Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10406120)

It's a continuum. Being more independent rather than interdependent might explain it. It is what it is, and we need to adapt to it...but still... I think perhaps in the last 2 decades the media, esp. TV has given people the impression that their fellow Man is out to get them in some way...

Originally Posted by eyup (Post 10406139)

wish i hadnt read this thread :unsure:,my fiance and i are getting married next year when i get the visa and im moving to Maryland,but i had noticed that 'friends' there are not the same as my 'friends' here in yorkshire ! for example we were coming home from the Mall on my last visit and we passed near to the home of a couple she is friends with,(allegedly) i said are we going to call in for a coffee ? my fiance said we cant do that here,its not england,i insisted and said at home we would call in or they would say why didnt you call in for coffee? i said why not here ? she relented and we called,we rang the bell and hubby answered the door,we stood there he stood there,i said Hi we were passing and thought we would call in,he then invited us in,they seemed nervous and confused by us being there,we sat and did small talk for 20 mins with no one putting the kettle on,so we left,my fiance said see i told you so ;),i was in shock,or the time she had to work and i went collecting fallen wood for the stove from the woods nearby,she went mad and asked if i was crazy,people get shot for trespassing she says etc etc,and did i watch out for copperheads when in amongst the dead wood ?? whats a copperhead i says ??? :o

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10406373)

We introduced an acquaintance here to the whole 'popping in' concept.

It blew him away - in a good sense.

Trouble is - he went overboard with it.

It's not something that is easy to teach - the 'rules' and how you judge whether to 'pop in or not' and to read the signs of whether to stay or go quickly once you have 'popped in' are something you just 'learn' - it's cultural.

So, advice to others - don't do the 'popping in' thing here in the US - if you can't live without it, then sad to say, stay home in the UK...

I miss it, but I hate more when people get it wrong and pop in all the time - in the end he had to pop out permanently...:o

Originally Posted by eyup (Post 10406139)

wish i hadnt read this thread :unsure:,my fiance and i are getting married next year when i get the visa and im moving to Maryland,but i had noticed that 'friends' there are not the same as my 'friends' here in yorkshire ! for example we were coming home from the Mall on my last visit and we passed near to the home of a couple she is friends with,(allegedly) i said are we going to call in for a coffee ? my fiance said we cant do that here,its not england,i insisted and said at home we would call in or they would say why didnt you call in for coffee? i said why not here ? she relented and we called,we rang the bell and hubby answered the door,we stood there he stood there,i said Hi we were passing and thought we would call in,he then invited us in,they seemed nervous and confused by us being there,we sat and did small talk for 20 mins with no one putting the kettle on,so we left,my fiance said see i told you so ;),i was in shock,or the time she had to work and i went collecting fallen wood for the stove from the woods nearby,she went mad and asked if i was crazy,people get shot for trespassing she says etc etc,and did i watch out for copperheads when in amongst the dead wood ?? whats a copperhead i says ??? :o

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10406647)

I freaked out, when staying in a friend's apartment in NY, and somebody banged on the door saying "Exterminator!"-
I expected to see Shwarznegger with a gun at the door. I didn't answer and he kept pounding for several minutes. Terrifying!

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10391308)

I share this partly to vent my spleen (cathartic) and partly as a commentary for those of you contemplating a move to the US for work reasons, and bringing family...

I'm away on business, 17 hrs by plane, no chance to hurry back quick etc.

SWMBO leaves the house as usual, driving the car out of the garage, closing the door remotely.

She comes back and the remote door opener has died - mechanical failure of the switch, we later determine.

Anyway, she's now locked out of the house.

After trying the obvious things, she goes to 3 neighbours, none of whom answered the door even though they were in. She goes to a fourth neighbour who is working in their garage, and so Mrs HTS is able to talk to them. She explains what has happened and asked if the neighbour could help her push in the door or get her over the back gate. The neighbour refuses and tells Mrs HTS to get a lock smith, and to 'have a nice day'....!!!

Well I'm sorry - where we come from you help somebody out, not tell them to phone a lock smith and 'have a nice day'.

So a pretty peeved Mrs HTS manages to find a concrete brick as a step to get herself over the back gate - tearing some muscles around her ribs - she's only just got the last one mended (another story...!), so now in some severe discomfort she's in to the back yard, where thankfully (!) she discovered she hadn't bolted the back door and so was able to get in to the house - by this time it was getting dark.

So that's is one VERY pissed Mrs HTS. She's not had the easiest of times here with health and no luck in getting a job. Parents back home have been ill. All her friends etc are back home and she really has no support network here. So it's very understandable when I phone from Tokyo just now on my regular "hi honey" call, she lost it. And you can only say "I want to go back home" so many times before it stops just being something that is said in the heat of things and becomes a real, strong desire.

So if you are thinking of coming out here, take care of as much medical stuff back home on the NHS as you can, because leaving it to get done out here will sap your finances, the same finances you would use for doing things of a fun/entertaining/relaxing nature... and make sure you negotiate for your employer to pay all your big costs for the first few months after you move, and a whole host of other little niggles that can come as a surprise and knock you back a little.

My employer is good on many fronts, but can be stingy in other areas. And it could be false economy because if Mrs HTS wants to go home, we go home, and my employer will have to put on hold what my team and I are doing right now, recruit a replacement, and pay the market rates for that, plus the impact of delays, of getting a new person up to speed etc etc etc

Aaargghhhh!!

Sorry - just needed to vent - it's about all I can do right now, nearly 7000 miles from a very peeved Mrs HTS. And from 4 neighbours who, right now I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire :frown:

At least I'll be home Weds night, we have an invite to a work colleague's home for Thanksgiving Dinner, which we know we'll enjoy, and I have time off work until 3 Dec - time to 'decompress'

Normal service will be resumed shortly, I am sure.

Originally Posted by Mr Weeze (Post 10406887)

On the flip side, the first day we arrived and I walked the 500 yards to the supermarket near the serviced apartment, I was walking back with about 10 bags of shopping - there was some heavy stuff in there. A woman stopped her car and asked me if I needed a lift as my stuff was heavy. I declined, but purely as I was only about 200 yards from the complex at that point. It was on a busy road, during the day, so there was nothing freaky about it - just considerate. So they are not all bad!

Originally Posted by eyup (Post 10406139)

wish i hadnt read this thread :unsure:,my fiance and i are getting married next year when i get the visa and im moving to Maryland,but i had noticed that 'friends' there are not the same as my 'friends' here in yorkshire .......

Originally Posted by Pulaski (Post 10407545)

It's not just America - when I was a child my parents moved from Yorkshire to the SW of England and immediately noticed that friends and neighbors never just "popped in for a cuppa". Later I lived in London for 15 years, and there also people never seemed to do casual drop-in visits.

In my experience there are sometimes as large a social and custom differences between the north and the south as with the country across the pond .... (yes, I wrote that ambiguously because it is true in both the UK and the US.)

Originally Posted by Mr Weeze (Post 10406887)

On the flip side, the first day we arrived and I walked the 500 yards to the supermarket near the serviced apartment, I was walking back with about 10 bags of shopping - there was some heavy stuff in there. A woman stopped her car and asked me if I needed a lift as my stuff was heavy. I declined, but purely as I was only about 200 yards from the complex at that point. It was on a busy road, during the day, so there was nothing freaky about it - just considerate. So they are not all bad!

Originally Posted by Orangepants (Post 10408097)

On my first visit to Miami about 15 years ago, a woman stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride (I now know that it is unusual for people to walk more than 500 yards), so as it was so hot, I said yes - she dropped me where I was going and as I got out of the car, flashed me an evil grin and said something along the lines of "young lady, never accept rides from strangers, I could have abducted you, molested you and you'd never have seen your family again" :eek:

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10406258)

Wow! I couldn't imagine just popping in to a friends for a coffee without texting them first!:eek:

Originally Posted by Orangepants (Post 10408097)

On my first visit to Miami about 15 years ago, a woman stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride (I now know that it is unusual for people to walk more than 500 yards), so as it was so hot, I said yes - she dropped me where I was going and as I got out of the car, flashed me an evil grin and said something along the lines of "young lady, never accept rides from strangers, I could have abducted you, molested you and you'd never have seen your family again" :eek:

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10408737)

Originally Posted by Sally Redux (Post 10409597)

Interesting version.

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10409916)

Yeah it's really cool. I wonder what David is upto now?:thumbup:

Originally Posted by Sally Redux (Post 10409947)

He was showcasing some stuff with St Vincent on the Stephen Colbert show.

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10409973)

Who's St Vincent?

Originally Posted by Sally Redux (Post 10410226)

Her name is something to do with Dylan Thomas - she didn't make a great impression on me but he's still good.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YHDpKA6Yl2g

Originally Posted by Britishbees (Post 10414110)

Well, I have to admit I have had a chuckle reading this thread. I should say that I can now laugh about it but was pretty peeved off at the time. Having now realised how high the back gate is (nearly 6ft) and coming to the conclusion that getting one leg over, spending five minutes getting the next one over then, balancing on top of the gate before promptly falling off the darn thing, I won't be doing that again in a hurry.

I understand about people not answering the door because I never do. But I do go up to the peep hole to look out and see who is there and obviously if it is a neighbour I know then I open the door. All my immediate neighbours know us and we have had conversations with many of them so it was not as though they did not recognise me. I was annoyed at when finding a neighbour to talk to that they said 'get a locksmith', especially since I had just explained that I had my key to the door but I had these flip locks across the top and bottom of the door which I needed to try force free. Then being told 'have a nice evening'!!! Are you kidding me - I was feeling rather violent at that point - ;) Thank god the I had left the back door unbolted otherwise I was going to kick it in :)

Anyway, thanks for all your support guys, much appreciated. Hopefully things will only get better - we shall see.

Oh and Louise, thank you for your PM to Mr HTS. It was extremely kind of you and I shall reply to you via PM very shortly.

Mrs HTS

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10414342)

I see - wait until I am 16 timezones away and then you try to get your leg over!!??? And pain was involved as well?

After 15 years of marriage I had no idea you were in to S&M - I thought it was only C&A!

(NB for non-UK people... 'C&A' is/was a chain of department stores, not a reference to 2 closely located parts of the human anatomy!!!)

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10414342)

I see - wait until I am 16 timezones away and then you try to get your leg over!!??? And pain was involved as well?

After 15 years of marriage I had no idea you were in to S&M - I thought it was only C&A!

(NB for non-UK people... 'C&A' is/was a chain of department stores, not a reference to 2 closely located parts of the human anatomy!!!)

Originally Posted by Britishbees (Post 10414352)

Mouth is shut!!!! :p One should be working :)

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10414372)

So are you, Harry and Louise arranging some kind of menage a trois?:eek:

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10414342)

I see - wait until I am 16 timezones away and then you try to get your leg over!!??? And pain was involved as well?

After 15 years of marriage I had no idea you were in to S&M - I thought it was only C&A!

(NB for non-UK people... 'C&A' is/was a chain of department stores, not a reference to 2 closely located parts of the human anatomy!!!)

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10414531)

Hang on - that all sounds a bit French - and therefore evil...:eek:

Originally Posted by JRG67 (Post 10414567)

Les Liaison Dangereux

Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir

www.youtube.com/watch?v=irjbAudhIYc

Lady Marmalade.

:eek::eek::eek::eek: This is a taste of the kind of clubs I will e runnung in a seceeded successful Texas;)

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider (Post 10414632)

Strangely Youtube tells me this content is not available in my country!!