Would you go back ?

[TracyTN 237]

I certainly will - it's the little things in life sometimes!

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

British beer is live and kept at 52 degrees F. The peak of perfection is Timothy Taylor's Landlord or Best Bitter. It doesn't travel more than a few miles or afew days, so impossible to buy a draught bitter beer in the US because of the distances.

Do you relate to my advice to the 'go backers' that things change and a lot of people end up going back and forth ? If this is as common as I suspect, making sure the GC or USC is intact is essential.

Things change and we change our minds and once are minds are open, they can never be closed again

I realise you may want to postpone your answer for an hour or two until you have had a double fried egg sandwich and 3 aspirin which does wonders

A lot of things change. I swore up and down that I would never come back to the land of the infidel, that I was happy and warm in the bosom of her Maj, where I could get proper bacon and beer, which are items necessary to keep Maven joints lubricated. Because I moved to the UK when I was a mere slip of a girl, I found that my thinking had become seriously non-American and I had no idea how I would ever fit in in America. Well, life took me back to America and it has been a trip in many senses of the word. I like it here well enough, but it still doesn't feel like home. I am as confuzzled by American ways and bureaucracy and attitudes as any immigrant, only I don't have a funny accent to excuse me. It's a very strange position to be in, an American who doesn't feel quite American but is seen and heard to be American so I don't get a lot of sympathy from people. People seem to think it's a put-on, with my funny words (bin, skip, multi-storey car park) and confusion about how things work, an affectation. It's real though, and so disconcerting that I am entertaining the thought of going back "home" to Britain soon because I don't fit in.

I just did a conference call and thought my head was going to asplode or implode. I just drank an entire bottle of Perrier and I'm still parched. Never drink the beer in a bar that has a towel for a front door -- pro tip.

[Captain Oates 911]

A lot of things change. I swore up and down that I would never come back to the land of the infidel, that I was happy and warm in the bosom of her Maj, where I could get proper bacon and beer, which are items necessary to keep Maven joints lubricated. Because I moved to the UK when I was a mere slip of a girl, I found that my thinking had become seriously non-American and I had no idea how I would ever fit in in America. Well, life took me back to America and it has been a trip in many senses of the word. I like it here well enough, but it still doesn't feel like home. I am as confuzzled by American ways and bureaucracy and attitudes as any immigrant, only I don't have a funny accent to excuse me. It's a very strange position to be in, an American who doesn't feel quite American but is seen and heard to be American so I don't get a lot of sympathy from people. People seem to think it's a put-on, with my funny words (bin, skip, multi-storey car park) and confusion about how things work, an affectation. It's real though, and so disconcerting that I am entertaining the thought of going back "home" to Britain soon because I don't fit in.

I just did a conference call and thought my head was going to asplode or implode. I just drank an entire bottle of Perrier and I'm still parched. Never drink the beer in a bar that has a towel for a front door -- pro tip.

Front door ! You were spoiled ! When I was a lad, we didn't have walls or a roof and we drank the beer out of cupped hands !

I am screwed up too coz sometimes I can't remember the English word for trunk - but I still get stuck with 'parking lot' instead of 'car park' - and as for 'cleats' !

I meet up with my ex-work buddies every February in the Stansfield Arms Restaurant at Apperley Bridge near Bradford - next Feb I plan to wave my blue passport at them and receive a chorus of abuse.

The first time they say I 'sound' American it will cause severe psychological re-calibration

Going back to exactly where I came from would be strange and would seem a retrograde step - a retreat - a defeat - so I have pencilled in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent as the target if it comes to it.

Still I think the main thing is to realise that it won't be the same and the old friends and old flames will have moved on.

cop this :

Edited June 18, 2010 by saywhat

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I'm never marrying another Yorkshireman though. Never.

[Captain Oates 911]

I'm never marrying another Yorkshireman though. Never.

Didn't know you had had the priviledge !

Anyway inter-racial marriage is illegal in Yorkshire - I had to go to Wisconsin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws

Edited June 18, 2010 by saywhat

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I found moving back to the US just as much of an adjustment as my original move to the UK. I'm sure the same would happen again if I moved over there.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Didn't know you had had the priviledge !

Anyway inter-racial marriage is illegal in Yorkshire - I had to go to Wisconsin

http://en.wikipedia....cegenation_laws

He's from near Sheffield but moved down to Dover when he was 14. We had to go to Vermont to get married. I think you are allowed to marry a sheep in Vermont now, so they're pretty liberal in their interpretation of who can marry whom/what.

I found moving back to the US just as much of an adjustment as my original move to the UK. I'm sure the same would happen again if I moved over there.

I have to keep this in mind. I keep imagining it will buttercups and daisies and bacon, but it won't be.

[Ban Hammer 13,643]

I'm never marrying another Yorkshireman though. Never.

i thought they made good pudding.

[Captain Oates 911]

I found moving back to the US just as much of an adjustment as my original move to the UK. I'm sure the same would happen again if I moved over there.

The evidence is mounting !

It seems humans can get used to most things and changing to a new situation is as unsettling going one way as it is the other

I keep half my wad in the UK at the Bank of England 'just in case' as I have seen people try to come back from Australia after 20 years and the exchange rate has moved and house prices have gone up more and they just can't get the same life style they had...

[Gemmie 142]

I would go back. At least if it happened at this point in my life. I'm pretty miserable in the US right now, mostly because I'm still struggling to get a life here. The only people I know are my husband and his family, plus a few people I speak to now and again, so there would be nothing keeping me here.

Maven and Alan, I think it's quite common to feel the way you do. I have a friend who moved to the US as a young adult, and she's been here for about 7 years now. She says it's like a cycle of emotions, every couple of years she has this overwhelming feeling that she needs to go back to the UK and that she doesn't belong here. She does usually get over it, but she said how once you've lived in two countries for long periods, you'll always feel like you're only half of that nationality, and that something is missing. Likewise, an American girl I knew when I was at university had been in the UK for 9 years and wanted to stay, but her visa expired and she had to go back, and she's like a fish out of water now.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

i thought they made good pudding.

I learned how to make it myself. He is now surplus to requirements.

[ValerieA 350]

Do you think we end up feeling like we don't have a country? A spot that we will always feel comfortable in? That is one of my concerns, is that this will never feel really like home, but that it will change me in certain ways and then home won't feel like home, either. On the other hand, all the major moves I have made in my life mean that I am way more open to living anywhere in the world.

[Captain Oates 911]

He's from near Sheffield but moved down to Dover when he was 14. We had to go to Vermont to get married. I think you are allowed to marry a sheep in Vermont now, so they're pretty liberal in their interpretation of who can marry whom/what.

I have to keep this in mind. I keep imagining it will buttercups and daisies and bacon, but it won't be.

BACON ! You were lucky. When I were a lad they used to take us to the farm just to lick the pigs !

Come on though Brit bacon is a million light years in advance of this burned fat stuff they flog over here. Bacon sarny with hp sauce ? Orgasmatolic^100 !

If he left the promised land at age 14 he will likely have lost the fine rangy bone structure and brain cell optimization that comes from Yorkshire beer age 15 on... Especially if he voluntarily became a southerner without the excuse of being captured by the slave trade

[Nik+Heather 121]

Come on though Brit bacon is a million light years in advance of this burned fat stuff they flog over here. Bacon sarny with hp sauce ? Orgasmatolic^100 !

I really don't get how your style of bacon hasn't caught on over here. I mean, I'm the US native side of the equation here, never spent more than a few weeks over there, and I LOVE the stuff over there, and if we want it here, we have to go to a specialty store and pay like $10 for 6 little slices (or is it 5) because the guy has to import frozen stuff. It's NUTS!!

[Gemmie 142]

Come on though Brit bacon is a million light years in advance of this burned fat stuff they flog over here. Bacon sarny with hp sauce ? Orgasmatolic^100 !

DROOLING.

My MIL claimed UK bacon is 'just ham'. Oh no she dit'nt!