.

However, it's an intimidating experience to walk into one of those places. You get stared at for like a solid minute by everyone there because you don't belong and you're intruding on their place where they hang out cause they can't drink if they are strict. Meanwhile, we walk in all drunk and boisterous, smoking hookah, acting like loud Americans, and playing Chinese poker.

Kafkha Melon for the win.