It still cracks me up to say “hired” instead of “rented.” 

Also good to know:  If, on a Monday, an American says to you “We’ll do it next friday,” they mean the Friday that is about 11 days later. (The one in the next week.)

If a Brit says the same thing, they mean the one in four days.  (The very next one.)

Glad Mr. Tea and I sorted that one out the easy way.

We are going to IKEA today and buying a wardrobe.   This makes me smile, as my clothes are still in boxes from my move six months ago.  Tallying up the shopping list, I stopped to think to myself that immigrants have this reputation for being poor… but nobody ever stops to think that the act of moving to another country is the only thing that made us that way.  Imagine replacing your car, house, furniture and any climate-inappropriate clothing all in one go, on top of the six thousand USD or so it’d take to move your few smaller belongings over and get a visa.  You’d be poor, too!

I gotta tell you, though - it’s worth it for the mere fact that our on-demand water heater never lets me run out of hot while showering.  Those things are amazing.  I could be in the shower for half a day and never be cold.  They’re not as popular where I’m from because it’s too cold, and they can’t heat the water fast enough to keep you warm AND have pressure.

Well, we’re home again.  England knew I was on my way, it seems, and I watched out the plane window as we went from glorious sunshine up above the fluffy landscape down through the fog, only to finally land in black skies and pouring rain.   Welcome home!

American Airlines is one of my least favorites to fly, and coming home was no different as they changed our aircraft at the very last minute, delaying us by three hours.  Some of the passengers got bumped when we took a smaller plane, or decided they’d rather go to London immediately instead of waiting three hours to get on a flight to Manchester, but AA forgot and loaded their bags on the new flight anyway.   This is how we ended up sitting two hours on the tarmac, waiting for their ground crew to check through all the bags they’d already loaded.  

This begs the question:  If you can’t (understandably) take off with owner-less bags in the hold, lest they be bombs, how do those bags eventually get to where they should be? I mean, presuming the passengers who changed flights have already left the airport?  They must get there somehow.

Anyway, our flight was mostly full of brits, and thank goodness, since they were all pretty laid back about the five hour delay for their seven hour flight.  They even clapped when it was time to take off.  I can’t shake the suspicion that if it had been a flight of americans, there would have been way more shouting, and not in a good way.

Mr. Tea and I were talking about british temperament while we were vacationing.  I have noticed something interesting since starting this blog. I constantly nit-pick about both countries and cultures, but since Great Britain is all new to me, I tend to focus on them, particularly when whining. The thing is, the brits that read this blog never really give me a hard time about my complaining. They take it in stride or explain where I’ve lost the plot, and mostly laugh along with me when I bitch about the weather.

It’s the americans who get super defensive and huffy when I mention things about the states that make me crazy. That surprises me, since when I say something about life in the states, it’s based on WAY more experience than my statements on life in the UK, which I know are frequently sheltered and naive.  Maybe the yanks should change the motto to “Taking it personally since 1776.”

Obviously, this post will do nothing to help my public relations in that department, hahaha.   Really, though, I find europeans to be much better at agreeing to disagree, or at least logically debating an argument, and sure wish the people I love from home would try to understand how that skill can benefit an entire nation.  I’m still not as good at it as I’d like to be, but of all the personality changes cultural immersion is causing in me, that’s the one I welcome most.

It’s been about six months since I officially moved to the UK, and now that I’m visiting my family for the first time since then, I keep getting asked what it’s like to be home.

I guess the thing is that it doesn’t really feel like home anymore.  Six months isn’t such a long time, but I spent a lot of time over in the UK before I decided to move there forever. Deciding to live somewhere forever is a pretty big mental shift, and you can either pine away for the home you knew or roll with things and make yourself a new home.  I’m not a big fan of pining away.

So, at the risk of sounding like a jerkface holier-than-thou ex-pat, I have to say that I am feeling kind of America’d-out, and more confident than ever that I made the right decision for me.

Don’t get me wrong - I am doing my absolute best to use my British paycheck to revive the American economy, because if there is one thing America is awesome at, it’s selling stuff.   We were lucky to arrive during all the 50% off summer sales, and even with the exchange rate being less awesome than it once was, it’s still cheaper to shop for clothes in the states, and with better selection, too.  Zappos.com ships to America for free, too, and hey hey Zappos, woo!

But on the other hand, I cringe at all the angry drivers and the food additives.  I cannot believe how much food packaging I have thrown away since I got here.  I feel brainwashed by all the commercials on the television and the way they try to make every product purchase some kind of life-affirming expression of your personality… as though your existence means nothing beyond the flavor of air freshener you chose.  The prescription-only drug commercials really make me sick to my stomach.  The commercialism of everything and a nation of people who so often seem to take their convenient lifestyle completely, totally and utterly for granted.  There is a serious sense of entitlement in America that I have yet to encounter commonly in the UK.

I guess that’s why I moved.  Please don’t hate me.  I still think America is an awesome place to be from.

It’s hotter than hot in Chicago, today, with the thermometer reading out at exactly 100 degrees still at almost 6pm.  (That’s almost a hefty 38, if you live in celsius-land.)

We shopped for eight solid hours today, again.  Shopping:  America’s pastime.  Still, there is a lot to be said for walking into a store and finding more than three choices for everything.  It’s not that I mind making do with whatever the stores have at home;  it’s just nice not to have to sometimes.

It’s nice enough that Mr. Tea spent some time in Bed, Bath and Beyond today musing out loud about how easy it’d be for us to just buy some land in the states and live here instead.  Amazingly, I cringed to hear him say that.  I guess it’s because I’ve already weighed the benefits of both places ten million times and still arrived at England as my answer.  I guess that still surprises me sometimes.