Other side of the car....Other side of the road

We very quickly learned that, contrary to what the immigration people had told us, we would not be permitted to drive legally holding only an international driver's permit. We had thought this would suffice for twelve months however it was not to be. Many states have different laws, but, if you are to be resident in Wisconsin the state requires that you obtain a state licence within thirty days. For people moving here from many other states within the USA, this means only that they must replace their state licence and plates from their previous state of residence to their new one. However, for immigrants like us it meant taking a driving test! Oh Boy!
Wisconsin is full of railway crossings, strange speed limits, funky junctions, weird parking laws, and lots and lots of traffic cops to keep everyone in check. So we picked up a state driving manual and studied and practiced. This is strange to do when you have been driving for more than twenty years, believe me. The test was comprised of a computer theory test and a practical test. We had to learn a whole new version of the Highway Code which had strange information about what to do if you hit a deer (quite common in these parts!) and parking in winter! In cities this is very important as you don't want to leave your car on the wrong side of a street overnight 'cos if you do ...IT WILL BE OBLITERATED BY A SNOW PLOUGH! You can turn right on a red light at some junctions (but only if it is safe to do so!). You can't park in front of a fire hydrant. You must stop a certain distance behind a school bus if it has the lights flashing. Multi occupant lanes, single occupant lanes. Stop signs, yield signs, bear crossing etc,. We were pretty anxious about it all but in the end it was a breeze...the examiner just wanted to talk about England, where we lived before, and the Queen, of course.
We both passed the test and this actually turned out to be the easy part. The very worst part was picking up our shiny new Wisconsin Driving Permits. A visit to your local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) needs to be planned like a military operation. Take food, water, reading materials, passports, residency papers, proof of address, (maybe even a tent and sleeping bag!) because, believe me, you can make lifelong friends standing in a queue for THAT LONG!
My suggestion: plan ahead by going to www.dmv.org for a directory of state DMV websites.


I should add that for about two years after we moved here, I still, on occasion, got into the wrong side of the car without thinking. I'd turn around and think "Where's the bloody steering wheel?", then sheepishly climb back out and walk casually around to the driver's side, hoping nobody saw me. The lads I worked with used to die laughing at my stupidity. However, that's not the funniest thing...when we went back to the UK for Christmas, my husband quite happily drove off down the right hand side of the street. He had only lived in America for 16 months and had lived in England for 40 years....how confused was he? Still, it makes for interesting road trips.

Settling in...to school and home

We had to get organised pretty fast as school was starting just a week after our arrival. We were very lucky to find a house to rent in a beautiful place, but more importantly, within a great school district.

The crazy thing was that each of our three kids were starting three different schools: elementary (junior), middle school and high school.
We really hit the ground running ....classes had to be chosen for our high school student, but this posed a problem as all the other freshmen had made their selections weeks before and many of the classes Laura wanted were full. I would really recommend finding out how the American system works and selecting the classes as early as possible, even if you haven't arrived in the country yet. Use the phone or try online, as it will help make the transition for your children so much easier, and help prepare them for the many different terms and options.
Needless to say we were unprepared for so many differences. Finding out the correct level your child will be at in each subject is tough as high school classes here don't necessarily follow year on year. For example a freshman (1st year of high school) could be in a maths class will a senior as it depends when the student decides to take that class. Every subject earns credits towards the final graduation requirement and these are earned throughout the four years of high school. It is very different from the O level or A level exam requirements that we are used to. Even choosing a sport for Laura was a laugh! She had been a keen netball player at her English school so thought she could get on a team here.....
"What's netball Ma'am?", was the counsellor's response.
Do not fret though because the opportunities are boundless and children are resilient and adventurous. They soon settle into a new life, soaking up every new experience like a sponge. Within weeks we had a daughter on the freshman soccer team (I will never get used to calling football soccer!), another daughter in dance class and band, and a son playing youth soccer and the double bass, of all things! They were soon making friends and speaking in strange sounding accents!
One of the funny things that comes to mind about this time was how my children used to berate having to wear a school uniform in the UK. After only a few short weeks, my daughter admitted that she missed her uniform as it was so hard to have to think what to wear each day! "Being a teenage girl at school shouldn't be a fashion parade Mum. Should it?" Man, how we laughed at that one.
So another recommendation is.....find the Mall and find it quickly! At least clothes are very much cheaper here.

"Oh, You have an accent. Where is it from?"

So, once we were unpacked I thought it was time to register with a doctor.
This isn't quite as straight forward as it is in the UK. Americans tend to have a different doctor for almost everything; a paediatrician, a dermatologist, an allergist, an urologist, a rheumatologist, doctors in womens' health, mens' health, internal medicine, etc. The list was daunting and endless. I just wanted to find a "good old G.P."! Finally, after looking and sounding like the village idiot, I was directed to Family Practice. Hooray!
So, here is my advice. Find a good medical centre that has a Family Practice and choose a primary physician. This is your G.P. and he or she will direct you to all other practitioners as required. Hopefully, most of them will be in the same building as your primary and will be billing you the same way. (Did I forget to mention....healthcare is all private here and you will need good health cover. This needs to be one of the first questions you will ask of the health centre...Is your healthcare provider accepted at your clinic of choice?).

So, our clinic was chosen and a few months later I had cause to visit with my son who was nine years old at the time.
The general practice is for a nurse to greet you and take the particulars ie. height, weight, and so on. As she was writing the details down I quietly asked my son if he could recall what height he had been when we had arrived in America. The nurse then said "Oh, you have an accent. Where is it from?"
I replied that we had recently moved here from England.
"Well", she said, "You speak very good English"!
I heard my son's jaw drop and he looked at me as if to say "and you're going to let her look after me! Where does she think English comes from?"
We couldn't wait to get out of the clinic to laugh. They say laughter is the best medicine, it was definitely a good trip to the doctor!

While we are on this subject I'd advise a trip around a pharmacy such as Walgreens or visit the website http://www.walgreens.com/ to acquaint yourself with the general terms. CVS paharmacy are another big chain with a very good website http://www.cvs.com/

I hunted high and low for paracetamol and verruccae ointment. Neither terms are used here. Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen seem to be the main pain relievers, marketed very well by the brand leaders like Tylenol, Advil and Motrin.
A Plantars wart is the name used for a verruccae. Hopefully, this small snippet of information will save your poor feet a lengthy hike.

Five of us moved here. Paul and I probably too old to change our accents but ready to adopt our new country, the children, at various ages, were bound to change pretty quickly. What would our new lives be like?

We moved from a small island to this vast continent, believing that the transition would be fairly easy. In many ways it was, but in so many other ways, it was fascinating, bewildering, traumatic and most often hysterically funny.


After the first few days of feeling like you are on holiday (now called vacation 'cos "holiday" means Thanksgiving or Christmas and so on!) you have to start filling the pantry like you are " living" here, not going home in a fortnight (this means two weeks and is a word Americans do not understand) so you head to the supermarket. Now you realise that to fill a pantry from scratch is quite a task even in a store you know, but here is an overwhelming array of products you don't recognise, items you have never heard of and apart from in the fresh veg and the cereal aisle you feel completely lost!


I spent the first month, like Ria from that old 80's comedy "Butterflies",
serving up unimaginable, inedible meals to my poor family. I was so keen to try all this new stuff but had little idea "what went with what".
Very soon you start to crave familiar products like Marmite, British bread, HP sauce, Cadbury's chocolate, Patak's Indian food, Bisto, Weetabix etc. This was the British family that never set foot in a British bar while on holiday in Spain. If we were in a foreign country we wanted to experience all it had to offer, so for us to feel like this was really weird!


My new task was to find the www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking, a set of American cup measures and a good cookbook that had both UK and US recipe conversions. While I did this Paul got online and found where we could satisfy our food cravings www.britishfoodshop.com/ and
www.xpatshop.co.uk/britishfoodintheusa.

After that first visit to the grocery store where the checkout assistant asked my daughter if we have television in England! (Yes, honestly! Also
remember we do live in a small town and only 60% of Americans possess a passport) we realised that our lives here were going to be very interesting. A chance for us to learn from and to share with our new countrymen.
Let me finish today's post by saying that four years on, we love our lives here. We love the people, the climate, the food, even the football is growing on us!
We have so much we want to share with you.