Expat

The 3,500 Mile Bagal Delivery

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Even before we left for England we knew there would be things we would miss or could not get while there. From what we read lots of people struggle with missing certain kinds of food from home. We also had trouble with not being able to find certain brands or products in the stores.

There have definitely been types of food that just point the same here. Too much less to groupers been things you can buy here in the store that we could only get in America. We’ve had enough family visiting that they bring any odds and ends that we just cant get. Food on the other hand is hard just isn’t an option and must we find an equivalent here.

Most of the things in relation to food I don’t think it is the same here isn’t a major urge to walk all the time. For example a good slice of New York pizza is very different than what I can get here. It doesn’t drive me crazy enough that it really matters. I love good Southern barbecue. Even in New York I didn’t go that often so not having it is an a huge problem. Growing up in New York from the bagels anywhere else just aren’t the same.M and i used to get bagels at least once a weekend pretty regularly when we lived in New York. That was one thing that I thought I would really mess when we moved. When I think about it I miss it. I just don’t think about it too often.

In May M flew to Washington DC for the Early Bank Holiday weekend. She went to one of her best friends wedding. . When M got home Monday morning she surprised us with bagels from DC. I ran out to the local market and picked up some cream cheese and smoked salmon. We had a proper Biggles and smoked salmon.

It was delicious. Much better than anything we could get in London. It reminded me that as much as I love Bagal’s I just don’t miss it that much. Apparently M and her friends swung by a bagel store Sunday late afternoon on the way to the airport. By the time we got them they want exactly fresh however they were still better than anything I can get here. That will probably be the most longest bagal delivery I will ever have.

The Story of Wonky Weather

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This is a post I wrote back in September.  The screen capture is from then also.  it wasn’t 20 C today.  I have had a huge backlog of things I wrote that I never posted.  Then I stopped writing a bit and have been slowly posting things.  Then I just forgot to post stuff.  I have come full circle and want to write again so the first thing I am doing is getting the backlog out.  I felt that this post was appropriate since its like 60 degrees Fahrenheit  in March right now.

I got the impression prior to my move to London that the city has a reputation for being cloudy and wet. After living here for a little while I realised that is a broadly accurate statement. The problem is it’s a wildly broad statement. What I’ve learned is that complaining about the weather almost national pastime in this city.  I was all but told that by more than 2 friends of mine. From their point of view I can understand some of the complaints. Coming from New York however where there is a significantly wider variance of whether you prefer a little bit more of the consistency of England. Even if that means less sun generally.

Everyone is pretty consistent in their assessment that things “get real”when it’s below zero (Celsius).  That is 32 F for Americans. They also comment about the fact that it usually doesn’t get over 25°C or about 77 F in the summer. I have also heard from many people that snow is virtually unheard of. Ironically all the statements I just made are not true this year.  We had a week of snow that basically shut down London even though from my perspective coming from NY it wasn’t much snow.  It was 25-32 C for probably around a month to 6 weeks in the summer.  And because of the heat there was tons of sun.

The rational side of me wants to believe everyone who made the original wild generalisations of the weather here and wonder why this year is different. The other less rational side of me is thinking why am I in the middle of a big deception around the weather in this country?.

Even with the two snowstorms. Well what they consider snowstorms. Even with the few days below zero. And even with 4-6 weeks of heatwave in late June and July I been very comforatable with the weather. The idea of a milder summer and a milder winter compared to what I am used to appeals to me. Problems start to arise when it gets over 25°C, somewhere in the 80s Fahrenheit. That is when air-conditioning would be required in New York. There simply is no air conditioning most places here.  To survive we bought two fans.  On most days we were ok.  Thankfully when I am writing this post in early September the weather has settled down to 20-25 C or mid 60’s to mid 70’s F.  That is kind of perfect.  The rain has come back too but not as bad as in the winter.  Lets face it our lawn needed the water since it was getting pretty brown for a while.

Its Been a Year

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Time really does play tricks on you.  On one hand it feels like forever since we got to London.  On the other hand sometimes it feels like we just got here.  Today marks a year since we arrived in London.  A year ago we were leaving the freezing cold to the great unknown of another country.  We said goodbye to family for our great adventure.  Today my sister and family are here visiting for the holidays.   Both M’s parents and my mom have visited at least once.  The girls are adjusted and thriving in their new schools and making new friends.

Overall its been an amazing journey.  It hasn’t been easy all the time.  As of now it has been totally worth it!  Here is to year 2 in the United Kingdom.

So You Want To Move To Another Country Part Whatever: You Need Credit

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I have generally been pretty good with my credit. I pay all my balances off every month and my US credit has been excelent for years.

I knew when coming to the UK that my credit doesn’t carry over. I also learned that I might be in the lucky position to be using services from companies that would transfer my credit to their corresponding divisions in the UK.  That is a perk of working with a multi national organisation.

My usage of American Express cards is measured in decades. It makes me feel old. I also remember fondly that my dad thought it was amusing that I had an American Express Gold card in college. He gave me one on his account for any emergency purchases. Thinking about that, it might be its own post at some point. Needless to say after college an American Express card was one of the first cards I got. I was thankful to find out that American Express will issue me cards in the UK based off of my history with them in the US.

Process to get my American Express card in the UK was seamless. I filled out an online form and the cards arrived at our house in London. The cards were literally waiting for us when we got to our house. I cannot say enough nice things about the process from American Express to do this. In this situation membership does have its privileges. Pun intended. The only thing I would comment about my experience with American Express isn’t really a negative since I got something for free. I was going to downgrade one of my cards in the US however I got hard sold into not doing it. They basically gave it to me for free however it’s yet another conversation I  have to have with them later this year. I know they’re expecting me to forget and just pay for it. Be warned Annex I will not forget to call to downgrade that account.

The thing with American Express is even in the United States it’s not excepted everywhere. I heard mixed opinions from British friends on how widely accepted AMEX was. My experience is it is generally accepted the vast majority of the time we go to use it. Is it less widely accepted as in the states? I don’t know, maybe. Either way having it is your only card does limit you. Even in the US I would always have a backup just in case.

That leads me to trying to get a card from my bank. When it became pretty apparent we were going to move we opened an account with a multinational bank that was one of the few that have accommodations for people in my situation moving to new countries. I am writing about my experience in getting accounts created them in another post, so I won’t go into that here. I did sign up for a MasterCard in the United States specifically so I could build up credit history bank so I could transfer that history over to their UK division.

Once living in the UK I waited several months to apply for the credit card via my bank. I delayed partly because I wanted to see how far we can get with AMEX. I also was pretty lazy. I feel that all the forms to apply and then didn’t hear anything for several weeks. Then I get a letter saying I been declined. I was a little surprised. On one hand I do not keep very much money in the UK branch of this bank. I do my day-to-day banking with an online only bank. I didn’t think that would matter since I have a decent amount of funds in other locations with them. The way their whole system works is having funds at one location counts towards the other.

I was rather annoyed by being declined. I was also curious why. I called them to ask and got a bunch of runaround. Finally they filed an official appeal on my behalf. They told me that would be something like 6 to 8 weeks before they got back to me with an answer. Over a month later I got a letter telling me that three weeks after that they should have a response to me. When I finally got a written response all it said was I was declined and they couldn’t really say specifically why. But it may be one of many different factors. I get not having a lot of a credit history would prevent me from getting something from a service provider that I’ve never used before however these guys were supposed to be different. I should not be surprised since the general feedback about them in all of the expected some part of are negative.

That Story Where I Write A lot About Tea Kettles

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Since way before I met her M has had an old-school metal tea kettle. She uses it to heat up tea and hot water for her coffee funnel. It’s as basic a solution as you can get. It also works surprisingly well. In the past year or so I’ve started to use it to heat water for my French press.

The thing with boiling water on a stove is that it can take a few minutes. I never thought anything of it. It was just how long it took to heat water. When we got to England we needed to heat water for coffee. I can’t remember if we brought our kettle in our luggage and the stove didn’t work. Or we simply did not have our kettle. In any event our stove was not working when we first moved in. We needed coffee. That meant we needed to buy something.

I knew about existence of electric kettles. I even remember my friend “A” who came from England to the US talking about how bad they were in the states. At the time I didn’t quite understand what he was complaining about. American electric kettles if I recall take around the same amount of time to make hot water then boiling it on a stove. If I’m wrong on that that is my recollection. I don’t really have direct knowledge on it. Going into this situation however that was what I was thinking. Electric kettles are slow.

I made one of our several trips to the local Sainsbury’s those first few days and picked up a cheap electric kettle. Once I got home I set it up and started to make enough water for 2 cups of coffee. I remember turning on the kettle and preparing to go do something while it heated the water. I got distracted talking to M for a moment. By the time I got back to realizing what I wanted to do the kettle clicked off indicating the water was done. At the time I thought something was wrong with it because it took maybe 1 to 2 minutes at most. I poured the water into the filter and sure enough it was the perfect temperature.

For what I am told the high-power quick teakettle is thanks to a more powerful power grid in England. I know everyone talks about the fact that the US is 110v and England is 220v however to see it in action was pretty interesting.

The electric kettle was so effective that M even agreed to get rid of her vintage stovetop one. That was a major development in our house.

The lesson here (if there is a lesson to learn) is even if someone explain something to you sometimes it doesn’t fully click until you experience it yourself.

Underground vs Subway Showdown Finale Etiquette

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London Underground

In the final post about the Underground vs Subway Showdown I compare the people when I look at etiquette on both systems.

I probably have written about this before when living in New York. People can be rude on the subway. Well, maybe not rude but self-centered. It’s easy to say that in any densely populated area you get some percentage of clowns. In New York I would constantly have to walk around someone sitting on stairways. Tying their shoes on a busy stairway. Walking against crowds on stairways or hallways. Then there are the people who walk into a relatively empty train and stop right at the door. The door huggers are likely the same people that won’t move into the middle of the car when it’s super crowded and there’s plenty of room in the middle. It feels like mad Max underground sometimes.

In London I was surprised that people do walk the wrong way and a hallway or on the stairwell. I thought that was a big no-no here. Just like cutting the queu is. Some people do it however it’s not terrible. I will say that in all the stations there are signs and barricades to herd the people in a much better way than I’ve seen in New York. Generally people follow the signs. The only exception is the overpass at the station by my house. For some reason people do not read what it says keep left.

In London pregnant women can get buttons so people know to stand up and give them a seat. I have seen strangers tap people sitting down to make room for ladies with the button. That is a stark contrast to New York when my wife was pregnant she would have to rub her belly or just tell people they needed to get up from the handicap seats because otherwise many people wouldn’t get up.

When I go anywhere with the kids even if my wife and the kids get seats people offer to get up for me to. I almost feel awkward to take it but everyone is pretty friendly. When it is just me in New York everyone was generally equally very friendly. Yet if it was a crowded train the kids would typically get seats only. I am generally impressed with the level of effort people goto to help a family out.

After I wrote this post I came back and had to make updates to it. I  taking the escalator down the platform in Canary wharf to catch the Jubilee line. It was rush-hour and it was crowded. And I saw a large amount of people standing on the platform. Always interesting to me was that everyone was standing in a line by where the door for the train would open. This station is relatively new so there were glass doors between the platform and tracks so you know where the doors will open. People line up on either side of those doors and wait in queue for a train to arrive. I remembered I’ve seen that before at rush hour in that station. That visual alone in my opinion gets London the win. I cannot remember ever seeing such an orderly display of waiting in New York.

As you might’ve guessed the winner here London, easily. I still think New York gets a bad reputation for people being not nice. On the subway there is some validity to that.

Winner

If you’ve read this far you can tell that there’s no contest for me here. My unscientific rating system is the London mass transit system (Tube & DLR for me) is just better. There are some aspects of the New York city transit system that I miss. They just aren’t that compelling enough to come anywhere near swaying the decision. For example I irrationally miss a good express train. Even when the Tube trains I take generally feel like (and i have been told they actually do) they move faster than an express or a local in New York.

It Is Setting In That I Do Not Live in NY Anymore

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airport display boards

I think it is starting to settle in that I live in England. When M’s The other parents were visiting we were discussing our plans to visit New York area next year. They asked if we were going to fly in Philadelphia due to wearing New Jersey we were going to go. I was about to say a course were going to go to JFK then I realized I don’t live near there anymore. We’re just visiting we can fly into whatever the closest airport is.

Such a minor thing to discuss however it is something like that that my brain clicks and it is like oh yeah.

My 221st Day in London Update

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Many of my British friends or people we meet out and about ask me how do I like it in London? They may instead ask what’s the biggest difference between England and America? I feel the answer to both of those questions are kind of related. They are also not really answerable in sentence or two unless I want to wildly generalize. As I start to write this entry a British friend of mine who I’ve known for years asked me how I was liking the country while we were at a pub the other night after work. That question turned into a 15 to 30 minute conversation about it. It also inspired me to want to write and address the question. It may be a complex answer however it’s a great question to address.

At the time of this being published we have officially been living in England for 221 days. I’ve said it a few times to multiple people that either we are still in our honeymoon phase of adjustment or we are already adjusted to life here. The reason is I haven’t really felt a huge amount of stress over adjusting.  It feels like it is a short amount of time to be adjusted already after everything I’ve read. That is why I sometimes think were still stuck in the honeymoon phase however there were rough patches early on so maybe we are adjusted already.  I bring all this up since my answer to this question may obviously change over time especially if we aren’t fully adjusted.

The short answer to the question how do we like it is we’re loving it (so far). The longer answer is that we are generally loving it, however it’s different. It is hard not to compare everything you experience with your prior experiences. That means everything I do I end up comparing it to New York.  In reading about adjusting to a new country they tell you not to do that. I am not saying that’s a good thing to do however it’s what generally happens. When I do that comparison some things are better here.  Some things are not.  Most are just different.

A good example of what is better is our house.  We have a garden with lots of space for the kid.  We are on a good tube line very close to the station. My commute is about the same from New York.  We loved our neighborhood in NY.  Were we are in London is much more suburban feel yet it is basically the same type of area. The house and neighborhood wins out in London over NY.  In general the work life balance in London seems much more relaxed.

There are things that were better in New York.  For us we had a lot of family and friends that we just can’t see anymore. My mom saw the kids twice a week.  We spent a weekend or so a month with M’s parents, etc. We will always have more family in the states however over time we are making friends here.

Then there are things that are just simply different. Maybe marginally better or worse.  They are really just different. Those are the hard ones to explain since my mind immediately tries to rate if it’s better or not to New York or the United States. The reality is it’s all about personal preference. I might love something that someone else might not. For example I’m a relatively fast-paced person. When I lived in Louisiana and I would get behind someone who is writing a check to pay for their groceries I would have no patience when they  stood there for five minutes writing it. London is definitely much more laid-back than New York. It’s still a global city however things are not as fast-paced. Younger version of me who had to deal with the slow of Louisiana likely would be very frustrated by London. Me today however is enjoying that slowdown.

When I think about that abstract that things are slower and more relaxed it is hard to describe. What pop’s into my head is sitting in a café in a museum.  The kids eating scones while drinking coffee on real China. In New York everything would be so rushed and everything would be disposable paper.  In London over the winter we went to the museums a bunch of times and relived that scene I described.  M more than I. Everything is all about the context. The subtle differences would have annoyed me in the past and I actually enjoy them today. That doesn’t mean there better or worse. It’s the differences that were trying to experience and enjoy.  Thankfully for now those differences are favorable to us.  In a year, or 5 years in the context of the example I gave will I return to my old impatient self?  Who knows. I hope not but you never know.

I can write so much more on this topic.  It is likely best to pick up at another point in time.  I will say for all of our friends in the States curious about how we are doing we are having a great experience.  It is harder than it looks however the rewards are totally worth it. It boils down to a Simpsons quote I like to use.  If you ask me am I enjoying life in England.  The yes or no answer is “Yes with an if, no with a but. Leaning towards yes…

Underground vs Subway Showdown Part 3: Crowds

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This is part 3 of my super scientific comparison and contrasting of the NYC Subway and the London Underground. In this part I tak about crowds and why I do not love them so much.

Rush hour in New York can be interesting. When I lived on the upper East side I would have to wait pretty often for five trains before I could even get on one. I lived at the 96th St stop on the Lexington Ave line. at 96th. As Upper East side goes that is pretty north and it was still horrible at rush hour. When I lived in Long Island city if there was any problem with the 7 train I would have to wait. You paid the price for being at the last stop in Queens. One time had to wait about seven trains to get on. Typically 2-3 would be a regular occurrence.

In more recent years when I lived in Forest Hills the crowds in the morning haven’t been as bad since I was at a stop that had 2 Locals & 2 Express trains and I could take any of them to work. Getting home however I would have to pick what line to goto and it could get pretty interesting if it got backed up at all.

In London depending on the time of day there are crowds. Going to work even at the night of rush hour in the 5 months I have been here I only once couldn’t get on a train and had to wait for another one. It can get pretty crowded in some stations though. I had to go to bank during rush hour a few nights. There was a line from getting into the station through until you got onto the platform. Unlike New York the line moved so was a crowd of people actually moving together. Once on the platform I had to wait several trains to get onto one. It seems like that’s normal at rush-hour for that station.

Luckily for me my daily commute is crowded however not ridiculously so. My biggest challenge is the last transfer on the way home. It’s at a major station in the line I take to go home. The line splits before I get off the train. That means I cannot just get on any train for that line. Side story i have only once got on the wrong train and had to turn around and go back. To make matters worse the other side of the line that I do not take has more trains than the one I do take. On the plus side I have gotten into a good commute rhythm and I haven’t had much of a crowd issue in a while.

The winter here is a tough one. It’s probably New York, however I am calling it a draw. My day-to-day experience in London has been pretty good so far. I see how the crowds could be consistently worse here in busy stations. I have heard they have had to close stations to new passingers when it gets really bad. I haven’t experienced it however I cannot recall that every happening in NY.

In the 4th and final segment I will cover etiquette. That one is more a commentary on the people rather than the system. That being said there are a few nifty things that systematically are done here that help etiquette.

Underground vs Subway Showdown Part 2: Reliability

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I am a tech guy so of course in part one of my Tube vs Subway showdown i was going to talk about Payment systems. In Part 2 I focus on reliability or how bad can a system get. Let’s find out.

The New York City subway is not what most people would call reliable. I remember countless mornings where I would take the local train after dropping the kids at school because the express train was taking as long or longer. On the local I would at least get a seat. Other times I would count 5 to 7 trains in one direction before the train I needed showed up. This was in Penn Station and not some remote location mind you. In many other cases sitting in a tunnel for 30 to 45 minutes with no explanation as to why. Then doing that again the next day. And again a few days later. This was a regular thing when living in Forest Hills. Hopefully for those not living in New York you get the point. The subway is slow, and prone to incidents. How can anyone explain to me why an express train regularly is slower or maybe equal to a local when the express skips 5 stops?

Besides the delays there was the construction. When I lived in Long Island city for 8 to 12 weeks of winter I wouldn’t have a train on the weekend direction. That might not fall under reliability category however it wasn’t available when I wanted it so….. I also know that the underground may be similar in that there are sections that get shutdown for construction. Thankfully for now i have not experienced this.

Local friends in London have said I should be wary of the underground with regards to service and reliability. We were looking for a house in November we had to radically change our plans to get to the airport because one of the underground lines was down. Besides that incident and a few other minor ones I have not had as many issues as in NY. I cannot stress enough how regular the issues were in NY. In London so far the train arrival time boards seem relatively accurate. I just don’t feel like I’m stuck in a tunnel as much on the underground.

One area unreliability that I do have an issue with the underground is strikes. For this arbitrary comparison i will put strikes in the reliability category. Twice so far I’ve been living here.DLR has not been running for a few days due to strikes. I’ve also experienced an underground strike when I was here for business a few years ago. I will say this that the strikes are relatively orderly. They are pretty frequent compared to the New York City subway. The subway on the other hand does not strike very often. When it does it’s terrible. You also don’t know when it will end.

Score another one for the underground. It’s just more reliable. This isn’t even a close one.

That is it for Part 2 of my Underground vs Subway showdown. In Part 3 I talk about all of you people when I complain, um I mean compare the crowds in each system.