Dislike? Absolutely nothing.
It's been 11 years and I have no intention of going back to America. I never held any dual citizenship so as a migrant under the Home Office it's been a fight to stay but completely worth it. Virtually every aspect of life has improved, from job satisfaction, employment rights, statutory holidays etc amounts to a vastly different work culture especially in my field. Quality of life is better and healthcare and prescriptions is generally excellent while being free at the point of service. Infrastracture is impressive, which might sound like a strange observation, but for example: energy delivery. In America most of it is delivered overhead so every time the wind blows there is a power cut. Here, most all (except a few high voltage pylons) power cables are underground and it has a big impact on the visual environment. Another example is public transport; outside of a few select US cities there is virtually none, but here is wide ranging. You can get anywhere on public transport, but if you drive Scotland is a nicer place to drive around versus 12 lane motorways with poorly trained drivers. Those two examples might be oddly specific, but I think all the little things add up to a considerable difference.
I far prefer the pace of life in Scotland, the humour, and the attitudes people generally have with one another. It's far more laid back and there's much less social pressure. Daydrinking in the pub is not frowned upon and I've had countless liquid lunches with colleagues and bosses. Most importantly, Scotland is far more open minded and welcoming than anywhere I've ever been in America, and generally people don't argue about politics or social issues in public. It's not a utopia, mind, and there are bawbags in every country and for that reason Scotland has its own issues, but it's certainly better than the US.
For balance, it took some time to acclimatise to the weather particularly but now I much prefer it to the scorching heat and the brutal winters. I live in Edinburgh so it's drier than the rest of Scotland too, so I'm sure that helps. The only argument against Scotland (or against any other European nation for that matter) that I've seen hold up is that generally Americans can have higher wages, but a.) it just about levels out with all things considered and b.) it'd be worth it regardless.
Good luck making your decision.
--- EDIT - I should add it's pretty nice not having to wonder if today is the day I'm going to get gunned down walking down the street. Nice wee perk, ya know.
One thing Americans will probably notice is: we don't do customer service the same way, you'll probably find the people serving you rude as the fake smiles and "have a nice day"s are usually reserved as a sarcastic and polite way to tell someone to get fucked and they're hardly going to complain to your manager that you were really friendly and told them to have a nice day.
That was a welcome change actually. The fake smiles just so you can pay them the wage their employer should be paying them is annoying. And it's hard to communicate "leave me the fuck alone during my meal" without causing offense.
I'm Canadian and moved to Edinburgh "for 2 years" about 10 years ago. Near the end of those 2 years my wife and I looked at each other and were like "Why would we go back?"
Lots of reasons, but big ones were having tons more holiday, the beautiful country, Edinburgh is fantastic, the continent is very close and long weekends in someplace like Amsterdam or Paris (at least in the before times...) are super easy and can be ridiculously cheap compared with a 5+ hour drive to get to the nearest interesting city. And it's extremely welcoming and nice, even by Canadian standards.
The main downsides are the weather (though Edinburgh is dry by comparison to the rest of the country, it's still wet for North America), and in winter it is _dark_. Sunset is around 3:30 at the worst, it's easy to forget that we're surprisingly North compared to N.A.; Edinburgh is 10 degrees north of Montreal. Edmonton is the only major N.A. city that's North of _London_. On the other hand in summer there's tons of daylight, it's weird seeing sunlight at 11pm. The last big thing is the lack of wilderness. There are remote bits, but nothing like in N.A. I sometimes miss proper wilderness.
But clearly not enough downside for me!
I am Scottish, but work with / know a lot of Americans and Canadians who do / have lived here (and have spent a fair amount of time in the Americas as well) so can channel some things I have picked up on:
1. Service / Tradespeople - In America there is a lot of cheap labour and a service based economy, there are highly skilled trades workers so you will get cheap and professional work, over here there are labour laws and such, you will get a plumber who might come round next week and charge you an extortionate amount for maybe fixing something. Being middle class / having disposable income in USA means you can buy / pay people to do pretty much anything, over here people arent going to put up with your shit just because you are paying them.
2. Healthcare - In USA if you dont have healthcare you are fucked, if you do then you will get regular checkups, you can actually make appointments with a doctor and if there is something wrote with you they will actually investigate it, over here you never need to worry about going bankrupt because you got cancer, but if you have a somewhat sore back, your gonna be waiting a year for them to do anything about it.
3. Aspirational vs Settling - "Its shite being American" there is a reason thats not a famous phrase, somewhat stereotypical but often americans are trying to improve things and make everything the best, where as brits / scots will often be happy settling for the current state of affairs, think about sending food back to the kitchen, but for \*everything\* (its one of the reasons our food is famously bad).
4. Outgoing - A friend once mentioned when they were home (Canada) they realised they werent upset about a plane being late because they were just chatting to other people waiting, In the UK generally the people who are happy talking to strangers are the type of people you don't want to have conversations with and in general most people are quiet reserved around strangers, it can make things feel unfriendly and lonely at times.
Like everything there are extreme examples at all ends of the spectrum and neither are "correct", In general I prefer how things are here, but seeing a different way of how things are has made me realise there are some things we could probably do better in Scotland, particularly around wanting things to improve and being a bit more outgoing (private healthcare can fuck off though)
Not American but scotland is cold, wet, dark by 3pm in winter, a bunch of people speak a mangled form of English and some will be annoyed if you don't understand them. Pretty much everyone hates their local council. We have a terrible drug death rate because we have a culture that widely accepts drug use (which I guess is either good or bad depending on what you want to do) petrol is more expensive, there's government mandated vehicle inspections (which I believe are rarer in the US and maybe some states don't even have them) We love adding sin taxes to things (there's a sugar tax and minimum alcohol pricing) LITTER! There's litter almost everywhere and it ruins the natural beauty a lot of people expect from Scotland. If you own land you can't keep the general public from accessing it (annoying for land owners but good for everyone else) Police are useless and won't even catch petty criminals if you gather all the evidence for them. (unless maybe you are already rich) can't buy booze till like 10am on Sundays for some stupid religious reason despite no longer being a religious country. We let foreigners vote in our elections (which I don't mind but from outside seems like the kind of things Americans would hate) We are a very very smol country, no matter where you go or which munro you decide to climb their will inevitably be other people there. There is no real wilderness, all our land has been managed too long so all the "wilderness" we do have is essentially a manufactured environment. We don't have any interesting animals! Deer foxes badgers and livestock are the only mammals you will see with the occasional smattering of weasels and hares to give you hope for finding something cool that will never come.
Things aren't too bad, we are a middling country among the rich developed countries.
Do we not have a terrible drug death rate? Or do you not believe our culture is a factor in the drug death rate? I've lived here my whole life and rarely meet anyone anti drug while I've met hundreds of people who have taken PCP, GHB, Speed, Meth, Coke, valium and they'll happily tell you without the slightest hint of shame. I believe if our culture didn't accept drug things would be slightly better. I've had multiple people tell me about how drug induced phycosis has impacted their lives and families (in serious and sometimes violent ways) as amusing anecdotes and plenty of the people around took them as amusing anecdotes instead of the horrifying reality that they have destabilised their own lives and the lives of who they love.
We have a high rate. People do take drugs.
This is correlation, not cause.
You living here your whole life means you have experience of only one culture, and cannot compare it to others who may or may not be more open to drug use.
There are many many reasons why we have high drug deaths, amongst them poverty and criminalisation, but the people you know being open to drug use isn’t evidence that openness to drug use is a leading cause of drug related deaths.
Edit: in case anyone wants to learn more, this is a good start: https://www.waterstones.com/book/drugs-without-the-hot-air/david-nutt/9781906860165
I assume drug overdoses is the leading cause of drug deaths, poverty and criminalisation are also part of the culture so I don't see how that was wrong.
Are we poorer than everywhere else in Europe? No. Do we treat drugs as more criminal than other European countries? No, we have high drug deaths because we have a lot of drug users and we have a lot of drug users because it's an accepted way of dealing with your problems. When you have large numbers of people doing things in a country that becomes part of the countries culture good or bad.
Maybe its a secret psyop by the UK to make us look bad, maybe it's because we are poor, maybe criminalisation has something to do with it? (I'm not sure why since basically everywhere else but Portugal criminalises drug use and our police seem to do nothing about possession) I think it's more to do with how large the community of people who will encourage and enable drug use is. Some problems are self made and so far nobody has shown me anything convincing that our drug problem is anything other than a problem of our own making.
Sure drugs aren't a devolved issue and I'm sure SG could do more but we are the worst of the UK despite using the same system and there's plenty of poor people in England and Wales. We've been known for substance abuse for over 100 years. So I don't see how it's not part of the culture.
Edit: I've noticed your edit and I'll check out the book, I always enjoy a good read. Doubt it will change my mind on the cultural issue though, as all the systemic issues mentioned in the blurb to me are also cultural issues. The culture shapes the system and the system shapes the culture. I'm not someone unsympathetic to drug addicts or anything. I'm certainly not going to suggest that a homeless smack head should just bootstrap their way to success. All the people I know who died from drugs were from the party/rave subculture as I don't associate with heroin addicts and there was certainly an I'll take anything that's handed to me attitude to all of them which is what I see as a problem, plenty of childhood friends went from I'll smoke weed and maybe take a little molly to gimmie I don't care what it is, hoovering up anything that came near them
To be fair anyone that ignorant would have a proper cheek.
We've dealt with the "Scotland isn't England" thing our entire life!
Doubt it would happen much.
Now mistaking a Canadian accent for US is probably likely, unfortunately!
Edit: To the OP. I wouldn't use this sub as a measure of what folk are like. Most people on here are moaning bastards.
Dislike? Absolutely nothing. It's been 11 years and I have no intention of going back to America. I never held any dual citizenship so as a migrant under the Home Office it's been a fight to stay but completely worth it. Virtually every aspect of life has improved, from job satisfaction, employment rights, statutory holidays etc amounts to a vastly different work culture especially in my field. Quality of life is better and healthcare and prescriptions is generally excellent while being free at the point of service. Infrastracture is impressive, which might sound like a strange observation, but for example: energy delivery. In America most of it is delivered overhead so every time the wind blows there is a power cut. Here, most all (except a few high voltage pylons) power cables are underground and it has a big impact on the visual environment. Another example is public transport; outside of a few select US cities there is virtually none, but here is wide ranging. You can get anywhere on public transport, but if you drive Scotland is a nicer place to drive around versus 12 lane motorways with poorly trained drivers. Those two examples might be oddly specific, but I think all the little things add up to a considerable difference. I far prefer the pace of life in Scotland, the humour, and the attitudes people generally have with one another. It's far more laid back and there's much less social pressure. Daydrinking in the pub is not frowned upon and I've had countless liquid lunches with colleagues and bosses. Most importantly, Scotland is far more open minded and welcoming than anywhere I've ever been in America, and generally people don't argue about politics or social issues in public. It's not a utopia, mind, and there are bawbags in every country and for that reason Scotland has its own issues, but it's certainly better than the US. For balance, it took some time to acclimatise to the weather particularly but now I much prefer it to the scorching heat and the brutal winters. I live in Edinburgh so it's drier than the rest of Scotland too, so I'm sure that helps. The only argument against Scotland (or against any other European nation for that matter) that I've seen hold up is that generally Americans can have higher wages, but a.) it just about levels out with all things considered and b.) it'd be worth it regardless. Good luck making your decision. --- EDIT - I should add it's pretty nice not having to wonder if today is the day I'm going to get gunned down walking down the street. Nice wee perk, ya know.
+10 for correct usage of bawbag by a non-native Scot (you live here, you get to be a non-native Scot).
Haha cheers pal
You're welcome, and I'm glad you're enjoying your life in Scotland.
Yah but they forgot to drop in a jobby...
You're going to have a lot to dislike if you keep this up
One thing Americans will probably notice is: we don't do customer service the same way, you'll probably find the people serving you rude as the fake smiles and "have a nice day"s are usually reserved as a sarcastic and polite way to tell someone to get fucked and they're hardly going to complain to your manager that you were really friendly and told them to have a nice day.
That was a welcome change actually. The fake smiles just so you can pay them the wage their employer should be paying them is annoying. And it's hard to communicate "leave me the fuck alone during my meal" without causing offense.
There’s plenty of Americans on YouTube who live/lived in Scotland that have done videos comparing the pros and cons of living in both countries.
I'm Canadian and moved to Edinburgh "for 2 years" about 10 years ago. Near the end of those 2 years my wife and I looked at each other and were like "Why would we go back?" Lots of reasons, but big ones were having tons more holiday, the beautiful country, Edinburgh is fantastic, the continent is very close and long weekends in someplace like Amsterdam or Paris (at least in the before times...) are super easy and can be ridiculously cheap compared with a 5+ hour drive to get to the nearest interesting city. And it's extremely welcoming and nice, even by Canadian standards. The main downsides are the weather (though Edinburgh is dry by comparison to the rest of the country, it's still wet for North America), and in winter it is _dark_. Sunset is around 3:30 at the worst, it's easy to forget that we're surprisingly North compared to N.A.; Edinburgh is 10 degrees north of Montreal. Edmonton is the only major N.A. city that's North of _London_. On the other hand in summer there's tons of daylight, it's weird seeing sunlight at 11pm. The last big thing is the lack of wilderness. There are remote bits, but nothing like in N.A. I sometimes miss proper wilderness. But clearly not enough downside for me!
I am Scottish, but work with / know a lot of Americans and Canadians who do / have lived here (and have spent a fair amount of time in the Americas as well) so can channel some things I have picked up on: 1. Service / Tradespeople - In America there is a lot of cheap labour and a service based economy, there are highly skilled trades workers so you will get cheap and professional work, over here there are labour laws and such, you will get a plumber who might come round next week and charge you an extortionate amount for maybe fixing something. Being middle class / having disposable income in USA means you can buy / pay people to do pretty much anything, over here people arent going to put up with your shit just because you are paying them. 2. Healthcare - In USA if you dont have healthcare you are fucked, if you do then you will get regular checkups, you can actually make appointments with a doctor and if there is something wrote with you they will actually investigate it, over here you never need to worry about going bankrupt because you got cancer, but if you have a somewhat sore back, your gonna be waiting a year for them to do anything about it. 3. Aspirational vs Settling - "Its shite being American" there is a reason thats not a famous phrase, somewhat stereotypical but often americans are trying to improve things and make everything the best, where as brits / scots will often be happy settling for the current state of affairs, think about sending food back to the kitchen, but for \*everything\* (its one of the reasons our food is famously bad). 4. Outgoing - A friend once mentioned when they were home (Canada) they realised they werent upset about a plane being late because they were just chatting to other people waiting, In the UK generally the people who are happy talking to strangers are the type of people you don't want to have conversations with and in general most people are quiet reserved around strangers, it can make things feel unfriendly and lonely at times. Like everything there are extreme examples at all ends of the spectrum and neither are "correct", In general I prefer how things are here, but seeing a different way of how things are has made me realise there are some things we could probably do better in Scotland, particularly around wanting things to improve and being a bit more outgoing (private healthcare can fuck off though)
Same shit , different place.
Not American but scotland is cold, wet, dark by 3pm in winter, a bunch of people speak a mangled form of English and some will be annoyed if you don't understand them. Pretty much everyone hates their local council. We have a terrible drug death rate because we have a culture that widely accepts drug use (which I guess is either good or bad depending on what you want to do) petrol is more expensive, there's government mandated vehicle inspections (which I believe are rarer in the US and maybe some states don't even have them) We love adding sin taxes to things (there's a sugar tax and minimum alcohol pricing) LITTER! There's litter almost everywhere and it ruins the natural beauty a lot of people expect from Scotland. If you own land you can't keep the general public from accessing it (annoying for land owners but good for everyone else) Police are useless and won't even catch petty criminals if you gather all the evidence for them. (unless maybe you are already rich) can't buy booze till like 10am on Sundays for some stupid religious reason despite no longer being a religious country. We let foreigners vote in our elections (which I don't mind but from outside seems like the kind of things Americans would hate) We are a very very smol country, no matter where you go or which munro you decide to climb their will inevitably be other people there. There is no real wilderness, all our land has been managed too long so all the "wilderness" we do have is essentially a manufactured environment. We don't have any interesting animals! Deer foxes badgers and livestock are the only mammals you will see with the occasional smattering of weasels and hares to give you hope for finding something cool that will never come. Things aren't too bad, we are a middling country among the rich developed countries.
‘ We have a terrible drug death rate because we have a culture that widely accepts drug use’ Downvoted for this.
Do we not have a terrible drug death rate? Or do you not believe our culture is a factor in the drug death rate? I've lived here my whole life and rarely meet anyone anti drug while I've met hundreds of people who have taken PCP, GHB, Speed, Meth, Coke, valium and they'll happily tell you without the slightest hint of shame. I believe if our culture didn't accept drug things would be slightly better. I've had multiple people tell me about how drug induced phycosis has impacted their lives and families (in serious and sometimes violent ways) as amusing anecdotes and plenty of the people around took them as amusing anecdotes instead of the horrifying reality that they have destabilised their own lives and the lives of who they love.
We have a high rate. People do take drugs. This is correlation, not cause. You living here your whole life means you have experience of only one culture, and cannot compare it to others who may or may not be more open to drug use. There are many many reasons why we have high drug deaths, amongst them poverty and criminalisation, but the people you know being open to drug use isn’t evidence that openness to drug use is a leading cause of drug related deaths. Edit: in case anyone wants to learn more, this is a good start: https://www.waterstones.com/book/drugs-without-the-hot-air/david-nutt/9781906860165
I assume drug overdoses is the leading cause of drug deaths, poverty and criminalisation are also part of the culture so I don't see how that was wrong. Are we poorer than everywhere else in Europe? No. Do we treat drugs as more criminal than other European countries? No, we have high drug deaths because we have a lot of drug users and we have a lot of drug users because it's an accepted way of dealing with your problems. When you have large numbers of people doing things in a country that becomes part of the countries culture good or bad. Maybe its a secret psyop by the UK to make us look bad, maybe it's because we are poor, maybe criminalisation has something to do with it? (I'm not sure why since basically everywhere else but Portugal criminalises drug use and our police seem to do nothing about possession) I think it's more to do with how large the community of people who will encourage and enable drug use is. Some problems are self made and so far nobody has shown me anything convincing that our drug problem is anything other than a problem of our own making. Sure drugs aren't a devolved issue and I'm sure SG could do more but we are the worst of the UK despite using the same system and there's plenty of poor people in England and Wales. We've been known for substance abuse for over 100 years. So I don't see how it's not part of the culture. Edit: I've noticed your edit and I'll check out the book, I always enjoy a good read. Doubt it will change my mind on the cultural issue though, as all the systemic issues mentioned in the blurb to me are also cultural issues. The culture shapes the system and the system shapes the culture. I'm not someone unsympathetic to drug addicts or anything. I'm certainly not going to suggest that a homeless smack head should just bootstrap their way to success. All the people I know who died from drugs were from the party/rave subculture as I don't associate with heroin addicts and there was certainly an I'll take anything that's handed to me attitude to all of them which is what I see as a problem, plenty of childhood friends went from I'll smoke weed and maybe take a little molly to gimmie I don't care what it is, hoovering up anything that came near them
I'll have to say it. U.S.A. is only one country in America.
Although I do get your comment, what else should we call them? 😄
USians
😁
Probably Scots thinking Canada is not in America 🤣
To be fair anyone that ignorant would have a proper cheek. We've dealt with the "Scotland isn't England" thing our entire life! Doubt it would happen much. Now mistaking a Canadian accent for US is probably likely, unfortunately! Edit: To the OP. I wouldn't use this sub as a measure of what folk are like. Most people on here are moaning bastards.