dfrbrowne

Thanks for that, makes me look forward to it a bit more.

Flabound oneday

I think you have a lot to look forward to, not least the improvement on weather and out door lifestyle. we celebrate 3 years here on Saturday. the first 2 were riddled with hassle over visa renewal and green cards, finally we feel settled.

do we miss England ? Mrs more than me, but then she hasn't been back whilst I have a number of times and so get to 'enjoy' British weather...

she misses friends and some family (her Granddad is 91 and she has this 'Ill never see him again' blues) walking in the countryside and the village life we had.

me I don't miss so much, a few mates and footie on a Saturday afternoon, a good curry and decent Chinese BUT I love the food here , and the lifestyle we have.

I think the biggest down side is living where we do we have a lot of lazy untrustworthy rednecks who make trying to do any business a real PITA.

Glad we did it ? Hell yea..........

dfrbrowne

Thanks, I am a bit worried about the food to be honest, what do you love?

Flabound oneday

ok well if you want to shovel cr@p fast food down you will be in heaven, however we made the conscious effort to eat (more|)healthily
be warned doing that isn't cheap...good salad and vegetables are expensive and don't last, you will be 'bit' shopping every 3-4 days.
we like whole foods and trader joes for better/organic things.
as for supermarkets Publix is the waitrose, Winn Dixie the sainsburys and walmart the Asda.
however you can get your basic stuff from walmart cheap.

ok- good stuff
Steak/beef ....ten times better than UK
Chicken ...buy the decent stuff and you will be very happy,
sea food, again very good

what we miss
Curries
Chinese
there again maybe its improved our diet :-) as we were on 3-4 curries a week at times.

eating out we tend to avoid chains and try local places. In tampa you will be spoilt for choice
we have eaten more Italian and, Japanese since being here...but we don't eat out a lot, my grill was the best purchase -we must cook out 2/3/4 times a week

you will hear a lot of people (americans) say they are going out for dinner -then they end up at Arbys or macdonalds !!!! sadly as you will see from the 'heavier set shapes' quantity rules over quality

we had one guy trying to convince us the dog and a slice special at sams was a 'not to be missed deal' for dinner !!! No ta

transatlantic_chap

Food -- As with many things, it depends on where you live. I spent several years in Chicago, which has amazing restaurants, then moved downstate to a college town where the fare was a little more pedestrian. What it did have, though, was an amazing Farmer's Market and I just ended up getting really good at cooking with very fresh and fairly local ingredients. Here in the UK there is a very well developed Supermarket Culture, with lots and lots of Ready Meals that are pretty decent, but as a result it is far too easy to lose your cooking skills and just grab an M&S sandwich or salad for lunch and some sort of pre-made curry for dinner. Also I feel like I see way more people in the UK eating crisps/chocolate bars and Greggs-ish pastries (sweet and savoury). Still, I would agree that the average American is likely to be quite a bit chunkier than the average Brit (unless you live in an outdoorsy place like Boulder, CO or something, in which case you'll get a lot of very active and in-shape people making you look bad.)

Rose tea

In my experience, it's the chain restaurants where you get the most visits from servers asking if things are okay. For local places you're much more likely to be left alone. Ritzy places follow the same rules that ritzy places follow everywhere: remain invisible until the second before you want something, then the servers are right there at your table as if by magic.

Tipping is done at between 15-20% where I live. Personally I find it more embarrassing to leave some token amount (say, 50 cents on a $15 bill) than to leave nothing. My dad always just throws some pennies into the tray and I think it's insulting. I'm not a server so I don't know how they feel, but to me, either tip for real or don't tip at all. If service is abysmal, I won't top and I don't feel bad about it.

You can tip in cash or on the card. It might affect how the tip is distributed amongst the staff in some places. I've never told someone I'm tipping in cash when I press "no" for a tip but you could definitely do that.

Editing to add general comment about food: the food where I live is miles better than what I could get in the UK. There's no comparison. I don't have a huge range in my little corner of the world, but in terms of freshness, taste, and creativity, the US wins hands down. I've got used to the US version of Indian food and the idea of Indian food being a type of health food ( ), and I've given up on Chinese entirely in favour of Thai and Vietnamese. Chinese here is just weird. But I don't miss it much anymore. One thing that's hard to do here: go into a supermarket and pick up a decent sandwich or ready meal. If you go to a very good supermarket, you'll do all right (Whole Foods or a Co-Op), but you'll pay a ton for it. I would never buy a ready meal or a sandwich at a regular supermarket here...ewwww.

civilservant

Asda IS Walmart