Pandajuice

Thanks for the support meauxna. At least there's someone with sense around here.

But please Hitchmo, go on telling me what my intentions and feelings were when I made my posts. I'm sure you, being a complete stranger, would know more than I about my own meaning.
And I'm supposed to be the ignorant, arrogant one.

Eric Hitchmo

Sure, happy to help - it's like this. You're a bit homesick so at some point you've decided to do a search on the internet for somewhere to let off a bit of steam and give those Brits a piece of your mind about how rubbish their country is. This thread looked like the perfect opportunity where you could disguise your moaning as advice, so you dived in. Don't worry - we've heard it all before and after a while you get used to people trashing the place and then claiming to be the wounded party when someone gets fed up and has a go back, but if there's one thing I can't stand it's when some idiot turns up and suggests the whole of the UK is in mourning because we have to put up with all of these objectionable foreigners that blight our lives. You can cheer yourself up when you get back to the good ole' US of A by having a chat with a native American Indian about how grateful they were to be booted off their own land.

Pandajuice

You got me pegged! Except for the fact I signed up to this website days before this thread even existed to ask some questions about immigration for my UKC wife (who by the way can't wait to leave because of all the reasons I stated before and who, being 35 years old has seen firsthand what her home of Bradford has become thanks to rampant immigration).

Plus I don't really get my rocks off and cure my homesickness by complaining to a bunch of strangers about how much their country sucks. I can do that to my wife and UKC friends and neighbours if I wanted to and needed validation in that sense.

BUT YOU GOT ME! GOOD JOB!

Eric Hitchmo

So we're getting shot of a moaning yank *and* his racist wife, all in one go? Great news! Drinks all round! Do you need a lift to the airport?

Jaxbar

I lived in Bradford longer than your wife and know the good and the bad, there is a lot to like in Bradford and the surrounding areas I am sad you havn't discovered it. My US DH lived in the area for 7 years and got involved and loved it.

People tend either to want to go from or to go to. If you cant make the best of a situation the next one will probably have issues too.

I like it here and I liked it there its just different.

I am the product of immigrants -Irish and Italian. Bradford has a rich and and diverse culture but maybe you are only concerned about a certain kind of immigrant?

rookins26

Wow I leave this thread for a few days and had to catch up. I am the OP that pandajuice so graciously offered advice to...the Arizona sun goddess you made me out to be. Did you read my post btw? I want to leave the sun. Having relatives with skin cancer throughout the years is not comforting and doesn't make you want to bake in the sun.

I am sitting inside on my laptop right now in airconditioning. That's right it is May and the AC is on. Will be in the 100's this week already and it is not even summer yet. Not a cloud in the sky. My son played outside for 5 mins this morning in our backyard then ran in saying "mommy...hot". Even a 2 year old knows it is ridiculously hot. It will be this way until September. It is only the beginning. They project it will be the hottest summer this year... I guess 115+ degrees wasn't hot enough? It will reach almost 100 today and I am not outside. It is just too hot to enjoy anything without sweating your brains out. Nice sunny AZ....got to love it.

Pandajuice...go back to Cali. What is people's obsession with that place anyway? Besides northern CA...it is one big overcrowded overexpensive smog pit. You can keep it. You can cut the smog there with a knife. Besides to live anywhere nice over there you have to make a LOT of money or else forget it.

You are missing it Panda...you have your head so far up your arse you cannot see the opportunity in front of you can you? Not many people get the chance to live abroad..experience something new. What an opportunity. DO you even realize? There is more to the world than the USA..and California for that matter. You make AZ and CA sound like paradise. Well I guess it is if you like endless miles of track homes, strip malls, chain restaurants, minimal culture, and the freeways overrun with huge SUV's. If AZ weather is so beautiful why are neighbors NEVER outside here? I have lived in this state (all over it) most of my life and people are never outside...never talk to their neighbors or play in the yard with their kids. If you drive down my streets right now no one would be out..it looks like a ghost town. Sunshine is worth that? If it were raining or cloudy today I would be out right now...I would frankly rejoice and probably do a dance LOL.

Give me rain, green grass and trees, history, old buildings that have a story behind them, people without botox in their face, roads I can walk on, and a nice Smithwicks at the pub. And you my fellow American can run back here like a fool and live it up in fake Cali. You don't know what you are giving up.

Thank you all for your thoughts.... even you pandajuice.

Colette

Eric Hitchmo

All the best Colette - really hope you get what you're looking for. The UK isn't perfect and most Brits will happily admit it's short-comings (it's something we're honest and comfortable enough to do), but it ain't a bad old place and still has a lot to offer. Hope it all works out for you.

rookins26

Thanks! I hope it works out too. I do not expect it to be perfect..no place is. We make our own Mayberry.

Because my husband is a dual we have a possible opportunity to live there someday and we feel we need to explore that. Amazes me that some people think weather is the deciding factor to living somewhere when there are so many more important issues to consider.

All I know is I have this one life...one chance to experience this planet and I would not feel satisfied when I am 90 if all I ever did was sit here and bake in Arizona.

Pandajuice

Well I guess that's what you get for trying to give someone stuff to think about before making a life changing leap of faith. I was only trying to help.

I wanted to leave the sun too when I moved here, and then really started to miss about 2 months in. Also, I never said Arizona was some paradise that no one should ever leave. In fact, I personally feel the entire SW US is a sh*thole and barely habitable.
I was only comparing the place you live in now to the place you could be living in soon and what a massive difference it is. If Arizona is too hot for you, there's a million other places in the US to go that are cooler and more beautiful and won't have such a culture shock. Everything is different in this country (I know you don't think that, I didn't either before) and many things are inferior (of course there are some improvements from the US, but not many). If all you gleaned from my multiple posts (especially my first one where I listed many other aspects) was that I don't like the weather, you're a bigger idiot than I give you credit for.

I am from Northern California and I am obsessed with it, and proud to be from there. I didn't appreciate it until I wasn't there and now I'm dying to go back, and I plan to very soon. I wouldn't be on these boards if I wasn't already in the process of immigrating back with my wife and son. So I thank all of you for your haughty suggestions that I go back, as if I didn't already realize I want to go back.

I know what I'm "giving up" you retard. I LIVE HERE RIGHT NOW! The way I see it, I gave up a whole hell of a lot to move here and I regret it. As gloriously valuable as you think this experience will be for you, it's not all it's cracked up to be for me in the end. DISCLAIMER!!! WHAT FOLLOWS IS MY OWN PERSONAL BELIEF! If I could do it all over again and was able to meet my wife in California, I'd have never come here knowing what I know now. I'm smart enough to assume what it's like to live in England without actually living here, and at least in my head, it'd have been more pleasant. I'm sure everyone's experience is different, but mine has been crap and I don't look back on it fondly.

I hope you have a great time here in England and never come back to the US. We could do without people like you spitting in the face of others who were only trying to help you. Come experience it for yourself, and if you ever get depressed or bored here, I'll be content in the satisfaction that you'll be thinking about me and how right I was way back when.

megs

I haven't posted here in a long time, although I do lurk, but this thread is irresistible.

I feel obliged to give you all a weather update: there has been light cloud cover, with sunny spells, for two days in the north of England. Of course, it's something of a relief after the non-stop sunshine of the past couple of weeks

And to respond to the OP: my American husband and I moved back here in 2005, after a few years of living in the US, and whilst there are things he misses (snow, mostly, since he's originally from MI), there are other things that he loves. It's about attitude, I think, and being willing to see the differences as just that, rather than as negatives.

We have moved around a bit since he came here (but then we did in the US too) to find the place that we both wanted to live, and have ended up in very rural Cumbria (where being 15 miles from a city, as panda is, would count practically as suburbia - our nearest is 40 miles away), where we do live in an old house, which is not overlooked by anything but sheep, and where noise is combined to the terribly irritating courting pheasants who have invaded our garden. Panda and his wife might even like it here, for the one thing we hate: no diversity, our population being 99.8% white.

Obviously, that might not suit you, but I mention to highlight that there is no more 'one UK' than there is 'one USA', and that it's perfectly possible for Americans to feel at home here; we have American friends who live in cities, in market towns, in England and Scotland, and who are all very happy here.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

And therein ends today's reminder of the fact that one man's treasure is another man's trash.

I really do wonder how my American friends and colleuges and the OHs family would feel about me if I started calling their country, customs and lifestyles, "inferior" though.

Hmmm, thought for the day

cindyabs

I was thinking the same when reading this-Panda did not come across as being combative in his first post, he has again and again, said "these are my opinons" AND they were not all negative. So what is the big deal??

It's still the same old story.

Pandajuice

Again, for some reason (I guess like picking at a pussing scab that just won't go away) I feel compelled to remind you people that nowhere did I ever type "The UK, it's customs, and lifestyle is inferior". No, I just found that I'd prefer to be back where I came from for a multitude of reasons that are personal to me, and my time here hasn't been the best.

Anyway, thanks for your intelligent post megs. I have no doubt that my wife and I would much prefer a more rural setting and my experience in this land might have been better if we lived in the country on the South coast. Sadly, that's not really possible for us at this stage and I'm stuck in the North.

This thread had gotten out of hand with a lot of unfair generalizations thrown at me and I never meant to imply that the UK sucks or is inferior. It's just the town of Oakenshaw near Bradford in West Yorkshire wasn't the right place for me and I didn't like it here. Please stop ruffling your feathers and let's have a civilized conversation.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

Cindy, my main point has always been the one made above.

It is the same old story, different people dislike different stuff and we read it everyday on this site.

I just personally do not believe that gives anyone the right to judge a whole ton of stuff about someone else's country as inferior and if that phrase had never been used I certainly would not have jumped the way I did.

It's a well known fact I hated the bit of the States I got stuck with, not once have I refered to it as inferior on here ... let a-bloody-lone on UK-Yankees. I have described it as many different things, and said how I felt living there, but not once have I exclaimed it is somehow substandard. It's ****ing rude.

I am absolutely sure the guy had the best of intentions, unfortunately it got lost in the all too common superior tone I have found so many Americans to take.

elfman

true, they weren't all negative - IIRC he liked the TV and the chocolate, but that was basically it. Throughout his posts on this thread there was an undercurrent of chip-shoulderness and although his first post might not have sounded combative to you it certainly got a few other people's backs up.

I think the trouble was that some of his complaints (notably the claims about six months without a single ray of sunshine, everything without exception 3x more expensive in the UK) were obviously wrong and when called on this Mr Juice got a bit little bit pissy and some of his true colours were revealed. Whinging about immigration and posting links to the Daily Mail were a bit of a hint.