26 months and counting

Around August of last year, I figured I should probably write a blog. After all, it was a year since I had moved to the US and embarked on this great adventure. But, as usual, life got in the way and it slipped my mind.

So as Christmas approached I thought that would be a great time; after all it would be the end of my first calendar year stateside. But, I forgot again.

Finally August of 2018 was upon me, and two years simply had to be marked with some kind of entry.

Nope.

So here we are. It is October of 2018 and I have been in the USA for 26 months. That’s not really much of a specific landmark, but it’s what we have, so I am going with it.

I still haven’t worked out if two years has come around quickly, or slowly. On one hand it seem crazy to think that two years have passed. I still vividly remember packing up boxes to send to Minnesota, saying my goodbyes, drinking a final pint of real ale at the airport, and actually being able to take a flight with my then fiancé instead of only one of us boarding the aircraft. Could it really be two years ago?

Then again, I feel like I have been here for far longer than that. Binging Netflix in our rented apartment day after day, unemployed and waiting for a green card, seems an age ago. Since then we married (again), honeymooned, I got a job, we bought a house and got two cats. A lot has happened in a short space of time.

All of these events are pretty much life changing, however perhaps one of the most significant in terms of my settling here was getting a job in January of last year. Before then I had been waiting for my green card and my right to work.

I have been extremely fortunate to find a job that not only I love, but that involves working with a group of awesome people, for a company that has a lot of fun, making many more people around the world smile. Like anybody else, I don’t enjoy seeing just how much of my paycheck has gone to pay taxes, but it was an important step in feeling like I was contributing and part of the local community.

Another bonus that comes with employment is meeting people. I am incredibly lucky that my wife’s friends are so wonderful and have been so welcoming. It would be easy to feel like an outsider, but I have never had that experience and I am so grateful for that. However, since starting work I have been able to get to know people on my own.

By the time I leave work at 5pm the majority of people in the UK are asleep, or close to it, and so I tend to play catch up with texting etc through the morning, speak to friends through the afternoon, then things go quiet until the next day. It is an odd feeling, in your thirties, to suddenly feel like you need to make friends, and isn’t something that necessarily comes easy.

The two most common questions I get asked the most, especially when I meet people for the first time, are “do you like it here?” and “what do you miss the most about England?”

The first is easy: yes. I love it. Sometimes it is difficult to talk about America as a whole, just because it is so, so vast. I live in the US, but my experiences are almost exclusively related to Minnesota, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I love Minnesota.

There is a concept in these parts known as Minnesota Nice, and sometimes Minnesotans I speak to are surprised that I regard it as so undeniably true. Obviously there are exceptions, but the closest comparison I can make to living in Minnesota from a people perspective is with the experiences I have had in the south-west of England, especially Devon, and in some northern areas.

For starters, people say hello to you. People you don’t know. They say hello, sometimes ask how you are and – here is the kicker – they actually seem to care. I remember being in an elevator in a hotel once and my wife having a conversation with someone. Once they had stepped out, I asked if she knew them, and immediately felt like I had asked a completely inane question. Why would you have to know somebody to chat to them? It is a far cry from staring at your feet in a lift in England, or trying to avoid locking eyes with one of 462 people on a London Underground train.

There is a stereotype around American customer service in the UK that can be summed up in the four words: “have a nice day.” For the most part the general feeling is that servers and retail staff in the US paint on a fake smile and repeat this platitude to every person that crosses their path, in the vain hope of a tip or just because they are told to.

I am not going to claim every person I come across genuinely has a strong interest in what I do with the rest of my day, but I honestly feel that (possibly due in part to Minnesota Nice) this is far more authentic than many Brits would believe. Also, and perhaps best of all, it actually does make me smile a little more inside.

So, onto that second question. Minnesota is wonderful, and I do love it here, but are there things I miss? Of course there are. I immediately have to exclude family and friends from any such question, for obvious reasons. People will always be what I miss most about moving anywhere. But are there other things about Britain that I still long for?

America does a lot very well, but if only it could master real ale, Tunnock’s caramel bars, public footpaths, Cornish pasties, the NHS, being close to London, Marmite, public transport, sausage rolls, roundabouts (they’re trying), soccer/football – especially locally, roast dinners, a curry house around every corner, the BBC, cricket… and I will stop there in case it sounds like I am complaining.

I am not complaining, because I could equally write a list of things that America does so well. In fact, here are just a handful of differences about America, and Minnesota, that I love:

Craft beer and its availability, hockey, being able to order food at a bar late at night, grilling, Sunday afternoon football, table service, wide open roads, Minnesota Public Radio, the sky, ranch dressing, water towers, local news (KEYC), Arnold Palmers, baseball caps being socially acceptable in any situation, an evening at the local ballpark, local pride/community spirit (high school, college, town and state), and, above all, far less cynicism.

We travel back to the UK in a few weeks, and I can’t wait to see all my family and friends. I will enjoy making some tourist trips to places I may or may not have seen before, drinking in pubs, eating hearty British food and possibly seeing a local football match. But, at the end, I will still miss our house, our cats, and our city.

I was taking a walk with family in rural Minnesota recently, and when talking about what I might pick up to bring back from the UK I mentioned how there was something I would definitely bring home. I don’t even remember what I was talking about, but I do remember it was the first time that I referred to Mankato as “home” with respect to the UK. Does that mean that Chelmsford is no longer my home? No, it will always be, but I am just lucky enough to have two.