jumping doris

Same here.

Irn-bru

Hi and welcome whereabouts are you?

danfan

Thanks Irn-bru! I'm in Western Pennsylvania, adapting to artic weather!
It's actually very nice where I am, in a small town in the country & the countryside reminds me of home. The people here are very nice & friendly - much nicer than in Virginia where I lived for 4 years - I felt sooooo out of place there even though there were lots of Brits there through the military.

Reading this thread yesterday did get me homesick all over again, but I was already feeling it a bit because I had got my Permanant Resident card & had been discussing whether or not I should apply for citizenship - that got me thinking about home a lot more.

britvic

Hello Danfan, I'm in Virginia not for much longer though Welcome to BE

danfan

Thanks for the welcome.

Ooo I was in Newport News too!! I lived in the Menchville area. Do you like it?

britvic

Your having a laugh ain't ya.....NO.

danfan

ROFL! I hated it! All that concrete & crime (and not even a good city with decent places to go), the most unfriendly people in the WORLD I thought. And I could also never understand, when I did meet someone who seemed friendly, one of the first questions after what's you name was "What church do you attend?"

Are you going back to UK or elsewhere in US?

Hugh Handbag

Not at all. I have a much better life here than I ever did at home. I grew up in Toxteth and literally had to fight for everything my whole life.

I get over here and life is a breeze, great job, great area I live in, beautiful wife yes life is great here. I would never return home unless I had to care for my parents whent hey get old and once they are gone I will be back on the first flight back here and will probably never ever return.

For those people who may have lived in nice places and had decent jobs etc before comming over here I can imagine dealing with the INS and all that stuff could make you homesick but as I said I grew up in L8, no matter how rosy the glasses I put on the place is still a ****ing shit hole, why anyone would want to have children and bring them up there is beyond me.

robskatie

I miss the UK but i'm not particually homesick, for me home is where my family is and that is right here with me.

DollyLlama

Hello and welcome danfan

Irn-bru

I lived on the outskirts of Dulles airport, I loved it there.
Don't know how I managed it but it was actually quiet apart from 30 mins each day!
But we did travel to some other towns in the south of VA and were so glad we didn't live there!

danfan

Thanks for the welcomes

Hugh, I can understand your viewpoint. The cost of living is so much less here, it's much easier to have the nice house, car, neighbourhood etc. As much as I miss home, I know I couldn't afford to live there anymore unless I went back to my stressful career & I've got used to not having that. Even when I had that career though, I lived in a tiny terraced house in Birmingham with a garden the size of a stamp - now my house is bigger with a few acres and a lake. Bit different!

Irn-Bru - the only time I was in that area was when I moved here and flew into Dulles. I was so tired I fell asleep in the car & missed seeing it all.

jumping doris

We are slightly the opposite here...our house is smaller although we have a bigger garden, but not acres. I can't work and so our income is slightly less. With two teenagers and an 11 year old life is more expensive here because they do so much more and every activity seems more costly than the last one! They can't work either. My eldest should learn to drive but we couldn't afford another car for her to use. All made worse by the fact that the company my husband works for were not entirely truthful about their financial status and all the promised payrises and bonuses remain fictional.
Just to add salt to the wound I found out yesterday that the house a few doors down from our old one (in the UK) is for sale. At the moment I would go home because I can't see the company here ever improving but the rest of my family love it. Also the house in the UK has gone up by £75,000 in just over a year!!!!

danfan

House prices there are outrageous. Our house & property here was half the price of my old terraced there.
Something that does sting here, for me anyway, is healthcare. We're self employed so don't get benefits. My husband broke his hand last year & for a simple clean break, we had a $3k bill to pay. As bad as the NHS was at times, I seriously miss that.

I agree about outside school activities too. My 2 kids that are at home are only 10 & 7 and already it's starting to get expensive. Dreading teenage years!

JulianB

I think we all go through the same kind of cycle. First off you feel all gooey about the UK, the good old times, and all of that kinda stuff. Then you take a trip back home and realize how really shit it has become, and all the reasons why you left for your new adventure. Then you have to say all your goodbyes over again, and gooey somes back. Then you get back to the US, and realize it's actually pretty damn fine here. A shit day at work, big-assed bill, no bonfire night, the local store has taken branston pickle off the shelf (that was a black day indeed) etc., etc. and we go back to gooey. Round and round we go........