Howdy from Texas! :)

Hi My name is Carrie, i'm 28 and I moved to England about 2 and a half years ago. I'm from Fort Worth, Texas.

I met my husband online and we both moved here, we finally got our residence cards about a year ago. We were in Vienna, Austria first and we loved it but because of all the crap that we had to go through to get the residence card for me here, we kind of hate Brighton.

Hello Carrie and welcome Nice to see another expat on the boards! I'm Angel, I currently live in San Diego, California and will be joining my bf (husband at that point) in England in 9 months. How was the transition from America to the UK? Do you miss anything about TX? I have friends that live in Houston, Austin and Dallas areas. Look forward to seeing you around the boards!!

Hi Angel! Congratulations on moving here and getting married!

The transition was hard to be honest, I don't have any friends here. The only person that I know is my husband and he is Romanian so we are both outside of our countries. If you have friends then you'll be fine and will probably like it. We had a lot of problems getting my residence card and spent a ton of money.

I guess I miss my family and my friends the most. I haven't seen any of them in almost.  I also miss knowing a place and feeling like you fit in, you know? I've been in Brighton for a long time and I know it pretty well but I don't fit in, it feels awkward. I miss America in general, just everything all the stores and resturants and I really miss driving. It sounds stupid, but as much as I love being able to walk everywhere, I miss being in a car. But I can fix that once my husband and I settle somewhere.

What part of the UK are you moving to? Do you have a lot of friends over here?

I'm sorry to be such a downer, lol. I'm not usually so depressing.

Now, don't be hating Brighton. It's a place all the South Coasters go to have fun!

Actually, not true. We've discovered, now that we live in the South coast, it's really hard to get to Brighton. When we were in London, we took the fast train down. More difficult running along the coast by car.

Anyhow, slow down and try to enjoy it. Where are you hoping to settle?

Hi, I would say welcome to the boards but I am a new comer also so that feels awkward.

What kind of trouble did you have? I still have that to look forward to and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about the whole process and my Brit and I have been married 27 years.

Now, don't be hating Brighton. It's a place all the South Coasters go to have fun!

Actually, not true. We've discovered, now that we live in the South coast, it's really hard to get to Brighton. When we were in London, we took the fast train down. More difficult running along the coast by car.

Anyhow, slow down and try to enjoy it. Where are you hoping to settle?

Its a great place if you have friends and like to go out to clubs or to dinner. But we aren't terribly social and haven't made friends really. Its really hard to enjoy it, I feel out of place. The whole reason that we moved here was because we are vegans and its kind of perfect for that reason. But its a party town and we aren't the party type, I'm also a city girl and its getting claustrophobic. I haven't left Brighton in a year and before that it was just to London for a few hours.

We don't know where we want to go next. Manchester seems nice and just this week we were looking online at Edinburgh, it seems good too. I just hope I don't freeze to death lol.

Hi, I would say welcome to the boards but I am a new comer also so that feels awkward.

What kind of trouble did you have? I still have that to look forward to and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about the whole process and my Brit and I have been married 27 years.

Hi, the problems we had were very different than yours would be I think. First I got sent back to America when I arrived here the first time. They were afraid that we wanted to get married there and live off the benefits. Then we went to Austria for 3 months and got married. We came back to England and even though we were married and have plenty of proof that we were going to get the residence card, I always got sent back again.

But I didn't, so we had 6 months to apply for the card and we hired a very expensive immigration lawyer. She said that since we had so much proof that we were legitimate and that my husband could prove that he made very good money and could support both of us that it wouldn't be a  problem. So we applied and got rejected and we reapplied and paid even more but it was accepted this time. But we had to wait 9 months to get the card back. A million other things have also gone wrong with our apartment too.

Its just been a nightmare. But like I said, I doubt you will have these kinds of problems. You will be fine, try not to worry about it too much!!

Hi Angel! Congratulations on moving here and getting married!

The transition was hard to be honest, I don't have any friends here. The only person that I know is my husband and he is Romanian so we are both outside of our countries. If you have friends then you'll be fine and will probably like it. We had a lot of problems getting my residence card and spent a ton of money.

I guess I miss my family and my friends the most. I haven't seen any of them in almost.  I also miss knowing a place and feeling like you fit in, you know? I've been in Brighton for a long time and I know it pretty well but I don't fit in, it feels awkward. I miss America in general, just everything all the stores and restaurants and I really miss driving. It sounds stupid, but as much as I love being able to walk everywhere, I miss being in a car. But I can fix that once my husband and I settle somewhere.

What part of the UK are you moving to? Do you have a lot of friends over here?

I'm sorry to be such a downer, lol. I'm not usually so depressing.

Aww thanks Carrie, we're not married yet, but most definitely looking forward to it! My bf currently lives in Nottingham (born and raised) but works in Mansfield so we'll most likely settle in the Nottingham or Derbyshire vicinity for a couple years before we make our way closer to London I don't personally have any friends there, but my bf does and they're lovely so is his family! I hear ya on the car issue, it's gonna suck for me to part with my mode of transpot. My bf drives and has a car, but I won't right away, I don't mind relying on public transport, but my bf does. Not to mention I'll be bringing my 6 1/2 year old daughter with me so it would be ideal to have a car before she would start school there (luckily we're moving in the summer so we have a couple of months to sort that). I do hope we don't encounter any of those problems you had to go through. My heart goes out to you on that! You two are very brave and persistant to have gone through all of that drama. So where do you find an issue with making friends? I would love to visit Brighton once I'm there in the UK and settled so maybe a coffee date is in order hehe I'm sure I'll miss California and the sun lol, but I know with time I'll make England my home.. Just staying positive!

Welcome Texas,
My brother lived in Ft Worth for years. Now he's in North Richland Hills. Hope u'll like it better when u get all of the residency stuff out of the way. Hopefully, I will be getting my ILR next Fri. But it is a pain, the whole process. Lots of great people here though that give lots of support.

Thanks UKHILLBILLY!
We've actually gotten all the residence card stuff figured out, we got it last year finally. But we lost a ton of money in that time with the lawyers, so we're getting back on track. I think once we move to another city, i'll feel better about it. Nothing good has happened since we've moved to Brighton so its got a bitter taste in my mouth now.

I really like North Richland Hills, my parents live on the border of Fort Worth and North Richland Hills. I can't wait to go back, I wonder if it looks the same. I'm happy to be on the forum again, I tried posting here a few years ago but I didn't keep up with it.