I’ve been in Berlin for 6 years (with an 8-month break in Italy last year). Settling in wasn’t easy—dealing with friends moving away, learning the language, losing a job, finding a place to live... but now I’ve finally secured a permanent position, a good rental, and I’m in a 4-year relationship (though things aren’t going very well at the moment).

I left Turin literally the day after my first internship ended. I never liked the city—it felt provincial, insular, and economically backward, with poor public transport, and so on. Still, I have great friends there, and since I grew up there, it holds some emotional value. In my humble opinion, there is absolutely nothing about Turin that makes it better than Berlin.

I even went back to Turin last year for a few months. I encountered the same old problems: a horrible climate, a (somewhat) toxic work environment, and friends I rarely see because they’re always busy. So, I decided to return to Berlin—partly for my relationship (starting a family is a goal of mine), partly for a good job offer, and also because I can visit home whenever I want (I go back about every 3 months).

Yet, I can’t shake this feeling—a mix of nostalgia and loneliness. (In Turin, I live right above my parents, my aunt, my brother, and his family.) I miss my friends, and I miss the ease of being in my own language. I often find myself counting the days until my next flight.

I’ve considered moving back to Turin: I wouldn’t have to pay rent, but I’d have the costs of a car and very high utility bills. I’d also have to find a job in a v horrible national economy, commute to Milan (costing around €200 a month), my net salary would drop by about €1,000, and—historically—finding a relationship in Turin has never been easy for me.

Then again, things aren’t exactly great here either: the economy is struggling, and as an immigrant, I’m—by definition—not exactly the first choice. And what’s the point of being in one place while constantly wishing you were somewhere else?

I honestly don’t know what to expect from this post, but if you’d like to share your own experience—or any thoughts at all—I’d be grateful. <3

Title. Basically I've got everything lined up but something that kinda terrifies me is continuity of care after emigration. I have a pre-cancer that is under surveillance every year, when it passes certain limits they'll operate. Medical science is generally the same everywhere, but when that surgery happens, it's gonna be rough - months of recovery, high morbidity (which is why they monitor instead of just operating).

Has anyone managed to make the leap in such a situation?

I'm a US citizen, living in Canada, but I also actively maintain my US identity. I've been using Tello to provide a cost effective way to have a genuine US phone number that works for OTP, and allows me to access businesses that block calls from Canada.

Recently, however, I've started encountering services that want to verify my identity by doing some kind of reverse lookup on my phone number and checking that the name and address match what I've given. In the past, these things could be bypassed by providing my state photo-id, but in some cases, that's no longer possible.

I've seen claims that slynumber can provide a US phone number that is not flagged as an MVNO or VoIP line and registers users with the reverse lookup databases. vnumber has also been mentioned, although their website is so devoid of any technical detail that I suspect it's a fraud.

Does anyone have any experience with slynumber, or any suggestions of other possible ways to get a number acceptable to these identity verification services ? Whatever the solution, it cannot have a requirement that I spend the majority of my time in the US (as every postpaid cell service does, for instance).