I need to hear good things about the UK

they got the best gosh darn fish and chips on the planet!  

also, i love the millions of stone walls.   so pretty...

I can't believe I forgot about going to 'Pantomine's' at Christmas  What a hoot lol,

Also, canalboats for a holiday We spent a week on one out of Bath two summers ago, and you see a part of the countryside that you can't see from the road. It was beautiful.  

I haven't moved over yet, and I will by year's end, but I've spent a lot of time there in the last 16 years! What do I miss when I am in the US?

English folk music festivals and other festivals like Hastings Jack in the Green, Rochester Sweeps Festival, Upton on Severn Folk Festival, etc.
Morris dancers (even though we do have them in the US)
Canal boats
Stone circles and prehistoric megaliths
Gorgeous gardens
Green!!!!!!! Grass
Cooler temperatures
Pub sings
Public rights of way for walking
The smell of peat in some places
The ability to joke around with just about anyone
Well Dressing
Helston Flora Day
Letterboxing
Folk Clubs that cost so little to attend
Evensong


Oh! There is so much more....

Doreen

I to think this is a good thread.  Sometimes I need to be reminded of the good things here. Having left a rural state to live in the a urban state before coming here it sometimes gets me down to be in a rural area again. Even though city life is just a stone's throw away.  

I like the fact that people call you darlin or sweetie. In the states you have to be someones wife or sweetheart to hear that and sometimes you don't hear it even then.  It was such a shock at first when I heart my husband say that to another woman. I didn't feel so special anymore.  My first husband never said sweet things to me so I had felt special when my present husband did. Then I started noticeing that other men did that too. I was at the market and was almost embarrassed at all those sweet thing the guy keep saying. lol  and he was a young guy too.  The mailman and the bus drivers call me darlin to and it really feels nice.

I love the food here too. not much I have eaten that I haven't liked.  Some of my american friends say they don't like the food here and I think"what is wrong with you". lol  I can wait for my son to come here and taste my husband's excellent cooking.  

I just can't wait for spring to get here though. It is so cold right now.  We have so many wonderful things planned for the spring and summer. Want to have a block party and invite all my neighbors for a bbq when it gets warm. My sweetie is traveling alot for his job right now and gets triple miles so we should be about to make alot of trips around europe this spring and summer.  Can handly wait for Paris.    thanks guys for reminding me to appreciate where I am.

How about.. the summer months.  So many sporting events and fun things to look forward to.  Summer Holidays and the football (even though I'm not much of a fan, it was so much fun to be cheering England along in the World Cup).  The summer to me means a trip down to London, Big Brother (even though it's crap TV, it's a guilty pleasure), Eurovision song contest (am looking forward to that this year, it'll be a first).  Walks at 10:00 pm with still a bit of light in the sky...  

Ooh.. Countdown and 15-to-1.  Magnum choc-ice.  GOOD home improvement shows as prime time TV... Having only 5 stations and always being able to find something interesting to watch.

 Strange how no-one here has mentioned the UK weather???... Maybe not!

Okay, if you like...

I grew up in a very hot, dry, smoggy place.  So the weather is actually one of my favourite things about the UK.  
I love a good storm, and the sky here in my bit of Scotland can be particularly moody-looking sometimes... so gorgeous.
There's the old joke about having 4 seasons in 1 day... that happened on Saturday:  it was gloriously sunny all morning, then the sky went black in the afternoon, and just before sunset it was hailing.  Then i walked my dog about 9pm and it felt just like a mild spring evening... walking along, looking at all the crocuses.

The weather is great.. never too hot, never too cold.  

I'll chime in about the weather, too.

Coming from Florida, where the foliage has two colours - green and dead; and there are two seasons - Hurricane and not Hurricane...I can say I am LOVING the English weather.  Spring is actually Spring here - with thousands of flowers blooming all over the place.  Autumn...well, this autumn specifically was just gorgeous.  Doesn't last long, but it was spectacular!

I don't mind the weather here at all. I'm from Arizona and the mild winters and lovely summer days we have here are fantastic in comparison.

I love that I can go out and do stuff outdoors. It's not uncommon that Jon and I go for walks through the park or whatever. Couldn't do that in AZ, you'd get heat exhaustion before you took a second step.

Badgers are cuter in Uk than in America

Ooh, I thought of another.

Walls White Chocolate Magnums.. arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Maybe that should've gone under 'food.'  
Ooh! And having so many cultures and accents and languages in such a compacted space.  And having everything be live on TV.  Being from AZ, we get neither the East Coast or West Coast live feeds here in the U.S.    Yes, one tmezone is GOOD!

The country truly is beautiful here - the lochs and firths (lakes and bays), the sun streaming down through the clouds, the green hills, the stone fences, the 200 year old farmhouses. *sigh* I love it. And the weather has been much nicer and easier than I had been led to believe. I like it.

You drive around a corner and unexpectedly there's a castle!

The architecture and such is amazing - Edwardian, Victorian, gothic, art deco - all so wonderful.

The men here are more comfortable with their sexuality - less macho and homophobic. You wouldn't get straight men in America who say "lovely" and admit to taking baths! It's great. I think UK men also are more willing to do household chores and are less likely to consider them women's work.

Women TV presenters are not toothpicks!  They are quite "healthy" looking and I love that. People DO seem to have a more positive body image here, with less expectation of unrealistic perfection. There still is some pressure to look good (hair and tanning salons are everywhere), I don't think that will go away and I would imagine that in London it would be more so than other places. But, I feel that there is a better mix of all types of people out socializing and shopping. They don't stay home and hide away here - old, young, fat, skinny, tall, short, rich, poor, all different levels of the social strata get out and about. So, it makes you feel quite comfortable.

Love the BBC - no commercials!  And I love the property shows.

The people are nice and friendly. Oh, you'll run into a jerk every now and then, but not often.

Curries - yum, yum, yum!  And steak pie - mmm, heaven. And their deserts are quite over the top, so when you order a sundae with just chocolate sauce and without the toffee chips, chocolate sprinkles, and caramel chunks, you feel almost virtuous!  

OOh - something I forgot to mention - - -
I love having tax added in to the prices. DOn't have to calculate it in your head when you head to the register, you pay exactly what the tag says.

I see I'm a little late to the party, but I'll add my bit anyway.  I love, first and foremost, the fact that I can live here legally with my English gf, which we cannot do in the US.  But I also love:

The color of the sky here, and the way the clouds move so fast.

The place is so wonderfully green.

You only need air conditioning one week out of the year, which is not enough to justify the cost of putting it in.  

The intensity of the sun, when it's out.  And I love how British people seem to rush out into the street en masse, the first time the sun comes out bright and warm in the spring.

Fresh air, even here in Harrow.  At least it smells like fresh air most of the time.

Buildings that look old, ARE.

People freely admit to getting drunk and being hungover, without the slightest shame.  A nice change from the US where you cannot even have a civilized glass of wine over lunch without being referred to the "Employee Assistance Program."

Adorable pudgy-looking British Shorthair cats.

London.

Public footpaths that go right through people's yards, and no one is going to come out of the house with a gun and chase you because the public right-of-way has been there for hundreds of years.

Public transport that is actually easy and convenient to use.  Haven't experienced that since I lived in Brooklyn.

People do not sneer at classical music and opera.  

They also do not ask you what you do for a living within the first minute of conversation.  In fact, they usually don't ask at all.  And if it does come up, they certainly don't ask you what your day job is, when you tell them you're a musician or a writer.  (Lest you think I am kidding, this actually happened at a friend's wedding we went to in the US.  Somebody at our table asked my gf what she did.  Upon hearing that she was an opera singer, he asked with a "knowing" look, "Yes, but--what do you do?"  She fixed him with that withering look that the English are so good at, and said, "I sing opera.")

Going to France for the day.

Dinner party conversation seems much more interesting here, and in Europe generally--people seem less afraid to bring up serious subjects, intellectual subjects, or topics that might be controversial.

Putting cream on everything, pouring butter over things, bacon, sausage, full bodied Cheddars...this is not a fat-phobic culture.  (The press may hate Atkins but the food made it easy...lost 40 lbs on it over the past year)

Standing in front of the big John Lewis on Oxford Street and hearing every language in the world spoken as people go by.

The Bombay Brasserie's Sunday brunch.

No one cares what church you go to.  Or if you go to church.  Or what your spiritual beliefs are (or are not) generally.

Some of the most beautiful gardens it has ever been my pleasure to behold.

I could go on but I ought to stop here....

Emily

I agree with everyone but thought I would add my 2p

I love all the hanging baskets in spring and summer and the fact that everyone has flowers planted. Its strange not to see at least a basket out front.
I love the fact that I can sit in my living room and there is a street full of kids playing out side in a way that I havent seen in California since the 70s.
I love that my dog now has a back garden and not just a cement patio.
I love a Friday night pub crawl (well, Legion here) and go for an Indian after.
I love all the DIY shows on telly
I love the freezing Cheshire winter. Bundling up and walking with DH and the dog. No one looks at you funny if you walk anywhere or everywhere.
I love holidays in Spain
I love holidays in Scotland
I love that the soaps are popular and that they look normal... some even homely and still are on TV
I love that people accept you for who you are, not what you are or what you look like or your size or all the other things that go on in the states.
Enland is not perfect. No place is. But to be honest, I have no desire to move back. (move to Spain, thats what DH wants, but not to the US)

when you push the crosswalk button (for a pedestrian to cross the street)---IT REALLY WORKS in the UK!!!!!!  Even if 2 people are crossing 2 different directions, from the same corner, at the same time, it works! 

I swear, in the US those buttons are to give you something to do while you wait for the light to turn.