The Good

* Brazil is a nation in the sense most people identify and see themselves as Brazilians instead of the "something-Brazilian" nonsense from the USA. This creates a sense of unity and national identity, though it's degrading, unfortunately. Our immigrants assimilate quite fast, and Brazilians are open to seeing anyone as Brazilian, as long as you speak Portuguese (doesn't need to be fluent) and engage with Brazilian hobbies and activities.

* Big country with lots of things to do, places to visit, and people to meet. You can spend a lifetime traveling only inside the country.

* Laws. I'm not a lawyer, but I have the impression Brazilian laws are among the best and most advanced in the world. Things like working rights, consumer protection, and minorities/children/elderly/disabled protection. Our constitution is great too. Maybe we are too lenient against criminals, though.

* Stable weather. You will hardly see natural disasters happening in Brazil, which is crazy considering how big the country is.

The Mixed

* People. Tourists and locals alike will rave about how sympathetic and kind Brazilian people are, but I don't think we are that good, to be honest. Sure, we are open and welcoming, but we can also be pretty obnoxious and ill-behaved, especially in public spaces. People here will listen to loud music with no concern for others' space/comfort...

* Political system. I think it's great in theory, but there are loopholes to be abused. Institutions are good, but historical poverty and lack of education cannot be overcome only by political structures

* Public education. It's improving, and the fact that the best universities in the country are public and you don't need to pay a dent to study is a game changer that allows for big social mobility. Currently, 90% of students in the best universities are from mid- to low-income families, which means the system is working. I'm myself from a very poor background, and thanks to public education, my life changed completely. However, it's still clear there is a deficit in primary education, with absurd levels of functional illiteracy. Brazilian students will lack elemental fundamentals in math and reading

* Public healthcare. I have mixed experiences. Some things work very well, others pretty badly. I still need to have private insurance to cover expenses for specialist doctors like ophthalmologists (I have myopia), and some specialized exams, because I'd wait weeks or months to be attended in the public service lol. But on the other hand, I have free medication, free vaccines, and there are some things that are really good. STI treatment and prevention, for instance, is really efficient

The Evil

* Low wages/widespread poverty.

* Huge inequality: you have cities with extreme poverty and rich people living not far apart.

* Corruption, and not only in politics.

* Colonial legacy deeply ingrained in our social fabric, which also leads to deep economic issues. For instance, we lack industrialized capitalism. We never did any kind of land/agrarian reform. We have poor infrastructure and a historical debt with poorer/exploited states that is really hard to solve.

My dad used to go on yearly beach walks with his work buddies. You can run in the hard sand along the surf, but that's where people are of course. Yeah trying to run on the soft sand is worse than running through snow.

I did many four day marches in my youth but nowadays I go for a 20 to 25km run every other day to be by myself as a form of meditation. There are organized runs here as well, as well as cycling tours but I prefer the quiet and not seeing anyone for hours. Same when I was still heavily into cycling, always looking for deserted roads.

Best: Emma Goldman described it in her essay On Patriotism, and it is still true more than 100 years later. "And so I wish to state here, in my own behalf and in behalf of hundreds of thousands whom you decry and state to be antipatriotic, that we love America, we love her beauty, we love her riches, we love her mountains and her forests, and above all we love the people who have produced her wealth and riches, who have created all her beauty, we love the dreamers and the philosophers and the thinkers who are giving America liberty"

Worst: The racism, colonialism, classism, and crude calvinism. 

I had the opportunity to spend time in Canada during a work assignment. Usually I would do 2 weeks Canada, 2 weeks Netherlands for a while.

The office was in Mississauga (near Toronto), but I had the opportunity in the weekend to travel around a bit. Skiing in the Blue mountains, dog sledding in Algonquin park, trips to Montreal. Great times. Even the drives to these places are unforgettable. Hours cruising with only trees to see. So serene. I also have to congratulate the Canadians for being just really nice and welcoming people.

Awesome. I'm less than an hour from Missisauga, I've actually cycled to Burlington a bunch of times to swim in Lake Ontario.

I've lived here for over 20 years now and still haven't gone to Algonquin. I've been to BC though, Canadian Rockies. A former work mate of mine lives in Kelowna who we visited. It's beautiful there as well. (But a lot more smoke in summer...)

Yeah driving is a pleasure here. I've driven from Montreal to Hanover, Vermont for work and from my home all the way to Washington BC along local roads straight through Pennsylvania. Unforgettable 9 hour drive. And North to Lake Nippising (North West of Algonquin) for holiday in cottage country. Doesn't matter what direction, endless scenery abound.

Traveling back and forth didn't go well for me though. It takes me weeks to get over the jet lag. So a week to The Netherlands takes me 2-3 weeks to recover from. Hats off to you swapping back and forth like that! 

It was funny when I got here. My wife's parent's neighbors are Dutch, my dentist was Dutch, my lawyer is Dutch, the grocery store stocks Dutch food (got my wife addicted to Gouda's Glorie Fresh Garlic Sauce and putting Frites Sauce on fries. 

And yes Canadians are all very welcoming. Just be careful they're not used to Dutch directness nor Dutch humor lol. Not scoring any points with that here.

Ah Burlington is really nice. Gone out to have some diner and drinks there some times. My assignment was about 12 months, so not to bad with travel, but longer would have gone problematic for sure. I did hear back then, there is an 'orange county' around where a lot of Dutch settled.

Best: Easily the food. I rather eat mexican than french or italian cuisine. Real mexican food is goated. Has no equal as far as im concerned. 

Worst: Everything else.

Best: The Weather. Ireland has the potential for very few natural disasters or extreme weather, the most would be a bad storm or once every few decades a heavy Canadian like snow and cold spat that lasts a few months. The most we have to deal with is heavy rain and flooding or the tail ends of other regions disasters like the remnants of a hurricane that peeters out crossing the Atlantic or the ash and a really bad winter from an Icelandic Volcano popping in the summer. Tornados are very rare, earthquakes are not felt and heat rarely exceeds 30 Celsius.

Worst: The Weather. It's so extremely temperate that summer is often hard to come by and clouds and rain make up most of the year. For people who are Solar powered and depend on the sun this can be torturous and that's most people even if some people are less dependent. For people with mental health problems it can make everything much worse. It routinely causes depression and the Irish don't like admitting they have depression so you'll see a lot of alcoholics, mostly functioning but it still ruins them.

I think the biggest recent natural disaster we had was a spring/summer in 1947 where temperatures plummeted and snow fell that lasted 3 months and had drifts the height of telephone polls, people had to dig tubnels from their windows to the surface for air, on the plus side this saved them cause it kept them warm from the extremely low temps. With the way things worked back then though and being so heavily dependent on planting that must have been very rough for people esspecially in urban areas. Before that was the Potatoe blight about 200 years ago but that was because we didn't diversify in agriculture, I've always been surprised they didn't see that coming when they knew crops could fail. 

Ghana

The Good:
- Peaceful environment
- Friendly people
- Good weather. We don't have hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclone or typhoons

The Bad:
- Corruption
- Cost of living high in the southern cities and becoming costly everyday.
- Poor infrastructure.

I'm from germany. The best thing here is the phenomenal social system. Everyone gets to live a somewhat decent life here. You also hardly find a place with more freedom. You can be whoever you want around here, you can say what you want and so on.

The worst thing are fucking Nazis trying to abolish all of that and sadly they are quite successful at it. Which is why I am already actively working on leaving the country. I know what happened the last time Nazis rose to power in germany. I have zero interest in witnessing it happening again.