Does anyone like Geneva?

Geneva vs. London, hmmm let me think about that. Well actually, I don't have to think about it, it's a no-brainer. You couldn't pay me to live and work in London. For the reasons you mention as well as others.

As for living in Geneva, I'd move there for a few years in a heartbeat if only for its location alone. While I would agree that for SOME people it might be a bit hard to adapt, that does not mean it is difficult for everyone. Being a successful (if we can call it that) expat is not about the place you move to. It is ALL about you as a person. Some people can be happy livng anywhere and some can be happy nowhere.

The single biggest reason for people returning home after trying living abroad, is an inability to adapt to DIFFERENT! It's not about a place being good or bad or how things work being right or wrong, they are just different and some people simply can't deal well with that.

In any place you find a lot of expats you find the same groups. One group is those who spend a lot of time with other expats bemoaning how things are different from home and how the locals are not friendly or want to rip them off etc.

Another segment (they don't tend to 'group' together) spend little time with other expats, have local friends, are involved in local events and can't see any problems worth bothering about. There are a few segments in between these 2 but I think it should be easy to see which is more likely to be a 'successful' expat.

I would ignore anyone saying Geneva is boriing for example. What they are actually saying in my opinion is that THEY are boring. The only way to ever know how you will like a place is to live there and find out. There is no other way and taking anyone else's opinion for it is just dumb.

I used to live in London and gave it up 5 years ago to move to Switzerland.
I am a management consultant and found a job directly from London using Swiss recruitment websites. The best one was Qual ( www.qual.ch</a> ) which specializes in upper professional roles and has features allowing for total confidentiality.

Above a certain level companies relocate you. The thing is, once you are in Switzerland, you have to learn French or German depending on whether you choose to live in Geneva or Zurich. There are expats who don't but it puts a brake on your career development.

Edited by: wanewman

hi everyone,
thanks for all the input... here is an update on the situation. I did move from London to Geneva last August and have been here over a year now. Almost every single day I am thankful that I moved... I love my life here in comparison to London. Here are some details:

Weather- true it rains here a lot and if you just look at the charts it looks like more than London, the difference is that here in Geneva when it rains it really rains, and then it stops and turns to blue skies, whereas in London it's a constant depressing drizzle and the white/grey clouds just stay overhead for weeks at a time. January and Feb were cold, but the heating in the buildings is great and the cold isn't as damp as in London so I didn't mind. The big difference in winter is that apartments have double or triple glazing so even if it's cold outside it's not inside, unlike my apartments in London where I was freezing even with the heat on full blast. And the summer here is amazing- it's actually hot and you can wear shorts and a t-shirt most days, whereas in London I could count on one hand the number of times I wore a skirt or shorts during three summers I spent there.

Apartments/Housing- true it's expensive and very difficult to find a place in Geneva. I did find a place quickly but you need to know people or be willing to pay a lot to sublet from an expat. On the plus side though all the apartments I've seen are well kept, clean, well insulated, and easy to live in, unlike the numerous dirty, run down, old apartments I visited in London. Here I can live in the city centre and bike to work in 20 minutes, whereas for the same price I could only live in zone 2/3 in London.

Lifestyle- people who say Geneva is boring probably are probably not trying very hard to find things to do. There are a ton of museums, theatres, concerts, etc. True not all of it is free, but even on a budget you can find interesting things to do. The summer time is amazing with free fairs, concerts, outdoor movies, etc pretty much every single night between June-Aug. Winder is weird in that people seem to dissapear off the streets, but I assume that's mostly because they have private parties indoors or go skiing on the weekends- which is amazing because the French alps are less than 1.5 hours away (door to ski lift). It's also extremely easy to travel around- either in Switzerland with the public transport, into France/Italy with a car, or other countries with the airport that services just about the whole world and is only 6 mins from the city centre and is small enough that you only need to get there about an hour before your flight. In comparison I thought in London I'd do a ton of stuff but in reality barely did anything because transport was always such a pain... by the time the weekend came around half the lines were closed and I was so tired of the tube from my daily communte that I couldn't be bothered to go to the city centre. And while Ithought in London I'd easily take weekend trips to Rome, Vienna or Berlin, in reality with the time lost to get to/from the airports in London I never did a single weekend trip because I would have lost have the weekend just traveling.

Job- I was very lucky in that I lined something up before I left London and continue to work in my sector in a great job. Now that I'm here I realise I'm doubly lucky because I do think it can be difficult to find a job here. But if you do have solid work experience and can speak English/French then you can probably find something, and the salary will be a lot higher than in London- at least in my case. Which means that though life is more expensive, my income is even higher, so the balance works in my favor.

People- I don't have such a big network here yet, but that's largely because I travel 50% of the time and don't have much time to spend on meeting new friends. There are a lot of expats here and if you want to pick up that party lifestyle there is certainly a big "freshman pack" mentality/crowd who go to bars and parties every weekend. If you're looking for a more stable set of friends that aren't part of the crowd that comes and goes from Geneva in 1-2 year cycles then it takes a bit more time and effort, but it can be done. I'd say this is the same problem in London and at least I personally find the people living in Geneva friendlier as a whole than those in London.

In summary I'm very glad to have moved here. It's not for everyone and I'm sure some people prefer London, but if you don't like London (like I didn't) then Geneva could be a good new destination.

d

Good update ladyd. It's rare for someone to return and give an update. When someone does it encourages regulars who offer advice/info etc. to continue doing so.

I got a chuckle at some of your comments about the differences in weather, heating, etc. between London and Geneva. The same could be applied of course to many places. Here in Canada, Vancouver lovers always go on about how their city has the 'mildest' climate in Canada. The choice of adjective is deliberate since it refers only to the average year round temperature and says nothing about the number of days with rain. This year I think they actually got about 1 week of what I would consider summer weather. ie. over 25c and blue skies with no rain all day.

Clearly, you have worked at making the most of what Geneva has to offer you and maintained a positive outlook. As I wrote in #10, it's all about the individual, not the place.

I love almost everything about Switzerland. What struck me foremost about Geneva is that it is quite similar to San Francisco. There are sort of seedy areas and people tend to be a bit more aggressive than in Zurich, where I find the people more amenable. I have the impression that le gens in Genève tend to do most of their socialising in private, considering the real estate here tends to be quite posh with estates located all over the area, so doesn't really offer much for young people who are looking for nightlife culture. That being said, there is something really lovely about being located right on the water. It's almost as if one is going back in time, with the influences of CERN and particle physics in addition to the United Nations' influence over the global world. I gather this isn't the sort of place where one rents a flat, more of an area where people might consider investing in real estate.