Love
1 Reconnecting with friends - and its as if ive never left
2 Shopping - Brent Cross- Watford - Primark - bliss
3 Seeing family and being back in my dear late mams house
4 The absence of high fructose corn syrup in food - and good old plain food- Weetabix Ive missed you!!!
5 Toby Carvery - enough said
6 Public transport- the best bus, train and tube system


Not loving
1 The cold weather up north - where I live in US is similar weather BUT we have lots and lots more blue skies - its not warm for me in US but in the north here its freezing!
2 - the grey clouds ALL the time
3 The cost of food!!!! 2 small salads - teeny tiny - a bread roll and 2 teeny fruit salads - nearly £30 in a dept store!!!!! really!!!
4 The service - enough said!!!! or rather lack of is so noticeable after US - I WANT to be asked if I found everything ok - I want someone to tell me to have a beautiful day and to take care out there - I want to be asked if I need help taking my shopping to my car and most of all I don't want to pack my own groceries!!!
5 -wheres the water with my meals?????? why when I ask for some do I get a glass of luke warm tap water!!!!!!!
6 - the price of clothes!

Ive only been here a few days so to be continued!!!!

Go post that on the Returning to the UK forum ..... you'll get flamed!

But at least you made your pro & con lists equal in number, CAdreaming. I think that's the reality: there are plusses & minuses of each country, and often they seem about equal. You love both, yet you don't love everything about both. It's not a contest where one country "wins" & the other "loses".

I would love to have the service you get back home. To eat a meal without someone for ever asking you if it is OK especially towards the end when they want a big tip.

To not ask you if you want a dessert before you have even finished your main meal.

I would love to have someone say have a good day and actually mean it.

Food is cheaper here but do I really need to have a salad or sandwich in a restaurant that would feed me for a week, I don't want to take most of it home.

But more importantly home has Marks and Spencers and John Lewis enough said

I agree about being pestered in restaurants, they always manage to catch me when I have a mouthful of food and stand waiting for an answer, looking at me.
No way I'd even entertain getting a salad and fruit for £30 thats just silly. UK isn't exactly known for salad fixings being cheap in the winter weather, so a container of soup would probably have been cheaper or a sandwich.
The weather, yeah it's cold and I'm pretty sure when we move to UK that will be my main whine. Even though I hate the heat, I love blue skies in the 70's. So I'll be waiting for that odd day in summer in UK then rushing out to enjoy it.
But you can't have it all. At least the positives and negatives were 6 of one half dozen of the other

I do agree that service isn't as wonderful as most people originally think in US - I have worked in the service industry for years and I think its just lip service. Good customer service means using certain words - please and thank you would help, and actually knowing what your customers want.

So there are pockets of good service - packing your groceries for you is great, but it does mean such a waste with the amount of plastic bags they use. I like the fact I can put stamped letters in my own post box and they will be taken and delivered, no treks to the post office or post box there. I also liked the good customer relationship I have with my bank, I appreciated the sympathy card they sent me when my Dad died - can't imagine that in UK, and the bank know we aren't their best customers.

But as for the rest, its all taught platitudes which is as bad as someone just going blah, blah, blah. If you actually say no, the meal is awful, they don't know what to do most the time. I hate the fact I have to reuse knives and forks and that they take plates away while people are still eating at the table - drives me mental. And my US husband agrees with me, he can't understand why anyone in UK would think US service is great.

I much prefer the UK service in restaurants and pubs.

I thought eating out was quite good value last time I was back.

I think in a ideal world, American waiters would bring the food and drinks, .... and British waiters would clear away the empty plates!

I agree the cost and the variety has improved over the years.

Get a nice sunday roast at a pub or a carvery. Mmmm

Low cost meals that include vegatables.

Its just a pain that they don't do free refills. Last time we took an American family out for a meal in England the Italian restaurant charged per glass of soda, I think both kids drank 30 quids worth of soda between them.

I find eating in restaurants in the US a dissatisfying experience unless it's an expensive one. They're trying to get you out the door the minute you step in. Once did an experiment and ordered coffee after a meal. The bill was paid and they bugged us twice in ten minutes about "needing anything else?"

Never missed the UK shop assistants though.........they're pretty rude and unhelpful at times. Not all of them but you know............I prefer UK clothes though.

I despise the way shop assistants follow you around and constantly pester. It seems worse in kids stores where I constantly get asked, 'oh have you seen this top that goes with that skirt' 'or isn't this random item pretty', I have on more than 1 occassion told them if they don't leave me alone I'll leave the pile of things I currently have and leave without buying anything.

On the flip side I do like the way they ask if they can start a room for you, but I also experienced this a couple of times when I was in the UK last year.

I also much prefer restaurant service in the UK, where you are left alone to enjoy your meal, rather than being rushed out of the door the moment you sit down.

We found eating out in the UK very good value when we were over in March, 2 hot ham and cheese croissants and a cup of coffee was only £10 in BHS, £3.99 for carvery at a pub close to where my daughter lives and great beer too !! We are heading back in October, can't wait

And I'll agree about US wait staff waiting till you have a mouth full to ask if you are enjoying your meal, I have been pestered so many times in the past that I now ask them to leave us to eat our meals in peace.

Why would you go to the UK and worry about the price of clothes?

I dont find UK clothes expensive unless you buy in a outlet store in the US. The quality is so much better as well.

What is this?

Google says something about taking clothes away ready for you when you want to try them on. Is that right?