Hey, guys.
Welcome back to the girlGun London Channel.
If you're new here, my name is Kalyn.
I'm a dual American and UK citizen,
and today I am telling you everything I love about the UK.
So after my unpopular opinions video,
I feel like we need to talk altogether there, because I had some opinions about
the monarchy and about things like asda that some people found unsavory.
So I thought, you know what?
We need a Kumbaya moment.
We need to all come together.
And I'm going to tell you in ten minutes
as much as I can about everything I love about the UK.
So I'm setting a timer and we're just going to go.
I'm going to see how many things I can get
out in ten minutes to express to you just how much I love the UK.
I've got my timer here on my phone.
I'm going to start ten minutes and let's go.
Okay. Things I love about the UK.
I love how light it gets in the summer months.
The days here are very long in the summer
and makes up for the shortness of the days in the winter.
Absolutely love that.
I love hula hoops, the plaint.
I don't like the barbecue or the other flavors.
I like asda, which I talked about in my other video.
I love asda cookie.
I love sainsbury's cookies.
The miniature chocolate chip sainsbury cookies are amazing.
I love the NHS.
I've done a whole video on it.
This is, of course, one of the major things I love about the UK.
The fact that I don't have to go bankrupt
when worrying about doctor's appointments or coming down with diseases.
Amazing. Support the NHS.
I love the NHS.
I love the sort of national how would I phrase this?
Not national pride. That's a whole other video.
But in the Pandemic,
it seemed like in the UK, people really pulled together all together
in their neighborhoods and in different countries and just a sort of becoming one.
We're in this together.
Of course we weren't, because some people, like doctors and nurses,
were experiencing things that anyway, I'm getting off topic.
We support our doctors and nurses, but everybody just sort of came together.
I feel like in America it was very fragmented.
Maybe they came together for a couple of weeks.
I feel like in the UK,
people really had that wartime spirit and really looked out for each other
and came together as one during that time period.
Other things. I like Scotland.
I love Scotland.
Scotland is beautiful.
I like a particular town in Scotland called Creek.
Have you been? To creep.
It's in Perthshire and near another
favorite of mine, the trussex in Scotland as well.
I also adore Wales, particularly the coastline, north Wales.
And like Conway. Shoot.
Is it Conway or Conway? Conway.
It's Conway. C-O-N-W-Y.
But I don't have time to look it up
because I'm at two minutes with the Castle conway whales.
Beautiful. Love whales.
Love the coastline.
This is a lot of pressure.
I like a lot of stuff, but now I'm like am I saying it fast enough?
Okay. Other things I like about the UK.
I like Pancake Day.
We don't really celebrate Pancake Day in America.
I love Pancake Day.
I love any excuse for eating pancakes.
I love the city of Oxford, particularly the covered market.
Oxford is a beautiful city to walk through.
It's got a lot going for it,
and I have always enjoyed going there and always will enjoy my time in Oxford.
London another thing I love about the UK,
and I know many of you will be like, london is not the UK.
And it's not. But it is such an amazing city.
You've got everything in one place.
You've got government, museums, the theater district, food,
as opposed to American cities where it's like La is known for entertainment,
and New York is known for the west, not the West End.
Broadway and DC is the government in London.
You go to London and you've got it all there.
I love how connected the UK is to most of the world, but particularly Europe.
It's very easy here to take trips,
to go skiing in the French Alps, or to go to Venice for the weekend.
It's really something that is basically impossible in the US.
Yeah, I could go to Georgia for the weekend, or Alabama or Mississippi
from Florida, or I could take a flight to somewhere else within the country.
But in the UK, you can constantly go to different countries with different
languages and different cultures really quickly.
I like British Airways.
I don't know, every time I phone them, I enjoy them.
Some people say they're going downhill, but I've been a fan.
I like a national airline.
I like John Lewis.
Reassuringly, expensive.
Definitely the best customer service that I've personally experienced in the UK.
I like the feel of a John Lewis.
I like going in to the cafe and just feeling a little bit fancy,
a little bit like I have my life together, even if I don't at the time.
I just enjoy a good John Lewis day out.
Other things I enjoy the amount of walks and hikes that you can do in the UK.
So I have made videos on how it is funny
how walking it does seem to be a national pastime of Brits.
And it's true, I don't necessarily like hiking or walking as much as those around
me, but I do enjoy and appreciate how many beautiful, just gorgeous, like,
countryside walks that you can go on the Lake District is I thought of this
because of liking hiking and liking walking.
You would love the Lake District.
But the Lake District on its own is another thing I love about the UK.
Particularly oldwater is one of my favorite lakes.
We went paddle boarding there last summer.
I have a whole video on camping in the Lake District.
I would go to the Lake District every day if I could.
Moving over to Northern Ireland.
Can we talk about how friendly the Northern Irish are to people?
When I went to Northern Ireland, I visited Belfast and Derry and the warmth
in Northern Ireland and the friendliness was really out of this world,
especially when I compared it to living in the south of England.
I loved that kind of spirit of hospitality and of really being proud to be
Northern Irish and showing off all that they had to offer.
I also really enjoyed the city of Dairy and the walls around it and how it looked.
And obviously there is a troubled history there, no pun intended,
but it definitely seems like a place where people were coming together, rebuilding,
and they had a lot going for it and just a lot of beautiful things to look at.
Okay, what else do I love about the UK?
I love Boxing Day.
I love having the day after Christmas
to not automatically go back to work and to actually have time off.
I like, in general, the amount of holiday time in the UK when I was not self
employed and when I was not setting my own schedule.
I still could take like, four to five weeks per year off to go away
to do things that I wanted, which wasn't work.
The work life balance in the UK is much better than in the US.
And I really enjoyed having all of that vacation time in the US.
It's not very common to have much vacation time at all.
Certainly not four to five weeks.
I'm on six minutes and 40 seconds. Okay.
I love the British Museum.
I know it is basically a collection
of things that Britain may have borrowed from other countries, but it's awesome.
The ceiling is amazing.
Cleopatra is there.
It's just such a crown jewel in Britain's cap.
I also like the Tower of London and the actual crown jewels.
I also enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the monarchy.
And I know I have my opinions about the monarchy in the last video,
but in general, it is nice, the emphasis on tradition in the UK.
So once you really get into it and lean into it, it is really nice to feel a part
of and to be a part of things that have happened for centuries and just a history
that I really wouldn't be able to experience in the US.
Other things I enjoy did I mention the summer and the long days?
And also the fact that it's not scalding hot in the summer?
Usually maybe one or two days.
But for the most part, I enjoy presummers and summers here in the UK.
The temperature can be pretty mild, but in a nice way.
And so you can enjoy and be out and about
without absolutely sweating like crazy like you do in Florida.
I also like that you're not probably not
going to get eaten by a shark when you swim in the UK waters.
Feel much safer at going swimming
at Bournemouth than I ever do off the coast of Florida.
Bournemouth is another place in the UK that I really enjoy.
One of the coolest seaside towns.
Speaking of seaside places, cornwall.
I love Cornwall.
Genuinely, you feel like you're
on a tropical island when you're in some places in Cornwall.
I know we are on an island,
but not a tropical one, but you can basically be convinced
that you are on a tropical island in some of these Cornish destinations.
Other things I love about the UK is television.
A, there's not as many adverts or commercials, thank goodness.
And B.
I like a lot of British programming.
I don't watch it as much anymore, but particularly when I first moved here,
I'm a big fan of a Channel Four documentary.
Anyone else?
Channel Four does some really interesting, like, reality show type
short or long documentaries on some very interesting topics.
And I have always really enjoyed the things that I've found
on BBC, but particularly on things like Channel Four.
I'm a big fan of Channel Four.
Other things that I enjoy.
Also, now that I'm saying this, Channel Four is yeah, never mind.
Okay.
I can't even cut this out because you have to see the whole ten minutes.
I'm at nine minutes and 30 seconds. Okay.
What else do I love about the UK?
I love how people are not all up in your
personal space and how in general, people are friendly, but not constantly,
like badgering you at the store to see if you need help a little bit more.
Like keep to yourself.
And at times I can enjoy that.
Okay, 10 seconds.
Things I love about the UK.
All of my British audience members
who watch these videos, who comment, who let me know the things you like don't
like about the UK, america, how they're different,
how they're the same, your opinions on cabbage and everything else.
I've passed ten minutes now.
Ten minutes and 5 seconds.
I can already see the comments now.
You talk too fast.
But I hope you enjoyed ten minutes of things I love about the UK.
So I'm going to end this video here.
I would love for you to comment below.
Tell me what you agree with.
What are the things you love about the UK?
And I'll see you guys next time.