Culture Shock? What did you wish you knew?

Hey all! hope this isn't too strange, but i was sitting in my intercultural training seminar tonight and thought. . . "hey, we never talk about how relational partners deal with moving to a new culture. . . " which made me think. . . "wonder how people already living in the UK are dealing with the small differences from the US that seem SO huge."

basically, i'm going to be moving to the UK permanently in may for my wedding in june and the hopeful (fingers crossed) joy to follow and wonder what kind of emotions i can expect to feel when i live in england full time. (i've spent summers there, and other little trips, but i'm worried about the permanent move). did you find any surprising feelings? shocking behaviors? have trouble communicating just how you feel? i dunno. wish i could be more clear, but my mind is racing. . . i guess i'm just asking "what do you know now that you wish you would have known prior to the move?"

hope all that made sense. you all usually seem to be able to decipher my jibberish, hope this time isn't any different. any help would be appreciated!
  thanks again!

For me, there are sort of two levels of culture shock--the initial "Oh my!  What am I doing here?  and then the more subtle "Oh my what am I STILL doing here?"

I wish that I had truely realised how expensive it is to live here. I had been here to visit, but for some reason it didn't really hit me that yes, my favourite Starbucks liquid confection DOES cost $5 .  Also the general cost of living in London is huge-- rent, bills, travel, groceries.  I am on a very good salary and I still struggle to make ends meet.

THe longer term issues have been more cultural differences.  I have found it difficult to make friends with Brits.  I have found working the culture very difficult to adjust to (I work for the NHS and Local Government).  There are others, but those are the main two.

The biggest culture shock for me was when I wanted to do something that was easy and thought-free for me to do in the US... and I felt like a child having to re-learn the small things. I was expecting the big things, I knew I wouldn't drive, I knew the food would be different, I knew things would be crazy expensive... the hardest things were going to the post office to do errands that were simple (like registered mail or something), but still a TOTALLY different procedure and I felt silly asking how to do it. Or how I couldn't get my washing machine to work for the longest time and had to read the manual front to back twice just to figure it out. Trying to make bacon on my MIL's gass grill for the first time but not wanting to ask her, as an ADULT, how to work such a contraption. Wanting an 8.5 x 11 photo frame and having to search long and hard for it, having to search long & hard for a LOT of things that in my US life I'd just say "Oh, I'll go to Target", or if it's after 10pm I'd go to Meijer! Things like that, and there are millions of them, are what took me the longest to get used to. Just re-learning so much stuff I had taken for granted I knew how to do...

Also - if you look in the Moving Issues board, there's a loooong thread about "things you wish you knew" in there, it's ain interesting read if you've got an hour.

I wish I'd known a bit better what to expect from family and friends I'd left behind.  For awhile I was the interesting "friend/daughter/etc living in London" and got lots of emails and stuff from people.  But now it's almost like people don't know what to say to me, and I'm never sure how much they want to hear about my life here.  It makes things a bit difficult as far as communication and keeping in touch goes.  I didn't think it would be so hard...especially with my family.

Another thing I had to adjust to was work.  People work and communicate with each other very differently here.  Going out to the pub is pretty mandatory if you want to have any kind of relationship with work colleagues.  And they go out in the middle of the day for a few pints and come back to work!  Even common office equipment has different names.  White-out is 'tipex', an eraser is a 'rubber' (endless inappropriate giggles ensued the first time someone asked me for one of these!), and even paper is different sizes.  It's a whole new ball of wax!

I'd highly recommend the Moving Issues thread too tho....there's lots of great stuff there about this subject.

For me, it was the loss of all sense of direction.  Perhaps that was compounded by the fact that I was living in a very large city for the first time.  I would often think I'd be heading north, only to find I was actually going west or worse yet, south!

thanks for your thoughts!! you're all stars!   i've been feeling alot of the emotional adjustments, like never quite knowing if my mother-in-law-to-be really likes me. . . missing the direct nature of my huge italian family. ah well.

thanks for the thread suggestion as well!

I wish I had known how hard it was to drive here,,

That the majority of pubs stop serving food after 2 in the afternoon.

That in the winter it gets dark by 4 in the afternoon,, and in the summer, it gets dark around 10 pm, while it starts to get light out around 4 in the morning, leaving very little time for this insominac to sleep in the dark,,lol

That finding proper hotdogs would be inpossible

I am sure I could list more, but thinking about hotdogs just made my tummy growl LOL

'American' style hot dogs are something I found quite easily  Safeway carries a certain brand (of which I forget the name now) that are near the cheese and sausages.  They're packaged and taste very similar to most american hot dogs (excluding Oscar Meyer as I've always thought those tasted different to most other brands).  Oddly though, the package shows them as being used to top a salad?!?  So you can either buy nasty soggy hot dogs in some sort of juice in a can, or something more similar to the kind in the U.S., but they're advertised as being a salad topper and cut into tiny bite-sized bits!  

Oddly though, the package shows them as being used to top a salad?!?  So you can either buy nasty soggy hot dogs in some sort of juice in a can, or something more similar to the kind in the U.S., but they're advertised as being a salad topper and cut into tiny bite-sized bits!  

Ewww..my stomach just did a yucky flip reading that.

I dont know if these are the same ones you're talking about... i dont recall them being shown as salad topping!  But Herta make a really nice hot dog that are just like American ones.  Also there are some that have a picture of the Simpsons on, which are pretty nice as well.

There is a Safeway across the road from me, they have never had any hotdogs like I am missing. The only choice I have had are sausages (which is what they normally use for hotdogs here) or those nasty soggy things in the can.

I want a proper oscar meyer hotdog. I really want a James Coney Island hotdog with chili and cheese.  Would be worth blowing the diet for LOL.

Sorry this is turning into a food discussion, moderators!

Tebs, if you ever get a chance to branch out and try a different supermarket.. seriously try the Herta hot dogs.  I would be VERY surprised if you didn't like them!  

I have two packages of Oscar Meyer hot dogs in my freezer right now, got them in Spain a few weeks ago.  The grocery stores (big shops & small local shops) carry a wide range of OM products....including bacon!

Should we change the subject to What you wish you knew about buying hot dogs?