An American family's' view of living in England

hollydolly

hollydolly

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Location
London England
I know there's lots of country comparison videos out there.. and this is not to knock the USA in any way, but I just thought that those of you who live in the USA and wondered what it's like might be interested to hear this man and his family's short views..




In the last video, I just gotta tell you that the lady is wrong about one thing.. and that is that every village has a leisure centre...unfortunately that's not true... Villages are usually very rural and therefore there are very few Leisure centres as they're almost all town or city based.

I had to laugh at his daughter who thought it was odd because she had to walk to classes and to lunch .... can anyone explain that to me please... do US children not have to walk to different classes or to the dining hall ?..I;m very curious to know the difference between the 2 countries ... :D
 

hollydolly said:
I had to laugh at his daughter who thought it was odd because she had to walk to classes and to lunch .... can anyone explain that to me please... do US children not have to walk to different classes or to the dining hall ?..I;m very curious to know the difference between the 2 countries ...
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I guess it depends on how far away classes and the lunchroom(?) are. If she's saying that she has to walk to school (which is where her classes are), then I guess it depends on how far away the school is. Same with walking to lunch — if the lunchroom is within the school, then walking would seem to be the norm.

One question: I didn't understand what was meant by getting "your residency" before you can rent. Could explain illuminate what "residency" means in this regard?

By the way, it sounds like a lovely life. :)
 

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hollydolly said:
In the last video, I just gotta tell you that the lady is wrong about one thing.. and that is that every village has a leisure centre...unfortunately that's not true... Villages are usually very rural and therefore there are very few Leisure centres as they're almost all town or city based.
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It's possible that by leisure centre they might mean community centre. Almost every village and hamlet have one of those.
Look up Stapehill, it's near Wimborne, Dorset. Accessed via a driveway between two houses, it's no bigger than a couple of garages, knocked together.

bill bryson.jpg
Amusing tales if you want to know about the eccentricities of Life in England.
The Anglophile, Bill Bryson is a very good read.

My wife and I have had many a visit to the US, I had a school friend, sadly dead now, she married an American, they lived in Savannah GA. We visited them many times. We have been all over most of The States that made up the Confederacy, in fact I have never been north of The Mason/Dixon line.

Much as I loved our visits, I always liked coming home. The one aspect of US life that I felt uncomfortable with is the gun culture. In our album is a lovely photo of my wife standing between two police officers. Talking to those officers they were surprised to learn that the reason British police don't carry firearms is because they don't want to. It's our police officers who prefer not to carry guns. We do of course have armed police, but they are a special unit that are called on when needs must.

Those two US officers were truly surprised when I told them that even the armed British officers, had to account for every round (bullet) that they signed for, whether they discharged their weapon or not.

America is known for it's gun related deaths, it makes for good copy in news reports. What those reports don't tell you is that two thirds of gun related deaths in the US are suicides. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country
 
I have read all of Bill Brysons' books, not all of them were funny.. but I did enjoy Notes from a small Island...albeit some of it came straight from the 'idea of England' rather than his actual experience..

yes the first think I picked up on in the video and the only thing they got wrong was the 'leisure centre' remark... almost all leisure centres are in large towns and cities.. small village halls or even a community centre is the most you'll get in a village..
 
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Devi... the little girl said she was walking to classes.. this is something we've always done, walk from class to class within the school every 40 minute period for a different subject and teacher .. and the dinner hall is within the school. Schools here are much smaller than the USA, so it wouldn't be far for her to walk ... so I wonder if the little girl had been in just one class with one teacher in the USA...

However I totally understand that depending on the state things can be very different wherever you live in the USA....just as things differ in Europe from country to country...so whatever this families experience of their homeland may be different to someone from a different state of course...:) I understand that totally...

As for residency..here's a link which explains it all...:D

https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits
 
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Warrigal said:
There is something about that man that draws me to him. He is so gentle that I am immediately wanting to meet him. His voice pulls me in too. If, as my dad used to say, I were two days younger and single (him too) I might batt my eyes at him. 😊
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LOL.. yes I thought that too Warri.... :sneaky:(y)..you kinda get the picture that not only is he good looking with a voice that would melt chocolate, he's a really nice person...
 
Perhaps the little girl went to a school in the US where each subject was taught by the same teacher so there was no changing rooms. This is very common in the lower grades.
 
hollydolly said:
Devi... the little girl said she was walking to classes.. this is something we've always done, walk from class to class within the school every 40 minute period for a different subject and teacher .. and the dinner hall is within the school. Schools here are much smaller than the USA, so it wouldn't be far for her to walk ... so I wonder if the little girl had been in just one class with one teacher in the USA...

However I totally understand that depending on the state things can be very different wherever you live in the USA....just as things differ in Europe from country to country...so whatever this families experience of their homeland may be different to someone from a different state of course...:) I understand that totally...

As for residency..here's a link which explains it all...:D

https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits
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Thanks, @hollydolly. Same here in the States — at least where I've lived — we've always walked from one class to another within the school. If the dinner hall (or a lunchroom) is within the school, we'd walk there, too. Most schools are not so large that you'd need a car, for instance. Unless we're talking about a university, which can be quite large and possibly require transportation.

Thanks for the biometric-residence link. That's pretty interesting.

Great thread!
 
In the first video he talks about the bread. From his description of American bread, he seems to be talking about commercial white sandwich loaf like a Wonder Bread. What bread would he be referring to the he and his family enjoy so much?
 
Devi said:
Same here in the States — at least where I've lived — we've always walked from one class to another within the school. If the dinner hall (or a lunchroom) is within the school, we'd walk there, too.
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Of course we walked from one class to another and to the cafeteria or lunchroom. Perhaps if she lived in some rarefied place, maybe they fly. I don't know what she's talking about.

They are a very nice family. I'm happy to see that he got a job closer to his work. I don't know if I could commute for as long as he did when he worked in the US.
 
Oris Borloff said:
In the first video he talks about the bread. From his description of American bread, he seems to be talking about commercial white sandwich loaf like a Wonder Bread. What bread would he be referring to the he and his family enjoy so much?
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oooh we have myriads of flavoured and speciality breads available from every grocery store and supermarket .... for example with my dinner tonight I had a 3 cheese bloomer

image.jpg
 
RadishRose said:
Of course we walked from one class to another and to the cafeteria or lunchroom. Perhaps if she lived in some rarefied place, maybe they fly. I don't know what she's talking about.

They are a very nice family. I'm happy to see that he got a job closer to his work. I don't know if I could commute for as long as he did when he worked in the US.
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My o/h commuted that distance and a little more for over 10 years when based at one particular place the south side of London to us.... 126 mile round trip every day ..on top of a 12 hour working day
 
Enjoyed the videos and it mirrored some of the things we experienced when we moved to the UK for 4 years.
( @hollydolly might remember our talks about our time there from another forum and
how much we enjoyed it and how much we miss it. )

We had a choice of living on the military base with free housing, but opted to live in a small village
15 miles from the base. Best decision we ever made.
Like any move there was a learning curve, but the rewards far out weighted any differences.

My quick list of things we enjoyed most:

1. TV - Back then we had just the BBC channels ( Sky was just starting )
I got hooked on 'EastEnders' and 'Coronation Street'.

2. Market Day - Ours was Wednesday if I remember. Grab our basket and visit the local shops.

3. Pub food - Our local had a family section and it was our families 'dinner out' place.

4. Our Garden - Learned a lot about growing flowers and the like from our next door neighbor.

5. Roundabouts - Best system to keep traffic flowing I ever experienced.

Sorry to be so long, a flood of great memories about our time there.
 
Like @Feelslikefar, my experience in England was due to my husband's USAF career. We lived in a village close to Upper Heyford RAF for 3 years.

I agree with all the things on her list and also the English bread the young man in the video mentioned. I think he might be talking about Mother's Pride. It's a basic bread bought in the supermarket like our Wonder bread but so much better somehow. The texture is denser and the flavor richer. Our military BX had it as well as being able to buy it at Tesco or Sainsbury's.

We didn't have TV until our last year there, but I loved the Radio 4 programs like The Archers and the variety music stations.

One thing I enjoyed most was that we could leave our windows open with no screens, they just don't have the fly problem we do and the weather is never as extreme as ours. The neighborhood dogs and cats would come through if I left the doors open and that was fun. One time a line of chickens walked into the kitchen looking for my husband who gave them scraps. Free range is really free there!

Another nice thing is their Ongoing Education program that lets older people take (uncredited) classes for free. I was able to take "19 Century Literature" at Oxford from a really great teacher.

I loved riding the bus (after I learned which side of the road to wait on) and going into Banbury on market day.

Indian restaurants are everywhere, the way Mexican restaurants are in the U.S. Delicious food!
 
Della... Non Brits are stunned when I tell them we have no need for insect screens here......you were near Bicester in Oxon....and @Feelslikefar if I remember rightly was in the opposite direction...

We have Indian restaurants for sure... but we also have many , many other types of restaurants, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Austrian, Italian ( galore)...and many, many more... not forgetting our own Excellent English restaurants owned and run by Michelin star chefs (including Gordon Ramsey)..
 
We were lucky enough to be stationed at 2 RAF bases during our time there, RAF Wethersfield and RAF Alconbury.
Rented a house in Braintree and the village of Somersham. ( about 50 miles east of Upper Hyford )

Agree about opening the windows with no screens, best sleep ever!
 
Oh yes, my husband found a Thai restaurant while we were in England that he really loved, he had spent several years stationed in Thailand. I just mentioned Indian because, at least in my part of Ohio, they are rare while we can find most of those others here.

Chinese? We got kicked out of a Chinese restaurant in Deddington because we didn't order enough food to satisfy the manager. It was lunch time and we had ordered two meals, but he said we had to spend some sort of minimum that we haven't reached, then he started muttering something about hating Americans so I got up and left, leaving hubs to pay for the rice crackers and follow. One of our British friends told us that the real problem was that we hadn't ordered any wine or alcohol. Ahhh, all became clear.
 
Della said:
Oh yes, my husband found a Thai restaurant while we were in England that he really loved, he had spent several years stationed in Thailand. I just mentioned Indian because, at least in my part of Ohio, they are rare while we can find most of those others here.

Chinese? We got kicked out of a Chinese restaurant in Deddington because we didn't order enough food to satisfy the manager. It was lunch time and we had ordered two meals, but he said we had to spend some sort of minimum that we haven't reached, then he started muttering something about hating Americans so I got up and left, leaving hubs to pay for the rice crackers and follow. One of our British friends told us that the real problem was that we hadn't ordered any wine or alcohol. Ahhh, all became clear.
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I honestly have never heard of that happening, must have been just a bad tempered owner..how unlucky for you..
 
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