Do you like living in Britain?

Lived in England for 30 years and here in the US for 7 years. We were able to move fairly easily thanks to the wife being American.

I was just typing out a massive list of things I like/hate in each country....but I'll just go for the tl;dr version instead. Ready?

Both countries have things that are awesome and things that suck. Both have the same ratio of nice people to idiots. I could happily live in either, and would always miss the other.
 
D.P. said:
Sadly that is true for most plaxes though if you are going on holiday with British pounds. That is the problem of the weak sterling.
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It is, but its cushioned by the fact that generally holiday-related-stuff in the US is cheap. Cheap stuff has become more expensive because of the GBP/USD rate, but with Aus expensive stuff has become even more expensive.

Fuel in Australia is now over £1 a litre. Seems cheap but when you consider I covered 6000km when I went thats a huge chunk more cash given it was about 60p then.
 
Spawn said:
I dont mind living here but not fond of people like Cheets64 et al....thankfully hes a major minority with his blinkered views;):p

Been here nearly 20 yrs and the only i dislike about the country is the weather really but then living in Canada for the early part of my 20 yrs meant i had to deal with brutally cold winters where temps used to get regularly to -15c or more:(. But summers are awesome there so tend to spend a few mths every yr summertime in Canada.
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haha oh you, I would be worried about EDL/Combat 18 members not me
 
Moved to Sydney over 3 years ago and in the process of getting permanent residency.

They'd have to drag me back to the UK kicking and screaming. The only time I would ever consider it is if I got an opportunity to move back to an independent Scotland.
 
I like it here on the whole and I'm pretty happy here. I couldn't really imagine living and working anywhere else. But I can't say for sure 'cause I've never tried it.

Hopping on the 'moving to Canada bandwagon'. I've only visited for 2 weeks before, but I'd love to go to BC for an extended period of time.
 
ThePirateHulk said:
Moved to Sydney over 3 years ago and in the process of getting permanent residency.

They'd have to drag me back to the UK kicking and screaming. The only time I would ever consider it is if I got an opportunity to move back to an independent Scotland.
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LOL so you love Sydney so much that you'd move to an independent Scotland, because it's going to be so different and vastly better in every way than it is under the UK umbrella! LOLOLOL

I have some news for you: nothing much will really change.
 
Robbie G said:
I've heard this a lot but I don't really get it. My job is what I'd call average / good and I have a 35 hour working week. Do the Australians work much less than this?

I ride my bike in the evenings, even if it's cold and cloudy, I have a local swimming pool and friends that I socialise with. Or are you just saying that the Australians have a much more outdoor-orientated lifestyle, more street parties and social events, etc?

I used to know some Australians and they were very sociable, always inviting people round whereas the English people on our street rarely mix with each other and barely say more than 'good morning'.
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I work 37-45 hours a week, going from working 50 hours.

I no longer have an hour commute each way (20 miles) in stop start traffic at the end of each day, I live 5 minutes from our office and there is almost no traffic. Work are flexible on hours and can take some time off if required during the day to do something.

The facilities are just a lot better, for example the local public pool has a 50m heated outdoor pool, 25m indoor pool, kids pool, sauna and more. They always have the lane ropes out for people to train properly with the timing clock etc. How many towns of 40'000 people in the UK would have that?

The closest 50m pool when I lived in Wigan would have been Manchester city centre or Lancaster.

Then there are several cricket pitches, rugby and football, proper BMX/skate park, cycling clubs, there seems to be a lot more available to do and its a lot more accessible.

Someone at work went away at Christmas, they let us go round to their house, use their swimming pool, use their internet as ours hadn't been installed yet, I had only known them a couple of months yet they had no issue with giving us a house key.
 
Berger said:
I no longer have an hour commute each way (20 miles) in stop start traffic at the end of each day, I live 5 minutes from our office and there is almost no traffic. Work are flexible on hours and can take some time off if required during the day to do something.
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Thats a job thing not a country thing - plenty of people in the UK live 5-10 minutes from work, have no traffic and have flexible hours. You don't need to emigrate to get that.
 
Berger said:
The facilities are just a lot better, for example the local public pool has a 50m heated outdoor pool, 25m indoor pool, kids pool, sauna and more. They always have the lane ropes out for people to train properly with the timing clock etc. How many towns of 40'000 people in the UK would have that?
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Depends. I have a swimming pool inside the actual building I work in and that can be used for free at any time by my family, and there are football pitches, tennis courts, and social clubs within the grounds owned by my employer. But I agree that the Ozzies know how to do sports facilities.
 
[TW]Fox;21569269 said:
Thats a job thing not a country thing - plenty of people in the UK live 5-10 minutes from work, have no traffic and have flexible hours. You don't need to emigrate to get that.
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Precisely. I live a 10 minute commute from my office in Zone 1, but I'd never consider that a reason for remaining in Britain.

I like it here because socially and professionally it offers everything I could really want. Good pubs (good beer), decent music venues, football (with the furthest away day being only 5 hours by train), family all live within Greater London and if I want a break from it all the countryside is a matter of hours away.

Saying that, I've not lived abroad and my travels haven't taken in too many diverse places (no idea what Australia is like), however I could certainly see myself living in either New York (for a short time) or San Francisco at some point.
 
ThePirateHulk said:
Moved to Sydney over 3 years ago and in the process of getting permanent residency.

They'd have to drag me back to the UK kicking and screaming. The only time I would ever consider it is if I got an opportunity to move back to an independent Scotland.
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Yea, because it would be so radically different if it was an independant Scotland, right? So much would change.
 
[TW]Fox;21569269 said:
Thats a job thing not a country thing - plenty of people in the UK live 5-10 minutes from work, have no traffic and have flexible hours. You don't need to emigrate to get that.
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I agree, I lived where I did at the time, because that was the best place for us to live, and I had to put up with the commute. Perhaps London and the South is somewhat sheltered, but in the North you could see the increasing unemployment and grottyness appearing, it wasn't somewhere I wanted to be in years to come. I didn't really want to move down South, so decided to try abroad while I still could and I had a job offer.

Sounds like you work somewhere decent Robbie, but for me and many others I know jobs were hard to come by and you were expected to do a lot for nothing or very little money. I had applied and had a few interviews at other companies but was unsuccessful.

For me it feels like you can do whatever you want here without being held back by "class" or finances, there are more opportunities which wouldn't have arisen in the UK.

Within 6 months of being here I feel we have been able to set ourselves up to a similar or better standard than we had in the UK after 3 years of living together. In another 6 months time I hope to have a decent sum in the bank and be living the good life!
 
Not really, no.

Aberdeen isn't bad and I do get to travel with work, but would like to work out in Asia (singapore would be nice) or the US (although that would likely be Houston :/)

Plenty of scope to travel and work abroad in my profession and I'm still but a young n'.
 
I'm from Ireland and I love living in Britain. If I had the cash I'd buy a house here and move straight away... well, here or Denmark. :D
 
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