A Pro-England Blog Entry - Part 2

Finally, Part 2 of the two-part blog entry attempt at balancing the vitriol unleashed in the past 3 years or so. A Vitriol-offset scheme, if you will. Sure it's not going to solve the problem entirely, but it might make a dent (just like the carbon offset schemes).

There are a lot of great things about living in Europe (that's why we did it in the first place). There were a few reasons why we moved to Europe: a higher quality of life; a better work/life balance; living in a more open-minded culture less focused on vanity, materialism and gluttonous consumption of EVERYTHING; and to do something challenging. [It would be easy to say we moved because of the Bush Administration, but that was only a minor factor.]

England has most of the above factors, though I'd argue the quality of life is not as high as in Europe (or even the US) and there is almost as much consumer-driven gluttony here as there is in America. Not nearly as bad, but they'll get there soon enough. Anyway, to the good points!

- Better work/life balance. Full-time employed workers get a lot of vacation days compared to the US. I currently get 35 days per year. The full-time work week is generally 37 hours. Americans tend to define themselves by their trade. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that Americans tend to live to work, whereas Europeans work to live.

- Strong currency. The Pound Sterling is very stable and usually strong. It's still almost $2 to a £. That makes it really cheap for us when we visit the US and it allows us to send a fair amount of dough to our US bank account every month. We've still got some debts there, after all.

- Great dairy products. K isn't really that willing to accept this, but the dairy products in England are much better than in the US. The milk and cream tastes so much better. The cheese is more flavorful because it's not pasteurized to hell. And you can get real buttermilk here. The dairy in Continental Europe is even better (except for in Southern Europe).

- Good beer. The UK is the home of several beer styles that the US emulates or used as a reference. To name a few: India Pale Ale, Barleywine, Mild, Bitter, Stout, and Porter. These have been brewed here for a couple of 100 years. The traditional way of serving these beers is hand-pumped from casks (wood or steel) kept in the pubs cellar. It is not artificially carbonated or indeed "fizzy" at all. The beer is transferred into the casks just before it finishes fermenting so it can finish in the cask. This creates mild, natural carbonation. It is "Living Beer". Furthermore, it is not served icy cold, but at cellar temperature (54-57 degrees F). This method of serving is called "Real Ale". Unfortunately, it is kind of dying out and it takes the efforts of CAMRA to keep it vital. The typical lament of some tourists to the UK is "they serve the beer flat and luke-warm" (mis-stating it a bit!). It takes some getting used to at first, but it's actually easy-drinking and much easier to taste and smell the nuances of a good beer when it's served that way. That doesn't mean serving beer by other methods is wrong, of course. This is just the best way to serve the traditional British ales.

- Beautiful countryside (in some areas). You've seen it in movies, on television, postcards, or if you've been for a drive over here. The quaint, English countryside is lush, green, and "cute" what with the hedgerows, fluffy livestock, and thatch-roof buildings. Some of the coastal areas are breathtaking. And then, of course, there's the Scottish Highlands which K and I absolutely adored.

- English-speaking. Ok, let's face it. We loved Belgium, but the language-barrier was a bit of a problem. In that respect, it is a bit easier to live in the UK as opposed to "the Continent". There's always Sweden and Denmark, but that wouldn't really work for K!

- Fewer advertisements. It's so much nicer to watch TV over here. The BBC has no advertising breaks and most of other stations only have three to four short breaks. It's always such a "culture shock" when we're back in the US and a show gets constantly interrupted with loud, annoying ads. We don't miss that!

- Good produce. Lots of great "fruit and veg" (if you go to the right place) and it's very easy and cheap to get organic produce. We were having them delivered straight to our door from local farms for a while there (until we moved to a top-floor apartment and the delivery guy could no longer leave it on our porch). I think they generally use less pesticide here, too.

- The Royal Mail. I believe we've mentioned this before, but we are just damn impressed with the postal service over here. The Brits make it a national past-time to complain about it, though I don't understand why. You put a 1st Class stamp on a letter, stick it in one of those funny, red mailboxes in the morning, and more often than not, the letter arrives at it's destination the very next day. And that's even considering the fact that half the country doesn't have house numbers! Or street signs!

- Freeview. This is free digital TV over a standard antenna. You buy a Freeview receiver for about £20-30, plug it in, and voila! Decent quality digital TV with quite a few channels to choose from. We don't have this anymore because we've upgraded to satellite television, but we did have it for a while. Can't beat it!

- Quality television. Speaking of TV, there are a lot of great shows being produced here. Again, the Brits like to complain about the state of British comedy, but we've certainly been kept in stitches! I still like the original British version of The Office more than the American one. Then there are our favorite British comedians: Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Carr, Eddie Izzard, and Ricky Gervais, to name a few current ones. And the BBC has fantastic nature documentaries all the time. David Attenborough is a god!

- Free PhD. K is doing a PhD for free! Even before she switched over to full-time PhD-ing, she was getting paid AND being allowed to do her PhD without paying tuition. Then she was offered a chance to have a "bursary" which is basically government funding to study. She's fairly sure she would not have been able to swing that in the US where you have to apply for a grant with all the competition involved.

- An incredible variety of potato chip (crisps) flavors. It's amazing. Never have I been to a country that had so many different flavorings for deep-fried thin slices of potato. Things like: roast chicken, chargrilled steak, thai sweet chili, caramelized onion and balsamic, prawn and cocktail sauce, mango chutney, and on and on. The roast chicken one is really weird because it smells EXACTLY like roast chicken (and so do your hands for about three days afterwards).