Cyprus-Forum.com

[Pyrpolizer]

I will first enlist the few Cypriots I met in chronological order:

1) A refugee family living next door in the late 70s who decided to emigrate to Australia. Daughter came back for holidays a couple of years later saying they had trouble adjusting during the first year, didn’t like it, and were about to return. They eventually got used to it and stayed.
2) A relative to my aunt from her husband’s side who came for a month presumably for holidays. A very sexy woman at her mid 30s. Low profile and almost silent. Was sleeping most of the day. My aunt caught her doing syringe injections.
3) One of my best friends at high school. Got married and immediately emigrated with his wife to S. Africa for a couple of years. Didn’t like it, and emigrated to Australia from there. Never heard of him ever since.
4) The father of another aunt who returned from Australia to Cyprus at pension age. Another silent person. I asked my aunt why he was living at her house. She said he was poor, he didn’t make any money In Australia, he was working at a factory.
5) Another expat from Australia providing us forklift services at work. Another silent guy who was constantly inventing excuses to avoid work. When I caught him lying I just deleted him from our list and never called him again. £40 per hour in the 90s wasn’t a little…

Forum members living in Australia.
1) Paphitis. Working as a pilot
2) Boomerang. Selling sound cards for computers, associates with some Chinese factories.
3) Humanid . A social worker
4) Another forum member who lives on welfare

And of course Get Real who studied in Australia but prefers to live and work in Cyprus instead.

Problem is the only person who ever painted Australia with the brightest colors is Paphitis.
Never heard anyone else doing the same, never met anyone else returning from Australia confirming it.

What are your own experiences regarding the matter?

[Sotos]

Never been to Australia myself. That said if you look at something like the Human Development Index, Australia is ranked 3rd in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

Coming to conclusions about a country based on a few people you know is not a proper way to go about it, especially when most of those people are poor immigrants whose chances for great success are limited regardless of where they go (but I would bet that poor immigrants going to Australia have greater chance of being successful than poor immigrants coming to Cyprus)

[Get Real!]

Spent 15 years there in total.

Pros:
Very pretty country, great infrastructures in all the main cities, lots of employment opportunities, free tertiary education in my days but not anymore, countless shopping centers with tons of stuff to buy.

Cons:
Hated the way they talked, their “culture” was uninspiring and generally Australians are very boring people, news on European football was nonexistent back then, too many smelly aboriginals ruining the place always asking for cigarettes and money, crime is pretty high, it’s a totalitarian police state that wrecks nightlife.

That’s all I can remember right now…

[Pyrpolizer]

Spent 15 years there in total.

Pros:
Very pretty country, great infrastructures in all the main cities, lots of employment opportunities, free tertiary education in my days but not anymore, countless shopping centers with tons of stuff to buy.

Cons:
Hated the way they talked, their “culture” was uninspiring and generally Australians are very boring people, news on European football was nonexistent back then, too many smelly aboriginals ruining the place always asking for cigarettes and money, crime is pretty high, it’s a totalitarian police state that wrecks nightlife.

That’s all I can remember right now…

First time I heard that, are the Cypriots more inspiring and less boring iyo?
Can you elaborate?

[Pyrpolizer]

Never been to Australia myself. That said if you look at something like the Human Development Index, Australia is ranked 3rd in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

Coming to conclusions about a country based on a few people you know is not a proper way to go about it, especially when most of those people are poor immigrants whose chances for great success are limited regardless of where they go (but I would bet that poor immigrants going to Australia have greater chance of being successful than poor immigrants coming to Cyprus)

The HDI doesn't tell me match other than since Australia is richer all other parameters concerning life (like healthcare education etc) shoot up.
Well we have to rely on something to form a personal opinion and I personally have nothing other than watch those who return or those of this forum.
There is a striking difference between them and the typical Charlies returning from the UK.

[Pyrpolizer]

I 've met no mentally inspiring person in social events, and if there are some they are hidden in the general drunker's atmosphere prevailing.
To find such people in Cyprus you actually have to look around, there are some mainly among people who work at the media or arts plus some of the businessmen.
In general boredom reins supreme everywhere in Cyprus. I guess it's better than getting a full blow headache from Paphitis.

[kurupetos]

I was sitting next to an Australian couple on my flight back from Spain a few days ago.

They looked like savages out of the jungle for the first time in their life...

[Sotos]

Never been to Australia myself. That said if you look at something like the Human Development Index, Australia is ranked 3rd in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

Coming to conclusions about a country based on a few people you know is not a proper way to go about it, especially when most of those people are poor immigrants whose chances for great success are limited regardless of where they go (but I would bet that poor immigrants going to Australia have greater chance of being successful than poor immigrants coming to Cyprus)

The HDI doesn't tell me match other than since Australia is richer all other parameters concerning life (like healthcare education etc) shoot up.
Well we have to rely on something to form a personal opinion and I personally have nothing other than watch those who return or those of this forum.
There is a striking difference between them and the typical Charlies returning from the UK.

There are richer countries which rank lower in HDI. So Australia has high standards of living, good education, long life expectancy etc, and then if you look at other factors also it also ranks very highly:

8th in democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
5th in Economic Freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
19th in Press Freedom: https://rsf.org/en/ranking (still better than Cyprus)

So why shouldn't Australia be painted with the brightest colors? Obviously no country is great in every aspect but on average Australia seems to be one of the very top.

[Pyrpolizer]

Never been to Australia myself. That said if you look at something like the Human Development Index, Australia is ranked 3rd in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

Coming to conclusions about a country based on a few people you know is not a proper way to go about it, especially when most of those people are poor immigrants whose chances for great success are limited regardless of where they go (but I would bet that poor immigrants going to Australia have greater chance of being successful than poor immigrants coming to Cyprus)

The HDI doesn't tell me match other than since Australia is richer all other parameters concerning life (like healthcare education etc) shoot up.
Well we have to rely on something to form a personal opinion and I personally have nothing other than watch those who return or those of this forum.
There is a striking difference between them and the typical Charlies returning from the UK.

There are richer countries which rank lower in HDI. So Australia has high standards of living, good education, long life expectancy etc, and then if you look at other factors also it also ranks very highly:

8th in democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
5th in Economic Freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
19th in Press Freedom: https://rsf.org/en/ranking (still better than Cyprus)

So why shouldn't Australia be painted with the brightest colors? Obviously no country is great in every aspect but on average Australia seems to be one of the very top.

Because Indices are just indices and depending in how you use them you may end to totally different conclusions.
For example most charts that measure happiness use these factors:

six significant factors which contribute to happiness; GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and corruption levels.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/ ... the-world/

These chart however based on different factors places Australia at the bottom

http://www.traveller.com.au/mapped-aust ... rld-gtst82

World's happiest countries mapped: Australia is the 105th happiest country in the world (out of 140 countries listed)

[DT.]

Never been to Australia myself. That said if you look at something like the Human Development Index, Australia is ranked 3rd in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

Coming to conclusions about a country based on a few people you know is not a proper way to go about it, especially when most of those people are poor immigrants whose chances for great success are limited regardless of where they go (but I would bet that poor immigrants going to Australia have greater chance of being successful than poor immigrants coming to Cyprus)

The HDI doesn't tell me match other than since Australia is richer all other parameters concerning life (like healthcare education etc) shoot up.
Well we have to rely on something to form a personal opinion and I personally have nothing other than watch those who return or those of this forum.
There is a striking difference between them and the typical Charlies returning from the UK.

There are richer countries which rank lower in HDI. So Australia has high standards of living, good education, long life expectancy etc, and then if you look at other factors also it also ranks very highly:

8th in democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
5th in Economic Freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
19th in Press Freedom: https://rsf.org/en/ranking (still better than Cyprus)

So why shouldn't Australia be painted with the brightest colors? Obviously no country is great in every aspect but on average Australia seems to be one of the very top.

Because Indices are just indices and depending in how you use them you may end to totally different conclusions.
For example most charts that measure happiness use these factors:

six significant factors which contribute to happiness; GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and corruption levels.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/ ... the-world/

These chart however based on different factors places Australia at the bottom

http://www.traveller.com.au/mapped-aust ... rld-gtst82

World's happiest countries mapped: Australia is the 105th happiest country in the world (out of 140 countries listed)

Pyro, Bangladesh is 8th happiest on this thing.....the country that has single handedly proven that a nation could be cursed. The country that has known overpopulation and every famine, flood, storm, plague in the world is the 8th happiest nation?