This has nearly caught out 2 people i know in recent months. Neither were actually going to america, just passing through. You also need the stupid ESTA thing, which you have to pay £15 for, just to land and connect. Joke. I've found that JFK is diabolical for immigration, so so slow. I had 4.5hrs between connections there and had to sprint down the terminal to catch my flight. Chicago and Dallas have always been pretty good.
The interesting thing to come out of the US charging people to visit is how some South American countries, such as Argentina, have decided to get their own back - by sticking every American tourist in one long queue, and when they reach the immigration desk they're told to cough up. More countries should do this, frankly - and by "more countries" I mean "all of them."
Yes, the USA incoming flights thing is just another example of their "do not as I do, do as I say" mentality. As a UK citizen I accept that with the increase in Islam-based terrorist activity here, I should not be treated as kosher. But that does not give their desk staff the green light to be utter c**ts in their job. The problem with reciprocal behaviour is you have to consider the poor souls on the desk front line who gets a denizen of the land where complaining about "customer service" on a whim is in their nations' basic bill of rights.
What’s good about the US is that there are loads of great people, great places and great things to do--but they’re pretty well hidden in an ocean of crap, so you actually have to go out and find them. It’s a world of Easter Eggs. Another upside: the US probably has the most successful Moslem community of any western nation. Muslims are on average wealthier than most Americans. However, right now we are demonstrating the truth of Benjamin Franklin’s words: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither." It’s funny how those who are most loudly in favor of free enterprise are most determined to keep inheritance taxes low. They’re endlessly proud of winning a fixed game and want their children to be just like them. The Americanism which I always liked: "Born on third base and acts like he hit a triple." Incidentally, my greatly beloved and omniscient wife offers a clarification: Americans have no trouble understanding it’s Spurs, not The Spurs. It’s Championship vs. Champion’s League that gives us fits. Now you know.
Nick Hancock said it best: America is a beautiful country, it's just a shame that Americans live there.
He has virtually plagiarised Oscar Wilde, who allegedly said, "I have nothing against the French except they seem to occupy a particularly pleasant part of Europe"
What I like about the U.S is that a jobbing actor who starred alongside a chimpanzee can become President. It's so much more egalitarian than having to have an Eton/Oxbridge background to get on in politics whether you profess to support the left or the right. Although he was known for his ridiculous faux pas
Forget Ronald Reagan - anyone see the death-throes of Sarah Palin's top-level political career the other day? That was terrifying. To think that she could have been one heart-attack away from being US president. Surely she would have been the most stupid leader of a great nation in modern times. Less than 100 years after FDR a nitwit beauty queen who knows less about the world than even the average person could have been US president. She probably could have been convinced to bomb Kajimenistan within 15 minutes if someone had decided to convince her that it existed. But I just wanted to give a counter-weight to all this US-bashing. I think that far too often British people lazily condemn America/Americans. It's sort of the last acceptable racism. And they do it because you can only condemn and hate that which you know well. And, of course, you're more likely to find fault in the country which is the most powerful in the world. Us Brits know American culture and the American way of life very well so we can easily find fault with it in a way that we cannot judge Chilean culture, or Malaysian politics or Romanian films. Cos guess what? The world is full of stupid, nasty crap. Only we don't get to hear much about the problems of racism in Algeria or how superficial and trashy Peruvian popular culture is. America's a much bigger target than other countries but I'm pretty sure that the negative traits either do show up in all other countries or would show up if that country was rich enough. Also we're less quick to condemn other countries cos they're so obviously "foreign" and so we don't feel able to judge. I think British people sometimes forget that America is a foreign country, populated by foreigners. The fact that they speak English leads us to see them as like British people but sort of wrong. On the not-travelling thing - someone already mentioned how in the USA there's simply no need to go to other countries to experience pretty much any sort of environment/temperature you could want. It's all here. Not only that but to get to another country is a hell of a lot more hassle and expense than it is in the UK. When I lived in Brighton I could pay about 5 quid to get to Newhaven, pay about 40 quid to get on a ferry and then be in France within a few hours. From there I'm about a four-hour drive from about 6 or 7 totally different countries! Or I could pay about 80 quid and be in Spain on a two-hour or so flight. To leave the US for most people it is a very expensive long-haul flight. From California it's a half-day flight at least to get anywhere particularly foreign (Mexico and Canada being not too far different to the culture that surrounds me). Also I try never to talk about "America" or "Americans". This place is so huge and the States are so autonomous that it would be like saying "Europe is..." or "Europeans are..." Good things about California (the northern bit that I actually know about): - It's astonishingly beautiful. - People here are generally more friendly, more helpful and more happy than in the UK. - People here are more capable in a practical way, most people know a bit about plumbing, a bit about electrical and phone stuff, it's not that odd for someone to have built their own house. - Food is much, much better than in the UK. It all grows here. And even in some random bar if you order a burger it may well be grass-fed, free-range, organic meat and the bar won't even bother advertising it. It's just taken as read that they will be using quality, local meat. - You can go backpacking and camp out in the wilderness here and actually have camp-fires and such. Not like in the UK where you have to camp in a sort of refugee-camp full of tents in some farmer's field (or worse). I showed my wife photos of this lovely place in the Lake District that I camped and she was like "Oh - that's a pretty spot. But how come you're in that little field with all those other tents on top of each other?" - America has produced some of the very best books, films and music ever. In fact look at black culture in America. Is there a single genre of modern popular music that does not have its roots in black America? There. That'll do for now. But whilst I tut and moan about America just remember that it's not cos Venezuela is so great that you don't moan about it. It's not because the people of Chad are so much more intelligent than Americans that you don't moan about them. It's cos you know absolutely bugger all about Venezuela and Chad and if you knew as much about those countries as you do about America then you'd be slagging them off just as much. Also all the crappy things about the US? Like cheerleaders and Black Friday? British people lap that **** up. America does the crappy things first but Britain soon follows suit. We're not better than Americans, just less good at inventing all the awful things about modern, consumerist society which we all love.
Some very interesting posts, especially Lenny’s last one. The food is often very good and interesting, and it’s improved 1000 percent in my lifetime. It is great to be able to get into your car and drive for days on a quest for the best steak in Texas, or the most beautiful beach in Florida, or just to end up in the middle of nowhere, and watch the antelopes in Wyoming. On the other hand, English people who have sort of gone bad somehow isn’t a bad definition of (most) Americans. Did anybody see Steve Fry’s series on America? I thought he had most things right. He loved Kentucky bluegrass and Kentucky bourbon mixed together, and hated everything about Miami in theory while actually having a very nice time there in fact. Miami’s a good example of the best and the worst of America in one place. Garish neon green and pink everywhere, unbelievably shallow people, but wonderful restaurants, one of the world’s great beaches and lots of really fun, interesting hotels. You joke about how awful everybody is while having a perfect winter vacation. It’s the pockets of real culture that are the best thing we have on offer, most of them created by one minority or another: bluegrass and bourbon by white hillbillies, jazz, blues and a million sub genres of music by African Americans, often near the Mississippi, so much of American art and other high culture created by gays, often from New York the Indian roots of our way of life, political system (to some extent) and food. Americans are happier than most people. Partly it is ignorance being bliss. It may be partly the Indian influence as well. "[Indians] enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments…" Thomas Jefferson
I think, RWAEB, that living in the wealthiest country in the world would tend to cheer most people up. And I personally live close to the richest county in the richest State in the richest country. And I earn a pittance. People round here think I'm a total scumbag but I feel like I live like a king. And I know I do. Fun fact: If the UK were a state in America it would be the second poorest in the Union. That's whether you take median earnings OR GDP per capita as your measurement. Learning that made my experience of living in California make much more sense.
Careful lads.My wife's a Kentuckian!....from "Bloody Harlan!" By the way,the locals in Lexington,Ky, are up in arms because the local muslims want to build a bloody great mosque.....and probably will. CCan you imagine living close by and having to listen to all that wailing umpteen times a day? By the way,if the mosques are full of men on their mats,where are their ladies?
My bad, again, as usual However, on the upside i'm learning a lot of things from people with more experience in what i'm about to embark on. So at least it has been of some use That fact about UK being a state is very humbling Lenny! While i'll be moving to a city, it will be a small city (doesn't even feel like a city compared to london) and is in reach of a lot of beautiful countryside/landscapes which i fully plan to make use of while i'm there. It's also in "The South" (not the capital S, i'm told that is important ) which seems to be a much more relaxed and friendly way of life.
I think with your attitude you’ll probably really like it, though you’ll certainly miss Alassippi from time to time. Taken as a whole, the US is crap. But you don’t experience anything as a whole, and there are lots of great components of it.
You. I made it confusing by editing in Lenny’s fun fact. The bad news in the US is that the median wage earner doesn’t earn any more than he did in the early 70s. All the increase goes to the top of the pyramid and stays there.
Where does the median lie though? I'm a software developer and from my investigations so far it seems the salaries between there and here are not so different when the currencies are converted. And American living seems cheaper. So, if i can snag a job by somehow passing an American interview where they seem to like brash, confident people (of which i certainly am not) then i'll be ok.
Can't remember. Got the fact from a Radio 4 (still listen even from the States - the internet makes emigrating a very different prospect from what it was 20/30 years ago) show called More or Less. They take stats that are thrown out by politicians/media/NGOs and investigate them to see if they bear scrutiny. This one about the UK being the second-poorest in the Union if it was a State was in a column in the Telegraph I think. They checked it out and came to the conclusion that it's basically about true. The Southern states are nowhere near as impoverished as they used to be and, actually, being the second-poorest State in the USA does not make you that poor. Bizarrely I don't think they mentioned which was the No. 1 poorest State. As you say, the cost of many things here is much cheaper. But internet, phone etc much more expensive (bloody big country to get all those wires over). Plus, of course, there's the cost of healthcare. As mentioned, I'm a total pikey so now get free governement healthcare for lots of stuff and there are ways around having to pay huge amounts for certain things. Most Americans don't want to have to put up with the places that have tatty offices and you have to wait longer. If you're having a job interview don't be surprised if it includes a drug test. I know! Land of the Free! But there are plenty of products and techniques available should you need to cover up any, er, indiscretions.
