Welcome to our blog! We teach viola and violin lessons around the world via Skype. This is the first post in a series about our upcoming move to England, and we hope you'll follow us here on our adventure!
More than four years ago, we came to the decision that it was time to leave the United States, and after extensive research and some false starts, we recently successfully applied for visas to the UK.
We'll tell you in future blog posts about why we ended up choosing England, which city we're moving to, and how we evaluated our options. We first had to define our priorities of what we wanted in a place and then research various countries and their visas to see what could work.
Depending on what you do for a living, your age, health, tax situation etc., there are a surprising number of options out there. Countries are always adjusting their visas, so even if they don't have something for your situation today, they might have something for you not far down the road. We'll cover all this in future posts.
We don't want to harp on the negatives, but since people do ask, here are our top three reasons for leaving the US:
1. Polarization. Fewer and fewer people here can see the gray in things. Lots of people hold deeply-held beliefs that just aren't true and aren't leading us anywhere good. We're hoping the tribalism can calm down, but we'd like to watch that happen from a place where nuanced views and fewer guns are more the norm.
2. The health insurance here is really lousy. Approximately 2/3rds of all bankruptcies in the US are because of medical bills, and we've seen it happen to friends. Everyone everywhere complains about details of their healthcare system, but medical bankruptcies abroad are rare. In our opinion, this alone is a great reason to leave.
3. There's a lot of money behind keeping points 1 and 2 (about healthcare, guns, polarization) exactly how they currently stand (or making them even worse) because it's really profitable for certain businesses. It isn't for us though!
The UK has given us a 90-day window in which to move, and we'll be spending seven days of it on the Queen Mary 2. Check back for lots of pictures and stories!
As online viola and violin teachers, we're used to taking people on an adventure--- through music. Now we can also take our studio on an adventure to England! And if you don't study with us (and why not?) you can follow along right here.
Now put down the computer and go practice your scales!