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Grabzak Dirtyfighter wrote:Yeah, you Brits seem nice and all, but if I'm going to spend a lot of money on a vacation South America is WAAAAY more fun.

Yes nothing is more fun than waking up in a bathtub full of ice and missing a Kidney! Kidding.l.. just kidding.

I love the UK. I have been there a few times. Worst part for me was getting use to driving on the wrong side of the road.
I have to say being a nutter about castles, it great to visit and see then first hand.
Plus Stonehenge was just ... I dont know.. I felt like I should have been in a robe and sacrificing a goat. (agin kidding) It was amazing though.

mattyrm wrote:She loves the lack of traffic

Wait what? Now I can't drive legally yet and even I know UK traffic is TERRIBLE

Juvieus Kaine wrote:

mattyrm wrote:She loves the lack of traffic

Wait what? Now I can't drive legally yet and even I know UK traffic is TERRIBLE

Ah...but is it as bad as traffic in the U.S.?...
I live roughly fifteen minutes from where I work...but it takes me over an hour to get home at night...and that's nowhere near the worst traffic I've encountered.

Wouldn't you just walk or cycle then?

I don't? England is just sort of there. Oh hi England. Uhm. See you later. I'm going to Italy to listen to italian symphonic rock bands (I wish).


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Da Boss wrote:Wouldn't you just walk or cycle then?

Fifteen minutes of DRIVING.

We Americans measure things weirdly. Normally, we talk about distance in terms of how long it takes to drive there, and if we're talking about walking there, we specifically say "walking distance". I live five minutes from one of my school's campus... driving distance. Probably twenty or thirty minutes walking distance. And then the other one is downtown, about twenty minutes driving on a good day. I would not attempt to walk there, downtown is nice, but the places I pass through to get there... not so much.

Well in most places I've been to (Which is to say, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, Nevada, Florida... the southa nd west basically). In some places it's even weirder.

Juvieus Kaine wrote:

mattyrm wrote:She loves the lack of traffic

Wait what? Now I can't drive legally yet and even I know UK traffic is TERRIBLE

Mate, we live in Yorkshire, I dont think ive been static in traffic for more than 60 seconds for about ten years.

When we were living in California.... Jesus wept. It used to take her 90 minutes to get to work and slightly longer to get home and it was about 20 miles away.

California traffic is absolutely fething crazy. Im not going back!

@Melissa:I don't really understand that. Because how can it be 15 minutes driving but take an hour? Is that in ideal conditions with no traffic? Does that ever happen?

Like, I was probably 15 minutes driving from the school I worked in in dublin if there was no traffic, but that never happened. So I cycled, and it took me 30-35 minutes, and kept me fit!

I dunno what it's like to cycle in various spots in the US though, maybe the roads aren't set up for it.

Usually the only people who complain about UK northern accents are other Brits, just like people who rip on US southern accents are usually other Americans. This is probably due to cultural bias (perceiving the south/north as backwards and slow)

For myself, hearing familiar words in another accent is either charming (a friendly chat) or frustrating (customer service).

Da Boss wrote:@Melissa:I don't really understand that. Because how can it be 15 minutes driving but take an hour? Is that in ideal conditions with no traffic? Does that ever happen?

Oh sure . It takes me twenty minutes to drive to class if there hasn't been a wreck downtown. This isn't Dallas, so we tend to have a bit safer drivers.

Da Boss wrote:@Melissa:I don't really understand that. Because how can it be 15 minutes driving but take an hour? Is that in ideal conditions with no traffic? Does that ever happen?

Often times people only think of actual driving time, and omit the affair of getting to the car, getting out of the car and walking to the destination, finding the car after parking, etc. It tends to induce surprise at the passage of time.

Da Boss wrote:
Like, I was probably 15 minutes driving from the school I worked in in dublin if there was no traffic, but that never happened. So I cycled, and it took me 30-35 minutes, and kept me fit!

If you don't live in a city, biking is not an option. The US is designed almost exclusively for privately owned cars, mostly because large swathes of it didn't really come into their own until privately owned cars were fairly common.

probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Excessionary wrote:probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Right, England has a long history of romantic encounters with sheep! It's something that we Americans lack :(

Melissia wrote:

Excessionary wrote:probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Right, England has a long history of romantic encounters with sheep! It's something that we Americans lack :(

You are thinking of wales.

Da Boss wrote:@Melissa:I don't really understand that. Because how can it be 15 minutes driving but take an hour? Is that in ideal conditions with no traffic? Does that ever happen?

Like, I was probably 15 minutes driving from the school I worked in in dublin if there was no traffic, but that never happened. So I cycled, and it took me 30-35 minutes, and kept me fit!

I dunno what it's like to cycle in various spots in the US though, maybe the roads aren't set up for it.

Melissa had it right,my 15 minute reference was for driving time,under clear (light) traffic conditions,during rush hour it's around an hour or more.
Riding a bicycle to work just isn't an option , as by and large most of the Highways and Interstates of the American South just aren't set up for that sort of thing...very good chance both rider and bicycle will end up under someones car.

Besides, I like the comfort of having steel protecting my body (I don't drive an aluminum car) as I drive through the shadier parts of a city. Sure it's not much, but still.

Melissia wrote:Besides, I like the comfort of having steel protecting my body (I don't drive an aluminum car) as I drive through the shadier parts of a city. Sure it's not much, but still.

It's not so much "shady" areas that cause me to want to be cocooned inside the safety of a car...it's the absolutely horrible driving of most Georgia citizens.
I swear I've seen more wrecks in the four or so years I've lived here than I have anywhere else....except maybe for Texas.

And even in Texas it's mostly just Dallas and Houston. And maybe near the border, as Mexican drivers are fething nuts (mostly because they drive here without studying our traffic laws).

corpsesarefun wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Excessionary wrote:probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Right, England has a long history of romantic encounters with sheep! It's something that we Americans lack :(

You are thinking of wales.

Yorkshire's a wee bit shady... they do nice tea though.

Avatar 720 wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Excessionary wrote:probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Right, England has a long history of romantic encounters with sheep! It's something that we Americans lack :(

You are thinking of wales.

Yorkshire's a wee bit shady... they do nice tea though.

Watch yourself avatar my paternal family are from yorkshire.

So's my maternal family

Who gives a flying feth about britain?

The only case I've seen of it is vapid people being obsessed with the royal wedding. And a few teenagers who believe "when I graduate I'm going to school in the UK because everything is awesome over there everyone is smart I won't have to deal with these dumbasses anymore".

Melissia wrote:

Excessionary wrote:probably because England has a culture and history, wheras America does not, my house is probably older than it aha.

Right, England has a long history of romantic encounters with sheep! It's something that we Americans lack :(

Steady on there, now.
If we ignore the fact that Excessionary is clearly no historian, I think you'll find that Wales and the Forest of Dean are not representative of British attitudes to sheep.

WarOne wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:I think the real question is why you think people would want to vacation in russia.

People come to Russia for the ideology, and stay for the gulags.

I thought it was for the women.

Juvieus Kaine wrote:As a fellow Brit I am endlessly confounded when I talk to foreign people (no offences), particularly Americans, who say they'd love to come swing by for a week or two and enjoy what we have to offer.

...Urm hang on a minute Why here? I've been to Florida twice (probably the "nice side") and it was gorgeous - lovely weather, great food, decent scenery, awesome holiday. My dad's been about and he said it's quite nice in other states. So what makes Britain any better? Food is not as great, the people aren't exactly pleasent (don't lie to yourself), it's rather dreary and wet and there's not alot to do overall besides sight-seeing. You could easily do that in other countries - Russia, Japan, China, heck most countries but not here

So c'mon Internetz, why would you want to come visit Britain?

I think a lot of people like the idea of seeing another culture, but are put are intimidated by the thought of actually being in another culture. This can be seen by watching The Amazing Race.

So instead they pick a half way point, where they get to see historical monuments, but the people are largely the same as they are back home.


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ShumaGorath wrote:I think the real question is why you think people would want to vacation in russia.

I'd love to go to Russia; it's strict controls on almost everything makes it really quite a safe country, as does its (rather strained) relations with most major countries (allowing any issue to be sorted out eventually and less likely for them to take you hostage for some half-arsed reason). It's not a major holiday destination for gakkers and you're less likely to get raped in an alleyway because it's just too damn cold to get your tackle out.

Avatar 720 wrote:I'd love to go to Russia; it's strict controls on almost everything makes it really quite a safe country

Nnnnnnnnnot as much as you'd think.

Avatar 720 wrote:I'd love to go to Russia; it's strict controls on almost everything makes it really quite a safe country

I hope this is sarcasm.

EDIT: Damn Mel, you beat me to it.

I...uh... happen to like wet and dreary.

While not american I´m always fascinated by the amount of awesome the Brits can pack into certain people they send out in the world.

I´m mostly talking about comedians and actors, but the odd author is in there as well.

Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen. Those and more are the names I think about when I hear "awesome" and "britain". Sometimes "awesome" is enough

Yeah, but I doubt that the average brit is really that different from anyone else. I mean, you have less vocal idiots than America, so that's a plus, but I think that some people like to fantasize that the UK is a land of polite smart people who actually read books, or something like that.