Many people don't like the swiss. A few friends of me have worked for the U.N. and besides having been there a couple of times i have no other connections there. The swiss are extremely 'inhibited' (trying to put it diplomatic) in many ways.
It is a beautyfull country nevertheless. Not much city life and such, but the alps can compensate for that. Traveling though it you only see beautyfull landscapes in all 3 dimensions.
For a dutch person like me, you can imagine that this is kind of overwhelming since our landscape lacks the dimension of height completely.
Anyway, they have legalized cannabis and some other drugs as well. I cannot imagine that they would bother with the use of any of the substances we nexians like.
Belgium has adopted a policy where users of drugs are not prosecuted, only dealers. The north of belgium is very much like the netherlnads and the south is more like france, including the language they speak.
Gent is by far the most liberal city of belgium and very beautyfull.
Many city's are very pitoresque, like brugge, antwerpen and leuven.
I wouldn't know how to obtain substances there, other that just ordering from the sites we normally use.
I have used ayahuasca there once, that i'd made in holland.

In holland, it is unlikely that the use of psychedelic's is ever gonna be prosecuted. Mushrooms are banned but sclerotia that are just as potent are still available and so are all the cacti.
What the future holds with regards to substance policy is unsure since there will alway's be pressure from france and the USA as well as domestic right-wing party's to 'get those hippies out of here'.
Amsterdam is currently a big mess since the local government has messed up some infrastructural works like a subway and some other things so it looks more like a construction site than a city now, for the next ten years or so.
At some moment in time we will have to choose between building more dams and levee's or drowning and there will be an intense debate about that and you will never know if the dutch will be able finish the debate before the water comes... democracy has a price.
The weather up till now has been like in most parts of england.

Hahaha!

But this is true, at least for me; portugese portugese is too much for my ears; i get irritated after a while. But brazilian portugese (at least the stuff i've been hearing from jose mojica marins films is much much milder and nicer.

As for languages, with order of preference (best sounding first) it goes: german, french, finnish, russian, turkish, gaelic and swedish.

And the worst sounding ones: portugese, spanish, italian, dutch+flemish, polish and danish. English are just indifferent but certain accents like scottish are amazing.

I went to Alto Paraiso about 7 years ago, to a new years festival. It is an incredible place, the natural beauty, remote location, and 3000 people stomping away to some psy trance made me a very happy boy It did rain hard several times, but I guess that is to be expected there. It is way too remote for me to ever settle in, but I certainly recommended it for a lengthy visit.

re climate change - It is a really difficult question to answer as there are many things to consider together with climate change. Security, water & energy resources, health, food production capability etc etc. I was discussing this with my Dad, who (bless him) was trying to find the best place or me to live if it does all go tits up. He concluded certain parts of the UK, or New Zealand. You also have to factor in whether you will still be welcome if the country does become a popular immigration zone. There is a risk of immigration / resource wars if the worst predictions come true.

The Maplecroft report is meant to be good, but I think you need to buy it, unless anyone knows a free source?
maplecroft
WHO may also have some good info?
WHO climate change

The 'sound' of language's depends on a few different factors. The most obvious one is ofcourse the ratio between vowels and consonants, but there are all sorts of nuances in this like the sorts of vowels and consonants.

Basically, each language requires a slightly different way of using the muscles in your mouth and also different parts of the mouth that are most prominently used.

The type of sound you are used to determines for a great deal how other languages sound to you.

To me portugese sounds like incomprehensable babling of an italian to drunk to speak proper italian.
I once shared an appartement with some brazilians, and i could never make anyhting out of what they where saying, while i usualy don't have much difficulty with latin languages.

But i, like infundibulum, love the sound of german, although i hate many german accents, like austrian, swiss and bavarian german.

The language of wich i hate it's sound the most is russian. Whatever a russian says, to me it sounds like he wants to say: 'our mighty atomic weapons will turn your cities into craters and all that's left of it will crumble under the weight of our rusty old tanks, and after that we get drunk and we murder some people who're not dead yet'.

I'm neutral abount french and english. But i find italian sounding irritatingly hysterical, like a hyperventilating opera singer on the verge of having a serious nervous breakdown, talking through his nose while hiss balls get squeezed by his way too tight thong.

Awesome info, thanks all. Mmm Portugal is sounding good. I'm going to have to visit Portugal soon because not only have I never been but also I have never even met a Portuguese person. Loads of Brazilians, but not one Portuguesian! Can anyone recommend suitable spots to live in Portugal? No British ex-pat golfcourse retirement resorts please!

What do the Portuguese think of English people? I'd like to be somewhere where my nationality doesn't create bad first impressions every time I meet someone. I got the feeling in Spain that being English was not a good thing, maybe because of all the hooligans who holiday there. Or maybe I was just projecting my guilt for them having to put up with England's worst behaved holidaymakers so imagined they all thought less of me for it.

I hope Portugal doesn't have insane property laws like Spain does? I heard that in Spain if the government wants to build a road it just seizes your land and gives you nothing in return, nothing, it's pure theft!

I wonder how Portugal will fare with regard to global warming? More research to be done. Maybe I'll visit both Portugal and Brazil, and if I like them learn to speak 'with an egg in my mouth'.

P.s. I actually think Brazilians sound sexy. It's funny how different native tongues think different things of other tongues. If you're English then French is super sexy, Italian can be sexy but is more funny-exciting. Spanish sounds funny-haha. Dutch is funny-weird. German sounds ugly and clumsy. Scandanavians sound like they're speaking Martian, they sound really really funny. And I agree with Polytrip, Eastern European languages can make me uneasy, there's something very dour about them, but that could be association from conditioning. No offence intended, just giving a perspective on how these languages sound to an Englishman. Actually English hurts my ears how most people speak it, particularly Cockney, so I can understand people not liking it. A soft Scottish accent can be nice, or a well spoken but soft English one, like an actress might use. But not an aristocratic one, ugh the Queen speaks like she's constipated, horrible sound.

i think that mexico is own of the entheogens country beacause it has magical plants , shamanism , and awesome culture maya, azteca , huicholes, mazatec culture, it is very diverse hasverymuch to see and to learn , the weed is so cheap to and the people are so freindly viva mexico next journey to mexico i will want to goto visit the huicholes and learn much from them

I like the south of portugal more than the north.
The south is a bit more cosmopolitan in my view.

And about being brittish: wherever you go, just tell that you're not a manchester united fan, and people will not asume right away that you'll be puking and urinating on their doorsteps within the next few hours.
And madrid is realy cool. It's a sort of latin version of london.

I'll have to do a road trip! North to south. Let me know if you know of any particular good spots for settling around likeminded people.

Does anyone know what the law is in Portugal and the sentencing with regard to...

1. Growing the entheogens- could that count as manufacture?
2. Sharing the entheogens with visitors- could that count as dealing?
3. Transporting the entheogens, either by ordering from abroad by post, or by taking them personally from country of origin to new Portuguese home- could that count as smuggling?

P.s. ... I saw an advert for Portugal on a billboard today. It showed a neatly kept park with big trees and the beach in the distance, and the strapline was "Portugal: Europe's West Coast". They are advertising it as California!

You make the best you can wih tis sort of practise. Wether its North Pole South Pole. Just give one the equipment and let the journy comence. (prividng its all legal)

Still tho, any of hte countries where entheogens are still widley avalible and easy to aquire, is high on the list.


R*R
L

Thanks for posting, I was starting to feel that I was now talking to myself!

Portugal:
Disaster! I just read that abortion is still illegal in Portugal. I'm so sad to learn this. This is not liberal at all. I wonder if this applies to victims of rape too. Personally I would not want to raise daughters in a country with that law. I strongly believe in a woman's right to choose (if you disagree that's fine but please let's not debate the point here, there are threads on the subject elsewhere, if you don't like abortion then I guess Portugal is the entheogenic-friendly country for you). A government that creates laws based on religion rather than scientific ethics is one to avoid for me personally. Also, a Portuguese person has told me that the government is corrupt, though more research is needed here. Aww... it would've been so nice to live on a warm beach.

So, the search continues... further updates...

Norway:
I spoke to a Norwegian girl and she says Norway is a very fair country... she says they are quite socialist but in a nice way that the people like apparently (not like the nasty officious UK bureaucracy), taxes are high and things are expensive but you get paid a lot more so it is balanced out. People are very friendly apparently. Total population is only 5m. But cold.

I am going to research Brazil a bit more next. Not yet ready to give up the dream of living on a beach...

People in Norway are friendly when you get to know them, but they don't have anything close to the manners you would find in, let's say, traditional english villages. People are rather rude in public, actually. When you first start to talk to them, they are (mostly) wonderful people. And the girls here are absolutely stunning!! The country is a democratic socialist state, so you will be helped in next to any ways possible. We make shitloads of money, and pay shitloads of taxes on absolutely everything. We have the best and cheapest health-care (totally free, except doctor's visitation under a certain limit) in the whole world. Actually the best living standards in the whole world, according to UN.

When it comes to entheogens, Norway is not a good place. You will find what you need if you know the right people, but the police are really bitchy. They don't know much about entheogens at all, so they don't show much attention to it, but if you get caught you will get prosecuted. A friend recently got fined 1400 USD for 5 Cannabis plants and a rather large number of liberty caps. He also has to go to jail for 20 or some days if he get caught breaking the law in the next two years. Not the worst punishment, of course, but I would not call that liberal.

Overall, Norway is a really great place to live. I love my country. The winters are cold, yes, but that makes you appreciate the summer even more. In the southeast (around Oslo, the capitol) it rarely gets colder than -10 C during winter (although we had two weeks with -15 to -25 C this winter). The summers are great, with 20+ C next to every day.

Norway is very nice and liberal. People in general dont care if you take drugs or not.

Word of caution though,
If you do get busted, expect a heavy fine.

I was picking mushrooms with some friends last autumn just outside of Oslo and a local
guy (everybody who lives there knows what your doing kneeling in the horsefields, most people laughs as they drive by =)) told us to be careful because sometimes the police drives by to see if there's any
"shroomers" there.
He told us it's a 1000 pound fine if you get caught!...never saw a police there though.

Getting caught with a small amount of weed can cost you 400 pounds!
If an officer sees you it's a fine on the spot.
Me and a friend where rolling a joint in a park when all of a sudden two police officers where
standing 2m infront of us. They were about to give us a fine but we told them we were only visiting
and only have swedish phone numbers so they let us go=)

I knew a guy who got busted with about 100g cannabis, a bottle of acid, some extacy, 2cb, mg scale,
pillow sized bag with empty gel caps + more stuff...
Dont know what he was fined for but I dont think he got more than 3 months in jail for that.

Cold? Between 20celsius and 35celsius in the summer, How hot do you need it to be? =)

Norway has amazing scenery!, just google: Geiranger, lofoten, trollstigen...Norway?
There's a bbc documentary about Norway here:
BBC Coast and Beyond: Norway Part 1/6
http://www.youtube.com/w...yYwc&feature=related
(There's a HD torrent lurking around somewhere to)

You can find a lot of liberty caps growing in Norway=)

BUT BRAZILIAN SONGS ARE SO PRETTY!

Thanks for the info on Norway! It's on my list of places to visit

I've had a couple of replies in PM's from members who can't yet post here.

Very interesting Random, thank you. If it makes you feel better, I know that in the UK you really don't need much surface area to collect rainwater for filtration for all your water needs. The rooftop of a small house is enough. This is widespread practice in New Zealand. So, if you are in a country with similar amounts of rainwater, you will be fine. As for desert countries... water is already scarce there, so if things couldn't continue as they are there now there could be other ways around it... desalination, or at the very least solar cills for survival rations. For these reasons, I am dubious about water becoming an expensive commodity, unless Kevin Costner in Waterworld is going to be for real! I'd be really interested for a link if you have one.

Thanks Rance. I read it on the Lonely Planet website. I'd be surprised if they were wrong but I hope they are- maybe they are out of date and the law was changed recently? I will research further. Maybe I will be able to live on a beach after all, yay!

http://en.wikipedia.org/...bortion_referendum,_2007

Looks like you are right Rance- LP is out of date because abortion has recently been legalised up to the 10th week in Portugal! And it was the north voting no, which fits with Polytrip's description of the south as being more cosmopolitan.

Portugal is back on the exodus agenda!