ironporer

Forgot them..though they are not very agressive. The Brown Recluse (which I also forgot) IS, and they are all over- and they have a horrible bite.

As to real "Football"...you'll never convince the Cowboy's fans that a bunch of guys running around in shorts and knee socks, kicking a ball and showing their tits to the crowd when they score is better than watching a bunch of steroid pumpin' 350 lb guys in tight pants patting each other's asses with one of them sticking his hands between a dudes legs rubbing his nuts every play.
(And I do like 'soccer' very much, too bad Spain always loses in the "Mundial".)

dbj1000

The Brown Recluse bite that makes large areas of your flesh rot and drop off you mean?

Not forgetting chiggers, which may not be dangerous but are itchier than HELL. It always makes my UK friends laugh that we have a bug that is too small to see, lives on your lawn, jumps onto your legs and tunnels into the nearest hair follicle, excretes acid to digest the surrounding flesh and then either falls off or goes and dies in your leg (or groin if you're really lucky) producing the mother of all itchy bumps

...but I'll take chiggers over Cheggers any day!

Oh yes, and the DFW area is a pretty nice place to live, if you ask me. We're in the sprawling suburbia of Plano, and it certainly is lawns, malls and SUVs, but nice for all that.

And you certainly can get a lot of house for your money! The cost of a 2-bedroom terrace in Surrey gets you something in a nice neighbourhood with a pool, 4-5 bedrooms and around 5x the floor space in Plano, and probably more in Grand Prarie.

The downsides have mainly been stated already - very hot summers (although I'll take March-October sunshine over British drizzle any day), Texans (although I'll take Texans over Surrey snobs any day!), George Bush (although... ah, bollocks, there's no advantage to Dubya!) etc. Oh, and if you like hills you're bang out of luck round here. You won't get higher than the High-5 freeway overpass here

v8anglia

so appart from the killer wild life (including dubya) its a nice place to be !

ironporer

But 3 hours south you have the Texas Hill Country... truely God's country. Lake Buchanon, LBJ, Inks Lake, Marble Falls...lakes all the way to Austin. Great boating and some of the most beautiful wild flower explosions I've ever seen Feb-May. Well worth the trip, plenty of cottage rentals available, Inks Lake state park camping. Intreresting geography, and geology with those great granite domes.

Jabba1

Big Bend national park is another scenic area in the southwest "bend" of Texas.

Jabba1

Ah yes!! Texas hill country!!!

Texas Brit

Well I actually live in Austin, which is quite different from Dallas, but, point taken.

On the other hand, cannot help noting that dbark lives in Arkansas, and I can confidently say that, of the places I have lived in the US (Oklahoma, New York, California, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas), Arkansas (at least Conway, near Little Rock) stands out as unquestionably the most miserable place of all! Sorry.

Britdrinker

I think you can just about see my boat in the background of that pic!

No Grand Prairie for me!

Texas Brit

I have to admit, Texas wildlife can be odd. Although Austin is quite positively covered in trees and totally not like people's image of Texas, it is a bit odd to step out into your back yard and see a couple of vultures tearing the head of a squirrel carcass.

v8anglia

does anyone know of any real estate agents in grand prairie, i`ve tried looking on the web but failed miserably

Britdrinker

They're called realtors over here. Type "grand prairie realtor" into Google and you'll be awash in them!

Texas Brit

And you should definitely check out www.realtor.com and go in and do a "map search" which will narrow you down to the areas you are interested in. Make sure you check things out in Dallas as a whole before just buying based on proximity to work. Personally, even if I worked in Grand Prarie, I would definitely live in Dallas proper. Depends a lot on what you are looking form. We don't have kids, but if you do, be aware that schools are a huge issue in the US generally and drive a lot of decisions about purchases. A good realtor can help you with that.

Maybe one of the Dallas people here could message you with a number of a realtor they liked. There is a HUGE variation in quality for realtors so pick carefully.