kodokan

Something to keep in mind - assuming she can re-certify as a pharm tech (there are lots of community college courses for this for not too much money, and she could skim a lot of it by doing online classes), then she may not be able to work straight away if she wants/ needs to be popping back to the UK. A new job may come with zero holiday allowance the first year; the employer probably wouldn't want her taking many disruptive unpaid weeks either.

So she'll have to plan out when to do her course - perhaps leave it until she's ready to work, as the college may be able to help out with placements.

charlas

Sounds like a good idea! She loves America, we have been a few times together, it's just that she's so close to her sister that's going to be the issue I think. Although with Google Hangouts/Skype/etc it's not as bad as it used to be. And I think as long as I don't try stopping her popping back when she thinks she needs to it will be less of an issue. Plus can always have her sister and niece/nephew out to visit

charlas

Yeah that's what I was thinking, she will probably want to 'make house' first anyhow (stickler for laying it all out), and sure she can do a course on whatever she decides she wants to do next.

markcst

I moved over here to Dallas with BT on a similar basis (though I was married with kids). I got a conversion of 1.91 x my UK Salary (standard issue) and they doubled my yearly bonus. Plus I asked for them to round the salary up to the nearest 5k.


They also are getting my wifes EAD (on an L2 she can work, but has to be in country 90 days before that can happen).


BT pretty much paid for everything to do with the move. Flights, some shipping (not everything), visas, legal help and tax help.


The market is massive for Security people, but until you have that Green Card you are stuck with what you know.


Austin is pretty nice. I was at AMDs campus which is just out of town the other day and its got great views of the city. Bars and restaurants around there are amazing. A lot of Tech companies are moving there or Dallas.


The only "negative" I have heard about Austin is that its designed to be car unfriendly in the centre. Which isn't a bad thing.

charlas

Cheers for that, looks like my conversion is about 2.4/2.5, and car unfriendly is fine, might try find somewhere to live that's bike friendly into town.

And yeah lots of tech jobs in and around Austin at the moment, after all its what I do too 😊

petitefrancaise

car unfriendly???

The problem with Austin is that it is very, very pro car. To the extent that other options are incredibly limited. Bike paths hmmmm. Public transport - one metro line that runs every ?40 minutes with not enough car parking near the stations. Buses - nope, stuck in traffic like everyone else but with poor service and the great unwashed.

I'm just about to take son rowing from NW suburb. I'll be home at about 5.40(2 hours) after doing a return trip that will take me 35 minutes on saturday morning.

charlas

So some of the apartment complexes near the town are looking good then 😊 Rather use the bike though, keeps you fit after all, is the traffic Birmingham or London dangerous to ride in?

Pulaski

I thought we were talking about America?
I have ridden my bicycle around the Hammersmith gytatory, Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner, along Piccadilly Circus, and through the (old layout of) Trafalgar Square, and onward to the Aldwych. ..... Not once, but multiple times, and my bicycle was my daily transport around Wimbledon and Kingston on Thames for three years. I rode fairly frequently from Kingston to Holland park, viaHammersmith and Shepherds Bush and the roundabout just east of Shepherds Bush, but I have not, and would not ride even once into the town nearest where I live.

jjmb

the issue with bikes is that although students ride them downtown on the campus and the surrounding areas, every where else people just don't know how to react to them. It doesn't help that many cyclists have very little road knowledge. They ride them in the wrong direction, no lights and seems to me anyway, forget that riding a bike is actually dangerous in traffic but pay little heed to the traffic around them. Nothing more frustrating than being stuck behind a drunk student going down Guadalupe st at night, weaving all over road! Of course the drunk drivers are even worse If you are competent cyclist however, use to big city traffic, it's probably doable. Also from mid June to mid September, it just plain hot (32c - 39c).

charlas

Yeah wasn't thinking about the heat in mid summer, probably too much.

Something else to think about, thanks.

Bob

Just curious for the locals...but do they do the whole "ghost" bike thing down there too?

Chain up a white, painted bike near a post where a cyclist was hit and killed? Fair bit of it in Boston and some of the other cities around there.

charlas

Is drink driving really that bad over there? One of my pet pieves, but I'm a wierd t-totaler.....

Owen778

I think that's more a sign of how long ago you left the UK, to be honest.

When I lived in London in the late 90s and early 2000s, my best friend would often ride to work - a short distance, but it included the roundabout at Marble Arch, and probably other parts of your route too. It's partly because he's got a family now, but he's said that there's absolutely no way he'd do it now, and it was taking your life in your hands even then.

But then, I also agree that most drivers here give zero consideration for cyclists, and I have no plan to cycle outside my subdivision here, ever.

Bob

Oh you have no idea.

That and general bad quality of driving.

I live in a tiny town in the burbs, someone got killed end of last summer up the street from me, across town, during an actual race, someone else got hit and killed and up the hill, a kid was killed but that one might have been the kid not stopping at a stop sign, but the other two were cars not giving a toss about bikes on the road.

Edit: to add, there have hardly ever been any prosecutions for drivers killing a cyclist, just an "accident" and that's that. Though the chap up the street, is being prosecuted, but that's more because he fled the scene and left the guy to bleed to death without calling an ambulance and was drunk at lunch time and was over taking a car who was pulling out onto the street and then swerved into the cyclist.

Pulaski

If only the standard of driving was that good.

Drunk driving is a huge problem, and nothing much gets done until a driver kills someone. It is possible to get convicted of DD half a dozen or more times and not get jailed. If you get "banned from driving", you still get to drive to work/college, to church on Sunday, to the groceries, etc. so it ends up not being much of a punishment.

Sadly this is true, even when people blatantly leave far too little toom for a bicycle.