Here are some shots I found of the town I'm moving to (Edenbridge): My wife and I were married in this church. Built in 1300's. This is the high street (main street). Pretty typical view: Every time I stepped outside I felt like saying, "It's a fucking fairy tale town." [video=youtube;wp50aAVNc-U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp50aAVNc-U[/video]
England is so fucking expensive with the exchange rate. Maybe its different in the smaller towns but fuck, london is cray cray. :MARIS61:
I was only half-serious. One magical life of indeterminate length is ours. Grab all the adventure and experiences you can.
Man, you don't even know. I'm moving from a 2400sq ft house in Idaho that costs me $680/mo (yeah, even I laugh at how cheap that is) to 1200sq ft at $1800. Half the house/yard for nearly 3x the money. It's less culture shock than sticker shock for me.
My mom moved my sister and I to Mexico for two years when I was a kid. Friggin hated it at first but I got used to it and it has greatly paid off for me in the long run. I hope your kids will understand. Looks awesome!
Idaho is cheap. England, even the small towns, are expensive. You mentioned housing already, which is insanely expensive compared to Idaho, but virtually everything costs more, sometimes a lot more. The only thing that is less is medical care, but you pay in your time and in sophistication. I like the feel of the small towns in some parts of England. Like all small towns it will get boring. Cricket matches for entertainment? At least the ale is good. The climate wont be as good imo. Boise has a decent four seasons climate, with a lot of winter sun even if cold and great summers. England has blah weather with long stretches of no sun. The sawtooths I would miss.
I can get your kids into Hogwarts..... I know some people there. In fact they frequent this forum regularly. Sent from HCPs Baller-Ass iPhone 5...FAMS!
I worked in the City for a while. London could be a grind, but I would get out to the countryside occasionally and always revel in its beauty. You'll have a wonderful time and I'm certain your kids will embrace it. You're giving them a marvelous experience. My guess is your move will be permanent. Given your posts, I think you'll find England much more to your liking than Boise.
How did those English girls like your American accent, Maxie? I bet they all dropped their knickers for you.
Those are all pretty valid points, and nearly all of the things I've struggled with. I think there are a ton of positives as well, though. Easy access to Europe. London and all those awesome museums. English countryside. Really interesting culture and history. And of course a huge network of friends and family my wife has had to forego while living in the US. We have friends and family here as well, but overall I think it's a tighter-knit bunch over there. I'll be out of my comfort zone, but as a pretty entitled person (white male, 40) who has lived in the same place 13 years, that's probably a good thing. At the end of the day, though, it's not just about what I may or may not like. I have to think about what's best for wife and kids too. If it were just me, at this point it'd be a coin flip. But my wife has sucked it up for 13 years, and it's a massive opportunity for the kids.
It's hard to say. My politics are more agreeable there, but life isn't just about politics. I'm generally a pretty happy, optimistic person in Idaho, though, and I doubt that will change much when I get there. Hard to say for sure, though. Happiness and optimism aren't really stereotypical English traits. Somebody described being an American in England is like being the guy in the Hawaiian shirt who asks awkward questions at the funeral. I think about that a lot.
Make sure to wear a fanny pack every day and also make sure to expressly mention your fanny pack throughout the day.
My wife actually used to wear one of those when I first met her. (We were backpacking around europe.) I made sure to admire her fine fanny pack loudly and often. It looked quite sizable on the outside, but surprisingly quite a tight fit when you opened it. Sometimes you could barely wedge a finger in there. She once got a light bulb stuck in there--man, was that some strange story. Anyway, it looked like hell from a purely aesthetic point of view, but man oh man was the inner lining awesome. I could play with that fanny pack all day.
I didn't mean politics, but rather the prevalent outlook on life in England rather than Idaho. My feeling about being an American living in the UK (and I differentiate you living in England specifically, while London is more representative of the UK as a whole), is that they love to mock us because they want so badly to be us. We are unbound by class distinctions and just don't give a shit.
That's a funny stereotype, but i've heard they actually have better teeth than us. Like the best teeth in the world, actually.
My wife finds American teeth kind of repulsive. At least the bleached white look. It's not really a natural color when you think about it. She also thinks we over-obsess about having absolutely perfectly straight teeth, and the demands it puts on teen girls. She's just one person, I know, but I've never met an Englishman who professed to be jealous of that look. It's like saying they are jealous of our ability to create massive portions of food that result in 400lb people. England has its fatties (especially in the north) but it's got nuthin' on us. I'm definitely not going to be making a lot of teeth jokes there, if for no other reason that I don't want to expose myself to the deluge of fat jokes.
