Decisions of locale...

I'm now half-way through my relocation in Dublin, and it's about time for me to make my next heavy decision: Where do I want to live afterwards?

About the only thing I do know at this point is that I don't wish to live in Phoenix, Arizona. I've known that for a long time, and living elsewhere has really only solidified that feeling. Unfortunately, Not-Phoenix is a pretty big place.

There are five practical choices for "Not-Phoenix" whilst remaining with my employer:

• Mountain View, California
• Santa Monica, California
• New York, New York
• Dublin, Ireland
• Zurich, Swizterland

You may have noticed, three of these five are already striked out. Dublin is nice, but I don't think I want to live here permanently -- my liver couldn't take it, and it's too isolated from mainland Europe. New York might be interesting, but that's way too big of a city for me to feel comfortable in. Mountain View is the "logical" choice for my employment, but it's also extremely expensive and frankly, the offices are too crowded there; the location is nice, but I don't think I could deal with the bustle of that office.

This leaves only Santa Monica and Zurich, two entirely opposite sides of the globe. Santa Monica is in the states, next to an ocean, and in Los Angeles. Zurich is in the middle of Europe, surrounded by beautiful mountains, and about as foreign a city as I could get. I don't speak German, French or Italian. There are serious (possibly permanent) financial and tax implications to moving to Zurich. I've spent a total of 2 days in Zurich in my lifetime (though, to be fair I've never spent any time in Santa Monica). Can I really make such a decision based on such limited information?

Let's just compare satellite views: Zurich, and Santa Monica. I can certainly tell you which looks more appealing to me...

Culture shock be damned, I think I'll give Zurich a try.