The state of the 'heather in europe'

The US President gets to do his state of the union address, there's also usually a 'state of the state' done by a state govenor, as well as the 'first 100 days' review...periodically I do a 'state of the heather', although I don't usually put it onto the blog. However, as earlier this week marked my first 100 days in the UK, here are my thoughts:

1. How do you feel about leaving Germany and coming to the UK?
Superb. 100% this was the right decision.

2. What's do wrong with Germany?
Nothing's wrong with Germany, it's just that five years there marked the break even point, so I got out at what I deemed to be the right time. Search for my posts tagged 'german' to review the past five or so years if you're really curious for more details.

3. What's so right about the UK?
I wanted to come back to the UK for a long time, and not just for language or cultural reasons. A few Germans have mentioned to me that they feel that Germany is closer to America than America is closer to the UK. Not sure that I disagree with that sentiment. Although Germany has long held close ties to the UK as well.

Essex has a gritty feel which reminds me of Philly. Tuesday morning I was car number three parked up in line waiting for the facilities guy to open the parking lot entrace at benevolent company J's industrial street office at 06.53. The office is chock full of foul language and is mainly men. I can wear trousers every single day and swear like a sailor and no one will blink twice. It's comforting to just 'be' and not have to stress about office politics.

Having grown up sandwiched between blue collar Philly and the rural outskirts, it's comfortable to me to be in this environment. I was in Asda (the Walmart equivalent) late one evening looking at their brand of rice which was on sale. The stock person (I love to shop 22.00 or later when it's only the stock people) noticed me looking at the package and suggested that I check out the endcap special--I could get the rice plus either pasta sauce or pasta on a two-for-one special. I'm not so far removed to remember where I came from and I have a good job, pension, car etc. but it's easy for me to slip back into this environment. I know what it's like to live hand to mouth and in Germany it was a foreign concept. In the UK it's easy to slip back into what I was, and I'm happy to be there.

If I had to boil it down, I'd make this summary of points:
1. Work permit/citizenship topics
A. The UK offers the option to go to permanent residency and then UK citizenship with dual US citizenship. UK citizenship offers entry into the EU job market. Germany draws the line at permanent residency, unless you want to give up your existing citizenship, which most of us don't want to do. Why should I have continued to spend more years in Germany which counted for nothing when I could start the clock ticking again toward UK permanent residency and then citizenship? The best I could have mustered out of the deal from Germany was to fling my German 3rd country national permanent residency toward another EU nation (excluding England, Ireland and Denmark).

B. My work permit is based on my personal application, I am not sponsored by benevolent company J here. At any time I may jump ship, unemcumbered, and change to a different job/company. Not that I want to, granted, but that is a huge weight off my shoulders. OK, so I must renew after three years, but that's the easy part, assuming that one finds a job and pays taxes. The difficult part was the initial entry.

2. Superb healthcare
Ticktock. UK maternity benefits are not as good as other EU countries (i.e. Germany, France), but cost-wise they are impressive and thus far I've been impressed with the healthcare I have received.

3. Similarity to the US in some major (to me) items
Store opening times, English language literature, free libraries, prevalence of veg foods, etc.

What would I change?
Intellectually, while the British English is a little different, I'm not mentally challenged without the stress of converting everything into another language. This should change a little when I start at LSE in the fall.

What else pleases me these days?
A few things, actually. I'm in the process of buying a flat. That one deserves a whole separate post. And I've been seeing a nice British boy. As we all know I'm not especially forthcoming here, so consider the magnitute of that one. ;-)

Looking back over the past 100 days, I don't think that I would change a thing, and for me who must analyze, review and improve, that's a pretty big thing. :-)