Quote:
Originally Posted by frozensolid_702
heres the deal.........................
im sick of the us and want to bounce the F*** out of this country in a bad way.
i have a good job with citibank and could probably/hopefully make a direct transfer so at least i will already have a job when i get wherever im goin.
ive been thinking somewhere in the uk, cause my mom is from there (although i dont know where) and i was thinking it would be less of a culture shock than if i chose somewhere like russia or mexico.
i dated a chick from there and was always told how great it was, but outside of that all i know is from what ive seen on tv and the movies :-\
i was thinking about getting an apartment in london because im sure theres gotta be at least one citibank there and i wouldnt have to give up too many of the perks that i get from living in las vegas (i dont gamble, fyi)
so heres what i want to know................
do i gotta get citizenship? is it hard to do so? (i know it is here)
is there a big difference between dollars and pounds? if so how much?
do people in london hate americans? i think i heard that the women love us cause of the accent, but the men hate us
it doesnt necessarilly have to be london, but i want to go to a big city.
im leaving this country sometime within the next 6 months, for sure. i just dont have any idea where im going. maybe even australia (sydney) i just dont want to learn some new language
London is a big big city, massive immigrant community. Full of suits in the morning and afternoon, and in the evening full of swarthy looking foreign fellows cleaning up after them in the evenings. If you work for Citigroup a move to London would probably be good for your career because its the world's leading financial centre, the crux on which the two biggest economic bloc's (EU and NAFTA) in the world meet, and its also being purchased by the people who run the new york stock exchange (or so I heard) and so in that respect its good.
But its incredibly expensive, congested, and tightly packed. Its got the same population as New York or LA but squashed into at least half the area with very few high-rise flats by comparison. If you're middle-class and American the dinky little English terraced house in Islington that costs $650,000 will seem like an absolute rip off. It also has massive social problems similar to what you'd expect in in any large US city and a high crime rate. The stereotype of England being a peaceful land with few murders and robberies does not exist in London. It is safer than Detroit, LA, Baltimore, New York but "Notting Hill" it aint. London people just aren't as friendly as the rest of us though, and I'm sure thats true of New Yorkers and stuff, so my advice to you is avoid London if you want a happy life.
We have an archaic class system ridden with snobbery and parochialism. Remember this short guide when you hear people taking the piss out of where someone comes from. The places roughly equate in terms of steretype's and stuff.
Liverpool = New Orleans
Manchester = Dallas
Leeds = Houston
Yorkshire = Texas
North England = Deep South
Southern England = North-East US, Maine, New England, Massachusetts etc
Scottish = Canadians
Irish = Mexicans
Welsh = er, F*** knows, there's no equivalent of the Welsh.
Birmingham = LA
In England you will have to forgo a dentist. Our acclaimed universal health system will patch you up and send you on your way free of charge but that does not extend to the realm of teeth. So get dental insurance before you come over here.
Geographically there is no area of equivalent size in the US with as much geographical variation as the United Kingdom. Remember this a country 3 times smaller than Texas with a population 3 times larger, so its very packed, yet in parts it is very rugged and beautiful. In the south there are rolling farmlands, flat land good for farming. On the coasts there is lots of variation, some big staggering cliffs and lots of sandy beaches. You are never more than 75 miles away from the coast at any one time in Britain. Further north you have the pennines, bleak rugged lifeless moors running down the spine of England which will remind you of the badlands in Montana and Dakota. In North Wales, the Lake District and Scotland there are proper mountains, although apart from in the Highlands of Scotland they're not anything like as impressive as the rockies or appalachians. Scotland is the most naturally beautiful country on earth. Oh yeah it rains all the F****** time too, like Seattle.
Learn to walk. When I went to america I was shocked by how much everyone drives. I know people over the pond who used to drive distances of 50, 60, 70 miles to pick up a few generic household items, probably costing more in gas than they were planning on spending in the first place! In Britain a journey of such distance would not be contemplated without good cause, military precision and at least a week of preparation. I was in last year Boston seeing family and me and my g/f went round another family's house for tea. It was around a mile or two in distance from our place of departure. At the end of the evening the family asked me if I'd like a lift back, to which I replied "no thanks I'm walking". They were a little bit stunned, perhaps offended, because I'd rather have a 15 minute stroll rather than a 3 minute lift. My Girlfriend informs me this is routine over. Go figure.
Learn to drive. Its not just driving on the left, its the nature of the roads. There's precious few straight, wide roads in England so practice your high speed cornering before you come over here and get a nice little french hatchback that can take those corners. When your tryin to find a parking space in London you'll regret having Ford GT so ditch that big american 6 litre V8 and get something practical and with good fuel economy. Fuel over here is twice as expensive as it is over there. Once your out of the city just about every road is a windy twisty treacherous piss-take with pot-holes and massive bumps and indentations.
2 Dollar = 1 Pound = 1.5 Euro's. I think. Your the financial guy you should know more than me. A can of coke costs about 75p/£1.50 in London, 50p/$1 in the North/Wales/Scotland. Average wage is officially around £26,000 per year, in reality when you exclude the ultra-rich 1% its about £18,000 per year. In London its about £35,000 reduced to about £27,000 in reality. If you want to live comfortably in London at least £40,000 a year is needed. These are just from memory though, rough estimates based on what I last remember them to be.
Citizenship isn't hard to get if you have skills and a job lined up. Ignore Dildo's post because he's a tabloid reading BNP sympathizing racist. 90% of the UK is white/anglo-saxon/indigineous. 10% isn't. The vast majority of our immigrants are Aussies, Americans, returning ex-pats from the continent, Irish and other western European states. When compared to the number of
white people who came to this country after 1945, the proportion of Indian, Pakistani and Caribbean immigrations was tiny. Today those three groups account for about 7% of the population. Muslims count for about 4% of the population, most of whom are second and third generation British. This is not surprising coz a lot of Ozzies and Yanks have British ancestry within 3 generations. The Irish are just the boys next door and 1 in 4 Brits have an Irish parent or grandparent. More recently there has been a lot of eastern european's settling here, about 400,000 or so. less than 0.1% of the population. There also very longstanding eastern european communities in the UK dating from the 18th Century onwards. There's also a large Jewish and Chinese communities here also.There are also 6 Million British emigrants, ie Brits who are themselves immigrants in other countries, pretty much making us the world biggest migrants. Ever wonder why the US was full of white people?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Anglospeak.png
The point i'm trying to make is that bilbo is talking S***, Britain is much more welcoming to yanks and white immigrants than asian/black ones (funny that the BNP doesn't mention that). There's no "britishness test" that you have to take, despite recent talk in Westminster of introducing one, and even still I doubt they'd think you need to take it. You'll get in no worries, and you'll be more than welcome too. Don't let people worry you about immigration over here. You are an American, a nation of immigrants, and the issues that we have in way of immigration is F****** NOTHING compared to what you lot have over there, but the same racists prejudices exist. More mexicans come over the US border every week than illegal immigrants get into Britain every year. about 80% of the immigration in this country is done legally, in the US most Mexicans don't need to bother with la migra to get in.
Soccer is called Football. Remember that. If you like American Football go watch rugby, its a very similar sport. If you like Baseball go see a therapist. If you like Basketball there's plenty of Basketball teams over here, although they're all S*** compared the NBA. If you fancy a laugh go watch some English kids playing basketball at school in PE, thats funny. But remember at all times soccer is called football.
English pubs are F****** ace, but avoid city-centre binge-drinking faux-pubs, on weekends they'll be full of chavs (White Trash) spending their weekly dole money on getting F****** hammered. Find somewhere quiet and upmarket, for the love of dog don't go to any shithole fighting pubs, get to know the bar staff, and before you know it you'll have a home from home, a proper little refuge. Nothing beats it. People in England drink more than in the USA so be prepared to see things you wouldn't normally see back home
(woman pissing out of a taxi window friday night in Liverpool has stuck with me for life). I'll leave it there coz this is far too long as it is. Hope its been useful for ya.
