Ummm, I'm moving to Madison in a month and from looking on the forum I can see there are people just over the border but I think I might be the only English guy in the whole of Wisconsin... is anyone else out there?

I don't know about on BE, but there's quite a few Brits in the Madison area...

Hi Chris,

A pre-emptive welcome to the Badger state. I live in Ripon which is about 70 miles NE of Madison. I'm Scottish, so your claim to be the only Englishman in WI is safe for now.

Here's a few things you may need to know in preperation for your move:

You know you are in Wisconsin when...

Your whole family wears green and gold to church on Sunday.
You refer to the Packers as "we."
Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
You know several people who have hit deer more than once.
You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.
You drive at 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard,without flinching.
You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events.
You think of the major food groups as venison, fish, berries, cheese and beer.
You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.
You know what cow-tipping is.
You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.
You define summer as three months of bad sledding.
Your definition of a small town is one that has only one bar.
Snow tires come standard on all your cars.
You have gotten frostbitten and sunburned in the same week.
Down South to you means Chicago.
Traveling coast to coast means going from La Crosse to Milwaukee.
The "Big Three" means Miller, Old Milwaukee & PBR.
You don't have a coughing fit from one sip of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
You know a brat is something you eat and Eau Claire is not.
You have no problem spelling Milwaukee.
You can pronounce and spell Oconomowoc.
You consider Madison exotic.
You go out for fish fry every Friday.
Formal wear is a flannel shirt, blue jeans & a baseball cap.
You know Gotham is a real city.
You can visit Luxemburg, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Berlin, New London
& Poland all in one afternoon.
You design your Halloween costumes to fit over a snowsuit.
You go to work in a snowsuit in the morning and return home wearing shorts.
You've seen mosquitoes with landing lights.
You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
You enjoy driving in the winter because the potholes fill in with snow.
Your partners sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie.
The local paper covers major headlines on 1 page, but requires 4 pages
for sports.
At least twice a year, your kitchen doubles as a meat processing plant.
You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.
Your snow blower gets stuck on the roof.
You find 0 degrees a little chilly.
The snow on your roof in August weighs more than you do.
You have been involved in a "drive-by hay bailing".

Hope your move goes well and you enjoy becoming a cheesehead.

Stu.

Hahaha nice

recognise quite a few of those already... but still yet to experience the 'full winter' experience!

While not anywhere near as bad as it gets in Wisconsin - I remember my first 'full winter' here in Illinois - wasn't too much snow but it was cold! Two winters later (07/08) our local weather station reported 90" of snow, including two days of 12" and one of 16!! This year was a decent year for snow too (the company I've worked for since I've been here does snow plowing in the winter, so I get to keep track of the snow since I do all the billing . . .)

Still prefer the winters to the summers though - I come from mild, rainy NI, once it gets much above 78F I start to get uncomfortable if there isn't a mild breeze.

Never been to Madison, only through it on Rt.12 on my way to points north. I've heard it's a nice town. I'd offer to buy you a pint to celebrate your arrival, but I live 100 miles away, just over the border in Fox Lake, IL.

There's a bunch of Brits down here, most English and Scottish people I've met, but I don't know how many are in WI. I'd imagine quite a few.

I get pretty uncomfortable when it too hot too, so I estimate I'm going to be okay for about two weeks a year!

OH keeps saying she will lock me on the balcony for ten minutes whenever i say "it can't be THAT cold!"

Here at least, and I assume for Madison as well, autumn can be very nice, and late summer's not too bad. Winter can run into April but (as with this year), April can also be very nice weather wise.

Keeps things interesting anyway!

Definitely looking forward to the autumn... but I guess anything at all is going to beat 52 weeks of grey-sky drizzle!

I don't know if your fiancee has come over to visit you yet but before mine did I warned her that Norn Irn was pretty wet and miserable, epsecially in early summer (she was visiting June/July time).

Turned out to be the nicest week we'd had all year, about 20-24C, nice breeze all week. Rained once, when we were stuck in Belfast city centre with no coats waiting for my mum to come pick us up.

Then when she went home it pissed down for a fortnight

I live in Wisconsin...