And nobody had a single clue of what to do with it.
People just drove straight over the middle
thinking that it was kind of just there for fun if you wanted to.
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Girl Gone London channel. If you're new here,
my name is Kalyn. I'm an American who's lived in England
for almost 10 years, and today I am going over eight little
known differences between the UK and the US.
So I've gotten some positive feedback
on my other videos about the differences between the UK and the US.
But a lot of the things that people often talk about are pretty obvious.
We know that we drive on the different
side of the road here and, you know, some basic language that people might use
here that we've heard in the US in terms of like British movies and TV shows.
But I really enjoy talking about the little nuanced,
nuanced things that you might not have realized are different.
So if you are interested in more UK versus
US information or information about living abroad in the UK from somewhere else
in the world, definitely make sure to subscribe.
That's how you'll get new videos and know that I've posted more.
So the first difference between the UK and the US that people often don't talk
about is that the keyboards are actually different.
So the UK keyboard doesn't.
It has the letter keys in the same exact places, but the UK keyboard is going
to add in a pound sign, which we don't have in the US.
Funnily enough, my UK keyboards do actually have a dollar sign as well.
And there are also a couple of other
things that are in different places, depending on the keyboard.
Like the key is sometimes in a different
place and like the quotes key, I had no idea that they were different
in the sense when I first moved to the UK and I remember being in the computer lab
in the university I was studying at, and it was so frustrating because every
time I go to tape, a particular key or symbol is always the wrong one.
So that is the first difference that people might not mention.
If you buy a laptop in the UK or
a keyboard in the UK, some of the symbols are in different places.
OK, the next difference has to do with eggs.
So let's first talk about the fact
that in the US we are most used to seeing white shelled eggs.
In the UK you're mostly going to find brown ones.
Now, the other thing that kind of goes along with this is in the US,
we store eggs in home, in homes and in the grocery stores or
supermarkets in the refrigerated section in the UK, you will not find the eggs
in grocery stores in the refrigerated section.
This is something that completely throws
you off guard when you first move here and don't know what to expect it because
you go up and down the aisles of the refrigerated section looking
for eggs and wondering why the supermarket doesn't have eggs.
And then you find them like normally next
to the bread and some of the supermarkets I've been into.
There's also other places depends on the store.
But I was so shocked the first time I
found the eggs unrefrigerated next to the bread.
And the reason for this is there are different processing techniques
from the farm to the grocery store, depending on the country
they leave on the protective layers here
in the UK, that basically means that there is little chance of bacteria or
something going wrong with egg not being refrigerated in the US.
There's a really intense
like washing system that actually strips the eggs of this protective coating,
which means that then it's safer to leave them in the fridge.
I'm not completely up to date on different food processing techniques and so I am not
saying one is better than the other, but the countries do it differently.
And because they do it differently,
it means that the eggs can be stored or have to be stored in different ways.
We actually store some of our eggs like on the counter and some of our eggs
in the fridge, which I don't really know why we do that here in our house.
But if you go into a British grocery
store, do not look for the eggs in the refrigerated section.
The next difference has to do with couponing culture.
So if you've lived in the US or you know about the US or you've seen the show
on TLC like Extreme Couponing, you might know that in the US we are
a very coupon driven society when it comes to consumerism.
So in we just always like a coupon, we always like getting a deal.
And it's not just like at the grocery
store when something is naturally on sale, but we clip coupons.
So different brands send out coupons.
So you might get like two dollars off
certain brands at any store that you go to.
And so a lot of people in the US are used
to like bringing their coupons to the checkout counter and getting deals.
People get like their entire grocery shopping cart for very little money.
This is the whole thing that people spend their time on doing.
And just as a society, we are used to the idea of coupons here in the UK.
We're really not the case.
There are deals on things.
You might go into the grocery store and something is marked down.
Or there's like a Clarence sticker on it, or there's just like a natural promotion
at the stores running, but the idea of like a coupon book
definitely is not in the U.K. You wouldn't really clip coupons.
Like, I'm trying to think of instances
where I've had to present anything to get a deal like there might be.
But in general, the couponing culture of the US is not replicated in the UK.
And the idea of like buying a book specifically full of coupons to use
at various places, one hundred percent is not a UK sensibility.
Another difference are the places that people travel to.
So it goes. That being said, different countries are
going to be closer or further to different destinations, obviously, in the US.
I think we mostly travel within the country and when we do travel outside
of the country, popular destinations would be Canada, Mexico and Western Europe.
So coming to the UK in the UK, people do travel to the states.
Also, European travel is popular,
but there are places that a lot of people have traveled here that I have never met
anybody who had been there before in the US, places like Thailand.
It's really popular here to travel to Thailand.
It's a beautiful country, really cheap.
And if you take a survey of kind of your
neighbors or your friends here in the UK, somebody is going to know somebody who's
been to Thailand, who's gone to Thailand or who has a trip planned in the US.
This is definitely not a destination
that's really on our cultural radar in terms of, you know,
being able to take a poll and easily finding someone who has gone to Thailand.
There are other countries like that.
I think I've met more people in the UK who have gone on vacation or holiday
to India than in the US and just some other like Asian destinations as well.
And again, this is down to differences in geography and how close or far things
are, as well as just the fact that, again, a lot of Americans,
if they're going to travel abroad, they're coming here to the UK or somewhere
in Western Europe, here in the U.K., they're going elsewhere.
So that was another difference I noticed in terms of being able to chat to people
about their vacations and where they had been on the topic of vacations.
Let's talk about travel insurance, because this is another difference.
And a lot of people that I've talked to in the UK don't realize the lack
of travel, insurance, knowledge or culture in the US.
Not that travel insurance is like
a culture, but as a culture, we don't really get travel insurance.
A lot of people haven't even heard of travel insurance.
I am pretty sure I had not heard of travel
insurance before I moved to the UK here in the UK and I think in a lot of Europe
it's like you go on a trip and you get yourself some travel insurance.
It's just considered a standard part of going on vacation or going on holiday.
As I say, in the UK, that is definitely not a thing for Americans.
And I was looking at some articles about this and some hypothesis about why this
could be certain things of Americans are so optimistic.
So we think that nothing is going to go wrong even when we should plan for it.
Things like, again, a lot of Americans are only taking trips domestically.
So even though it does make sense, something could still go wrong.
From your trip to Texas to Montana,
we don't really think of it in terms of a risk.
Obviously, people do think of it more when they travel abroad.
So in the UK and in Europe, when it is much more popular to leave your
country than that kind of comes into play more.
And it's just something that in the states we really people do get it.
I'm not saying that it's not a thing.
I'm just saying that it is definitely not
as popular or considered a necessity in the way it is in the UK.
The next difference has to do with banking.
And I talk about banking and another
video, but I want to talk about these card readers.
So this is a device from Barclays, which is a personal card reader.
So if I were to log into my Barclays account, which I actually don't have any
more on, this is an old one, but I think you can use them across banks anyway.
But it basically can help you log into your account.
A lot of accounts nowadays will require
a multitude of options, but one of them will be you can log
in by putting in some details and using your card in the card reader.
You click identify you press your pin into this personal card reader.
It says, yes, that's correct.
And it gives you a code that you then put in your online account to let you in.
We don't have these in the US.
We obviously have card readers when it
comes to stores having a card reader for someone to pay.
But the idea of having a personal card
reader is 100 percent a difference between the countries.
When I go to log in to my US bank
accounts, there is no card reader involved.
It is not an option.
It's not a thing that we are used to in the US now, I said.
I wasn't going to talk about driving
on different sides of the road, which I'm not, but I am going to mention
another difference between the UK and the US, which is the use of roundabouts.
So in the US, I think we call them like traffic traffic circles in some places.
But basically, instead of having traffic
lights and four way stops here, all of the junctions or what we would call
intersections in the US are basically run by roundabouts.
And that means that there is a pretty steady, constant flow of traffic.
It's obviously not always going to be your turn, but if the traffic is clear,
you go as opposed to the US where you can all be sitting at like four traffic lights
and they're all red and you're like, what is going when am I going to get to go?
That wouldn't happen here in the UK.
And a lot of people do think roundabouts are a superior traffic solution.
However, I feel like they only make sense
in a country that understands what to do with them.
There was a really small traffic circle or
roundabout that I remember from growing up that was like outside of a target near
my house and nobody had a single clue of what to do with it.
People just drove straight over the middle
thinking that it was kind of just there for fun if you wanted to.
So if roundabout and I do know that there are places in the US
with roundabouts, but if they were to become more a part
of a country's traffic patterns, we definitely have to do some education
for the Americans because we are just not used to that kind of traffic system.
I also feel like roundabouts really makes
sense in a country where you don't have a grid system.
The roads are just all over the place weaving in and out.
And so putting in a roundabout, I think is probably a little bit easier
than dealing with in the US, especially where I'm from,
maybe not so much in the Northeast, but in a lot of places in the west
and in the south, we have just straight grid lines that intersect each other.
And so we kind of think of the four way traffic light system making more sense.
And the last difference I have to talk about is the difference between American
and British sensibilities about plants and garden center.
So hear me out. So here in the UK,
they have what they call garden centers, and this is basically a place that you can
buy plants like garden decor or gardening supplies.
But also there tend to be other things sold there.
So having a gardening center,
they usually have like a cafe that serves lunch and snacks and tea.
There can also be other things sold within the garden center
that aren't even related, like clothes or something like that.
And there is a cultural fascination with garden centers.
When we were in lockdown in the beginning of this whole situation,
that was one of the things that were first to open before everything else.
Obviously, people could only do stuff outside and they wanted to garden
and stuff that I just thought that was so funny.
There is such a cultural love,
especially in certain areas and among certain age groups for garden centers.
Now, when you compare that to the US and the reason I bring this up is
a difference is obviously you can buy plants in the US.
We would call it a nursery
and not for children, for plants here in the UK, nurseries for children.
But we would call it a nursery and that would be to go and buy plants.
But that would pretty much be the only thing you do there.
And it's more of a get in and get out situation.
Obviously, you might explore kind of walk
around a little, but there's usually not going to be anything else to do.
It's a place to buy plants.
And it's not there's no sort of cultural love for nurseries.
They're just places to buy plants.
We also have, you know, home improvement stores.
So our version would be like Lowe's or Home Depot.
But they also have those in the UK.
It's called A, B and Q is an example of one.
So that also isn't really comparable to a garden center.
Even though they might have a garden section,
they're still not a place that you would go and you could actually meet somebody
for coffee and mostly kind of older people, though no shade to you.
If you are a younger person who loves
garden centers, it's just more of a cultural love
and fascination here with garden centers that we don't have in the US.
OK, so I hope you enjoyed this video
on these kind of smaller and nuanced differences between the UK and the US
that you might not not necessarily know on first glance can leave your comments
below on what you thought, on other differences you've noticed.
And I hope you enjoyed the video.
And I'll see you guys next time.