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Actually, I should have moved 2 weeks ago, but things got a bit delayed so I still have another month or two to ponder my fate.

I am moving to California. Do you Big Brothers And Sisters From The West have any advice for a poor Scandinavian?

What's the occasion? Having more political freedom than you can handle?

Southern California, correct? Expect a lot of sun, and fairly warm temperatures. Forest fires are a serious problem during the summer months.

What sort of other information are you looking for?

I don't know Southern California at all, since I've only been down as far as the central coast....
But I have heard from a friend that the Hispanic communities in LA can be quite interesting....
Like I said though, I have no personal experience.

My advice would be to give it a chance and to smile. You might have some interesting experiences! And meet some new people.

I think the weather in southern California is very nice, but it is probably much warmer than you are used to. You won't see much snow at all, so you might miss it. Moving closer to the equator will also have other effects, such as feeling like the days are longer in winter. But I think the extra sunshine all year 'round will have positive effects rather than negative effects. Just make sure you use sunscreen.

People are very "body conscious" in California, at least compared to people in Texas. That's what people who move to Texas from California say, anyway, and they are relieved that they can finally relax about their appearance, so I suppose the opposite holds true for California. I don't know how much effect that will have on you, but you might think that the people around you in California are a bit obsessive and/or superficial.

Politics in California is a strange subject. California has the image of a very liberal state, yet half of the population votes for conservative candidates, and even some of the more famous "liberals" are more like puppets of the defense/aerospace industry, which makes them conservative by nature if not by name.

In any case, there's something to be said for the old line, "changes in latitude, changes in attitude". You need to be selective about your social contacts just as you would anywhere else, but you should have no trouble meeting people who are bright and articulate and who share an enlightened view of the world with you. You have a particularly pragmatic attitude, so I think you will fit in just fine.

America is supposed to be "consumer heaven", but you might feel it is more like "consumer hell". You shouldn't have any problems finding products that will meet your basic needs (clothing, shelter, furniture, food, etc.), but you might not find everything to your taste. I wish I could offer you some advice about groceries, but I don't know all that much about your native diet. You'll probably have to get used to "white bread" ("real bread" is difficult to find) and frozen fish (as opposed to fresh or pickled), but the produce and the wine in California are pretty good.

When it comes to things like health care for you and your children and education, I'm afraid you'll be taking a step backward. Connections, diligence, and ingenuity will help.

I am moving to California. Do you Big Brothers And Sisters From The West have any advice for a poor Scandinavian?

Don't move to California. The smugness of people is unbearable, and even if you could deal with it, the governator is just icing on the conformity of smug cake.

You'll probably have to get used to "white bread" ("real bread" is difficult to find) and frozen fish (as opposed to fresh or pickled)

Maybe it's because I was in San Francisco, but I thought the food was great. I'm quite health conscious, and I found all kinds of good bakeries and amazing fresh seafood..
Could be a SanFran thing though...

Hi CE,
I lived in San Diego for eight years and the Monterey area for four. PM me and we will talk about the rarefied milieu that is California. All your questions will be answered and your consciousness set free.

my best friend lives in Los Angeles, and after hearing what he has said......
*sunscreen, sunscreen , sunscreen!!
*try to learn a little spanish (if you dont know any already) (it helps!)
*make sure the house/apt you move into has a GOOD cooling system (not just a a/c box hanging off the bedroom window)\
*ignore the self obsessed idoits

just try to make the best of it, and good luck in Cali CE

dragon wench wrote:Maybe it's because I was in San Francisco, but I thought the food was great. I'm quite health conscious, and I found all kinds of good bakeries and amazing fresh seafood..
Could be a SanFran thing though...

I think as a general rule, the food is better in an upscale urban environment than it is in a less affluent suburban environment (and the living expenses are higher), and that probably accounts for most of the differences in our experiences. I was thinking of Los Angeles and the surrounding area (excluding the ritzy neighborhoods and some of the more posh destinations on the coast). But it is widely believed that southern California is a bit different from northern California in general and San Francisco in particular.

First of all, stay the hell away from Los Angeles. It is hands down the worst city I've ever visited. If you have to go there, don't smile at anyone, or they'll sue you or shoot you. Or both. Get a good car. You can't do anything without a car there. The distances you have to travel to go anywhere are staggering to a European. Be prepared to discuss your annual income and that of your neighbours absolutely all the time. Use the words "dude" and "like" at least three times in every sentence. Go blond, it helps. Forget the fine arts. Most people who attend classical concerts in California are insufferable snobs who feed their cats Beluga caviar. Doctors don't come from Sweden, porn stars come from Sweden. Charity means attending the annual party of the "Save the Krill" foundation while your teenage kids drive around in 500 000 dollar cars and your wife feeds the mutt foie gras. There is an enormous amount of obese and extremely black people, whose only form of communicating is shouting at the top of their lungs in a high-pitched voice and a language so removed from English that you might understand every fifth or sixth word if you concentrate. These people have two emotional modes: rude or angry. They also usually work for public services so you have to deal with them regularly. Then there is their counterparts, the health-club crazies. These are the people who will give their goldfish facelifts, and they are everywhere! Start jogging, or you'll be a social outcast. Get botoxed, even if you don't need it. Spas are a way of life. You can have skin like Helen of Troy, but you must spend at least 5 hours a week with mud in your face and cucumber on your eyes. These people bring their own vitaminized bottled water to restaurants so the chef can cook their broccoli according to their dietary plan.

Get used to earthquakes. They're so common people hardly notice them, which is pretty bizarre for a Scandinavian.

Of course there are nice places there, I especially liked San Diego. It was like coming to a different planet after LA. Escondido was a delightful little town with some beautiful nature and quite friendly if somewhat conservative people.

I think the thing that really got to me was that to a Californian, to a larger extent than anywhere else in the USA, life is a constant competition. Everything revolves around size and who's got what. If you're not competing with your peers, you're competing with yourself. It's a built in mass psychosis that's a part of life over there. Who's got the biggest car, breasts, paycheck, barbecue. Where do your kids go to college? Never heard of it. You try to lead a non-materialistic life? I'll show you non-materialistic. Me'n my wife recycle condoms, I've used the same one since -87. What's you're golfing par at the moment? Really? Well I bench pressed 200 kilos at the gym this morning. Is that the new Mercedes? What'll that set you back? I'm thinking of getting the new BMW. Blah..blah..blah IT JUST WON'T STOP! If you tell someone "Today I saw a deer by the side of the road" that person will immediately say "the other day we saw 3 deer and a moose doing the macarena in our back yard!" You can't win.... But the weather's nice, though....

Moonbiter wrote:First of all, stay the hell away from Los Angeles.

I can't, I am going to live there

C Elegans wrote:I can't, I am going to live there

I know, dear. Though you will probably live on campus, which is like a city within the city, with people from all over the country. I mean, they admit 33 000(!) new students every year. If that doesn't help, there's always Prozac or Vicodin.

Moonbiter wrote:I know, dear. Though you will probably live on campus, which is like a city within the city, with people from all over the country. I mean, they admit 33 000(!) new students every year. If that doesn't help, there's always Prozac or Vicodin.

There was a 9-12 month waiting list for campus housing, to initially I'll have to live elsewhere. The university has some private housing service for housing in the neighbourhood.

I don't want to mess around with my already disturbed serotonin system since I have serotonin related behaviour abnormalities (low impulse inhibition and hypomanic episodes). Vicodin would probably make me sleep all day. So maybe I'll have to survive on just Losec

If you're going to live in LA and its environs, stock up on hepa filters. The pollution is truly nasty in that area, and you don't want a little one especially to suffer as a result.

And I don't mean Silur, of course.

I missed you last time you were in Denmark, so I guess my advice is ditch the moving-to-LA idea and come visit me instead. I'm a pretty bad cook, but I've been told I'm an excellent conversationalist.

C Elegans wrote:Actually, I should have moved 2 weeks ago, but things got a bit delayed so I still have another month or two to ponder my fate.

I am moving to California. Do you Big Brothers And Sisters From The West have any advice for a poor Scandinavian?

Stay clear of crabs. Crabs be evil.

Tricky wrote:What's the occasion? Having more political freedom than you can handle?

Yes, I feel I need a dose of religious oppression and imperialism. Been too long.

Fable] What sort of other information are you looking for? [/quote] Social wrote: My advice would be to give it a chance and to smile. You might have some interesting experiences! And meet some new people.

I always smile, unless I have specific reasons not to. I know I will have very interesting experiences since the projects I'm going to work with are absolutely, overwhelmingly fantastic and I already know some people I will work with are really brilliant. That's why I'm moving there. It is however difficult to live at a place if you abhor the political and social climate.
I'm a Swedish sensitive soul, I moved from the UK because I couldn't stand the class segregation.

VonDondu] I think the weather in southern California is very nice wrote:
Climate does not matter to me at all, I am happy in the Arctics as well as the tropical rain forest, I am comfortable in -20C - 45C (-4F - 113F). I love snow and ice, but thanks to global warming, there is no snow in Stockholm either. I will only live in LA for about 1,5-2 years, so I won't have time to miss the type of biotopes and climates I like the most.

People are very "body conscious" in California, at least compared to people in Texas. That's what people who move to Texas from California say, anyway, and they are relieved that they can finally relax about their appearance, so I suppose the opposite holds true for California. I don't know how much effect that will have on you, but you might think that the people around you in California are a bit obsessive and/or superficial.

Could you elaborate on this? If "body conscious" equal "bodily health conscious", then I think it's a good thing for everybody, and for society in general. However, if "body conscious" equals "good looks" and even "fashion", then I may find it annoyingly superficial.

Something I actually like about Sweden, is the complete lack of dress code at work. Even as a doctor or professor, it's completely acceptable to walk around in worn jeans, t-shirt and sneakers here. From what I've heard, the dress code at work is more leisure at the West coast than the East, but I'm not sure how leisure. I hope I am not expected to walk around with make-up and nice clothes at the lab!

Politics in California is a strange subject. California has the image of a very liberal state, yet half of the population votes for conservative candidates, and even some of the more famous "liberals" are more like puppets of the defense/aerospace industry, which makes them conservative by nature if not by name.

This is actually something I have been wondering about. From what I've understand from some of my colleagues who have lived in California, the old "commie pinko hippie" image it completely untrue nowadays and it's a very commercial and full of rich business people.

America is supposed to be "consumer heaven", but you might feel it is more like "consumer hell". You shouldn't have any problems finding products that will meet your basic needs (clothing, shelter, furniture, food, etc.), but you might not find everything to your taste. I wish I could offer you some advice about groceries, but I don't know all that much about your native diet. You'll probably have to get used to "white bread" ("real bread" is difficult to find) and frozen fish (as opposed to fresh or pickled), but the produce and the wine in California are pretty good.

I find all consumer paradises hell, since I generally find consumerism hell. However, one needs to eat and I and also need to buy clothes (according to the above) and some cheap (the daughter is a destruction unit) furniture since I prefer to rent unfurbished. I am not picky with food at all, but I have problems with very "artificial" food. The previous 5-6 times when I've been to the US, I've found much of the food to taste very strange, like soap or some other synthetic perfumed compound. However, like DW said, I've heard from my colleagues that the food in LA is excellent, and it's probably for the same reasons - they've been there for the same reason as I, do research at university labs, so they probably associated most with people they met in that environment.

When it comes to things like health care for you and your children and education, I'm afraid you'll be taking a step backward. Connections, diligence, and ingenuity will help.

My connections in health care couldn't be better, luckily, and the universe pays health and dental insurance for the entire family, so that'll be fine. The daughter will only be 2.5 years when I leave, so education is no problem either, thankfully.

Siberys] Don't move to California. The smugness of people is unbearable wrote:
I have to, I'm a crucial link in a huge international epidemiologics and genome project. I have to do some stuff that can't be done in Sweden. But if it is unbearable, I'll do like some other people I know have done - isolate myself within the Ivory Tower. One of my best friends did that in Chicago - he almost never left campus for 5 years.

@Thantor: Thanks, I will!

Social, cultural, political and some practical information mainly.

With the exception of a very few cities, such as NYC and Boston, most of the US has terrible main transportation facilities. LA is one large traffic snarl. Unless you expect to live within walking distance of work, learn to love your car, and all the time you will spend in it.

Politically, southern California (as distinct from the less heavily populated, more conservative north) is in the main Democratic and somewhat liberal for the US. Of course, it can also be said with a moderate degree of truth that the Most Serene Republic of Venice under its geriatric doges was a socialist utopia compared to the US as it is at this moment. Expect laws in local communities that either flout or embrace the self-centered, rich-get-richer attitude:Marin County is not East LA. Demographics and psychographics vary dramatically from community to community in the US, in ways that most Europeans have never seen outside of cultural enclaves. But in the US, you can find two very large groups of people living 15 miles down the road from one another who are in all physical respects identical, yet behave completely differently.

This will also be reflected in lifestyle basics, such as housing and food. Very healthy and extremely unhealthy can be found in the same places. There are also nuts at both extremes, and they live happily in your area, in great numbers, too. The waif at the local supermarket checkout counter who only eats tofu and dates boys according to the predictions of the I Ching has a father who spends 3 hours a day trolling science websites dedicated to explaining manmade climatological changes.

The area you are moving to is obssessed with surface. I know this will amuse rather than interest both Silur and you, just as it has done me, in my various moves, but it's worth keeping in mind. At least you won't seriously annoy anybody by your lack of a church. You're in Urban USia, not Rural, and though you might get visits from odd types, your lack of interest won't bother anyone. Most urbanites in the US have a very take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards religion, a lot more like their urban European counterparts.

Tipping is 15% in restaurants. Most store services aren't tipped. You'll probably find that eye contact is more common in the US than in Sweden, and body space is somewhat smaller (though not as small as in the Central/South American cultures). Smoking is far less common in California than in Sweden, especially in public areas.

Hope that helps.