I'm curious about the whole concept of living in another country. I have lived in 5 countries, but it's possible that I've lived in 6, the last entrant being Ireland. We had a house there but it was not my pernament residence (which was England), except for a couple of weeks before moving to Hong Kong. I went to school there for just a week. So, legal residence and school attendance, but I still don't consider it a country that I've lived in (despite that I've been there collectively longer than Japan and Spain put together).
I know plenty of people (four off the top of my head, probably a dozen more if I thought long and hard) who have spent a year backpacking or travelling around Australia. Some worked sporadically but only on a daily or weekly contract. They never had a pernament residence but were still in the country for long enough, yet I don't think that I would consider that they lived there. But can you be in a country for a whole year and still not live there?
Howard Hughes tried something similar. He didn't want to pay taxes so he lived in a hotel in Vegas, because at the time the law did not consider it a pernament residence, and thus he didn't have to pay some or all of his taxes, but then they changed it because a lot of rich people started to like that idea.
On top of that, I have had 4 addresses in Madrid. I knew that the first two would not be pernament and that I would find a cheaper place, but I still think that I've lived in 4 places in Madrid. So even though one of those places was less than a week and the other was less than a month, why would I consider Ireland as a non-lived-in place? I have no idea. Obviously I have no criteria, except that hotels and hostels should not count (though I have friends of the family who do live in hotels).
Maybe it's having something official or semi-official with that address on it, like an ID card, student card, warranty or something.
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