When you move abroad it shouldn’t come as a shock that things will be different to home. However I spent so many months researching and looking into things that I thought I’d pretty much worked out what would be different. So I was surprised there were a few things that caught me off guard. I’m sure there are more that I’m blanking on, or haven’t experienced yet, and I’ll be sure to keep this post updated.
Static electricity
I swear the static electricity over here is on steroids! I only remember experiencing static shocks in the UK from supermarket trolleys, slides, and occasionally car door handles in summer. But over here they’re an everyday occurrence, and often multiple times a day, whilst at home! I will add, this is only since fall hit, over the summer the only static we experienced was from the kids coming down slides.
Banking
Here in the US I’m not able to easily move my money between accounts, or transfer some to a friend without incurring a charge, unless I use a specific money sending app (similar to PayPal). Which seems nuts to me. It’s my money, why can’t I move it around however I’d like for free?!
Gas stations
Or petrol stations as we call them in the UK. I’ve never actually paid much attention to what side of the car my fuel cap is on because the hose at the petrol station has always been long enough to stretch round if needed. I kinda guessed this would be universal, especially considering a lot of cars over here are bigger than in the UK. But I was wrong.
I found out the hard way that the hoses are shorter over here. The hard way involves me getting back into my car, turning it 180°, pulling back into the space facing the wrong way and trying again, whilst bright red and muttering under my breath. I now know which side of the car my petrol cap is on and I’m sure to pull up in the right lane, haha. The pumps here also lock into place whilst you’re fueling up, which means no achy hand from squeezing the pump for 10 minutes, yay!
DMV (DVLA equivalent)
Pretty much everything regarding your driving license, car registration etc can be done online in the UK, and if not it’s done via the post. I assumed it would be similar over here as both England and America are well developed countries. I was wrong again. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve visited MVA offices over the last 5 months.This was a big shock to me, especially as a lot of things you can’t book an appointment for, so you can usually write off a good chunk of the day for the visit, as the queues at the offices can be crazy.
Car pool
This is something I read about prior to the move but didn’t fully understand what it was. I thought it would be a case of parents pulling up at the school and getting their kids in/out of the car. Little did I realise that you (the parents) don’t even get out of the car at all. Super helpful when you have other little ones that you don’t want to get out of the car (even more so when it’s raining).
Drive-thru’s
It seems like pretty much everything has a drive-thru option, which is great if you’re in a rush and want to grab some food, it’s raining and you don’t want to get out of the car, or just don’t want the hassle of unloading and reloading the kids. Obviously we have drive thru restaurants in the UK, but here we can drive thru the pharmacy, bank (not just ATMs), and the post office!
If you’ve moved abroad, what unexpected differences did you experience?
Lizzie xo