Indian living in Germany here - just came back after 3 weeks in the US. >the quality is much better (especially food and education), the infrastructure is head

Indian living in Germany here - just came back after 3 weeks in the US. >the quality is much better (especially food and education), the infrastructure is head-and-shoulders above (especially the roads, internet, phone plans, environment, litter, buildings in general). I was there with you until you said internet. Internet and phone plans in Germany are painful. Most of the major providers are still on VDSL - though they are rolling out optical fiber. My current phone plan from O2 is 10 euros for 3.5 GB a month - that data volume is peanuts. I do not know if the US is any better, but I used to get 1 GB _per day_ in India. > buildings in general Oh this. So much this. I was surprised how much more sound insulated and better-fitted the German buildings were. This is also reflected in the prices - buying a house in the US is cheaper than doing so in Germany. Here in Cologne, I see ads trying to sell very normal looking apartments (decent location, not at the center) for upwards of 600k euros. I mean, who can afford that in Germany? Meanwhile, I remember walking around in DC and seeing ads where the normal-looking apartments were all between 400-600k USD, which is actually affordable adjusting for income and purchasing power parity.