The American's first UK visit
 

We're going back to the UK in next month. It's mainly so she can meet the extended family and friends after we got married a few months back. This'll be my Wife's first long haul trip. She's only ever been to Mexico, and considering the location of Mexico next to where she lived in Texas i don't count that as abroad :lol:

We're there for 2 weeks, staying with my folks and doing a few day / overnight trips. I booked us a night in the cotswolds and showed her a few pictures of the towns, bourton on the water, cheltenham, bath etc, she about freaked out in excitement at the look of some of the villages. And i couldn't figure it out - is this just because i associate it as the norm? I used to live in both Cardiff and Bristol, not particularly countryside.

Anyone else ever taken their wife/husband to the UK for the first time, and is there anything they couldn't get their head around in terms of things we Brits would associate as normal?

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Most Americans can't get their head around our history. To them, if it's 50 years old or more, it's 'historic'. My colleague lives in an 'old' house built in 1978!

The idea that buildings could be 1,000 years old or more is just alien to them.

She will probably also be shocked at how close things are (particularly coming from Texas).

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

As you're in that neck of the woods, Gloucester cathedral is pretty impressive, with parts nearly 1000 years old, and most of it older than 600 years old, and it was used in the first two Harry Potter films if she's into that. A short walk away is the New Inn, a misnomer if there ever was one, as it was built around 1450, and it is so old that they don't even have an exact age for it, but it is still a hotel you can stay in and it has a restaurant, and bar with a bar menu on the ground floor. ..... Eating in a restaurant built before Columbus arrived in America might just hit the spot for "not getting her head around it". :rofl:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

For most Americans from my old neck of the woods who have had their grandparents immigrate to the US in the late 1800's, we are use to buildings being 100 to perhaps 250 years old. There is one original settler's farm still in existence from 1624 in my old area.

But as an American who visits Europe often over the last 25 years, it is the quaintness of villages and marveling that people can live in such small quarters while we have such wide open spaces.

Why not, when you go back on your visit, view your country through her eyes rather than through your eyes. You will be surprised what you will actually see that you have missed during your lifetime there. It is much the same as when a friend and I were walking down Madison Avenue near 36th street in Manhattan and I pointed out a particular feature to an old building. She looked up and marveled that she had never seen that before although she walked past it twice day for over a year.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Good shout - she does like Harry Potter, i wasn't aware it was used for the HP films. Just looked up the new inn - I've been there! before legal drinking age unfortunately, may have to wander back that way

Good point. This is the longest I've been out of the UK - will be interesting just seeing what's changed.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I've lived on the US west coast for a while now, don't go back to the UK very often, so when I saw a UK travel show that featured several quaint villages I got way more excited than I ever did seeing them in person when I lived there. I even got a bit excited when I visited the US east coast since they had more history than just the few decades-old wooden shacks near where I live.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I go back to England periodically to see the In-Laws and the best time my wife and I had is when we rented a car and traveled the "B" and 2 lane "A" roads and stayed in B&B's along the way. Nice way to see the English countryside and the English countryside is gorgeous.
Come to think of it I just returned from renting a car out there, a three cylinder of all things with a 5 speed. Only got beeped at three times max while driving all week. Not bad eh?

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

As an American who has traveled, some reactions.

The long haul flight will be the first big change. And the concomitant jet lag. Give it a couple days to adjust.

Traffic on the left side of the road. Even for a pedestrian.

Don't shortchange Mexico. She will have had some experience with a foreign country.

One little thing will be that Americans are used to Dollar bills and dollar coins are disfavored. So the lack of one pound notes will feel strange. (Visiting the grandson in upstate NY and took a side trip into Canada - loonies and toonies still seemed strange).

"We're not in Kansas, Toto."

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Even more shocked that 1000 year old houses in England have electricity. ;-)

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

When she goes to Edinburgh she will want to know why they built the Castle so near to the railway line.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

As she is Texan she might be horrified by the winding lanes in the countryside and how fast people drive along them.

She's probably going to be shocked by the small cars and the even smaller car parking spaces !

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Winding roads shouldn't shock her too much if she has been to the Texas Hill country. Plenty of small very winding roads with steep hills and inclines. It's not all flat with long straight roads;)

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Same can probably be said about Canadian's especially western Canadian's where history doesn't go back all that far....

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Shops that close at 5pm ;)

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

My husband's greatest struggle on his first visit to the UK was trying to find a decent coffee on the high street. Greggs came up top trumps! :ohmy:

I'm a Taunton girl originally, but have lots of family and friends in Bristol, and recently moved back from Cardiff after three years. :) You've plenty to show your wife in our neck of the woods alone, no wonder it's a tad overwhelming! If she's already excited by the look of some of the villages, you could take her to Bradford-on-Avon. I went recently with a couple of friends and even I, as a hardened rural Brit, was taken aback by the quaintness. There's a little tea-room where the staff still wear Victorian attire - the building itself is so old and crumbly that it's leaning half-way into the road - utterly enthralling for many Americans (nay, humans), I'm quite sure. Lots of nice countryside walks around there, too, and the drive from Bristol is lovely in itself.

My husband mostly enjoyed the castles. :) Wales does spoil us!

Edited to add: here is the tea-rooms! I hope it's okay to post this link. https://www.thebridgetearooms.co.uk/

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Sun that sets before 4pm (in December and January). :blink:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Went back in June and took the stepson and a friend of his with us. Driving from Gatwick to Streatham there were audible gasps the first few times we passed a double decker coming the other way, not so much because of the size of the bus but because of the narrower road lanes.
They were quite bemused by the much smaller vehicles that people drive and that we could spend much of the day in the car and only have travelled a couple of hundred miles.
I reckon that driving down proper Devon lanes in the fashion of the local I once was might have led to some brown trouser moments for the two lads. :rofl:

Both are under 21 and over 18 so they made the most of imbibing whenever they could!

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Sun?

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Well obviously not when it's cloudy! :lol:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Ah that'll be 2 days of each month then! :lol:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

When American coworkers ask me about life in the UK I'm always asked if it's true about continuously having grey skies... Yep!

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Cars parked half on pavements that were once nice little side streets and lanes

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And does it rain as much as they hear? ..... Yes and no - the total annual rain is about the same as here (in NC/ east coast), but it can rain all day and only total ¼", and can do that half all the days in any one month at any time of year.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Never thought of that, good way of looking at it!

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Paisley caves human occupation dating back 14,290 B.P. in Oregon(USA)
May not be luxury but is history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_Caves

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Not really, that's fairly distant pre-history (no continuity with current peoples and cultures), and therefore somewhat divorced from reality - too long ago to be able to visualize or empathize with.

I found the case of the man buried in a bog in the UK about 2000 years ago (found in 1984) and the man found in (melted out of) an Alpine glacier from about 5000 years ago (found in 1991) to be more compelling than some bones, any bones, found in a cave.

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That's quite something to have had electricity a 1000 years ago. :thumbup:

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My wife's first visit to the UK almost ended in tragedy. She forgot that they drive on the left and just missed being run over by a double decker

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I do that every time I go back.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Until I had a visit from an American I never realized that my London Terraced house was historic...

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

My daughter, then very young had never seen an open fireplace until she came to the UK. It seemed to fascinate her. I caught her a couple of times trying to see up the chimney.
"Wow it really goes all the way up to the roof" ? she asked wide eyed

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Did you tell her small children would be sent all the way up to clean it?

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Houses with fireplaces are hardly a rarity in the US. :confused:

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True but the house we lived in and all the other houses on the estate were not built with fireplaces and she was only seven at the time.

A friend of ours in the UK told us that they had relatives over from Canada. Their small child had never seen a fireplace either and asked if it was a large ashtray. They're only kids after all ;)

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LOL! When I lived in the Hague, I always enjoyed taking American visitors to Delft and showing them the churches. First the Oude Kerk (old church) - this one dates from the 13th century. Then the Nieuwe Kerk (new church) - they started building that one in 1396 - before we even discovered the Americas - and finished in 1496!

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I used to live here. We lived across the road from the church which was built around 1120.

The house we lived in was a 350 year-old farmworker's cottage. It was originally 2 1-room cottages which had been knocked into one and then extended upwards and backwards to create a 3-bedroom house. We rented it for about a year before we moved State-side.

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I can even beat that - just. I grew up in Chichester - our Cathedral dates from 1075.

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I told her that once there were people who cleaned chimneys and that Santa comes down thru chimneys in houses that have them.

She answered something like. "Well that sounds pretty dumb. Why doesn't Santa use the front door like everybody else"

Smart ass kid :lol:

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The oldest building I remember being in was a pub in Nottingham near the castle called the Trip to Jerusalem. The landlord told us that it had been a stop for crusaders on the way to the Holy Land. The ceilings were unusually low and he explained that the average height for a full grown man back then was much shorter than now

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I've went there quite often when I was at RAF Newton, just outside of Nottingham. From what I remember "Trip to Jerusalem" was cut into the rock below Nottingham Castle.