Funny thing happens when you announce that you’re in the process of immigrating: you find out that almost everyone you know knows someone that immigrated at some point. All sorts of brothers, cousins, and friends come out of the woodwork. I’ve had the e-mail address or phone number of some common soul pushed on me no less than 5 different times, I think.

It’s not that I object to this profferance of help — quite the contrary, I deeply appreciate the thought — it’s just that it’s not actually very helpful. To immigrate, broadly, is to move to another country, and that’s about the extent of the majority’s understanding (mine too, until it became pertinent to know more). Based on recent reactions, most, too, seem to think that all one must do is marry to gain legal residence in a new country.

This is one of those things where someone that thinks they know what they’re talking about says “Apple computers are way-overpriced, you’re better off with this Dell laptop,” and you spend the next half an hour telling them why they’re a) wrong, b) an idiot (and their friend has to buy a new laptop within a year). I call it an assumption of knowledge (as, I’m sure, do many others; I doubt I’m the first to observe something like this): you know a thing or two about computers, so you assume you are qualified to comment on Apples, making no effort to learn any of the specifics of Apple. Similarly, you know someone that immigrated once, so now you know all about it. Enough to recommend someone that immigrated by way of an employment visa to someone that is immigrating by way of a spousal visa, anyway, which is of just about no use to me, since there is almost no commonality in the two processes.

I never make a big deal of it. I accept the phone number, smile, and go about my business. Of the phone numbers and e-mail addresses I’ve been given, so far only one of them is similar enough to my situation that I might actually contact them. The rest, never. But for some reason, the people that gave you those details get very offended. “Have you called James yet?” “No, I don’t think he’d actually be very helpful.” “Why on earth not? He immigrated too.” “In a totally different way.” “So what? It’s the same basic thing.” “Not really.” “Well, bugger you then, I was just trying to help.”

See? I’m sure there’s a more tactful way to handle it, but I don’t see why I should have to devise it. This person has nothing to offer me, I’m not going to call him.

And, really, someone’s personal account of their immigration — even if they’re pursuing the exact same visa — isn’t particularly helpful. Yes, they immigrated, no, they are not now experts. The immigration process is almost random: there are tons of forms, all with cryptic acronym names, ridiculous fees that aren’t made immediately obvious anywhere, various stages in the process where something could happen and derail the whole thing, at least two interviews, even more fees and forms and waiting. And who knows what else. Thing is: even within the same kind of visa, everyone’s path through the process is different. One particular form could take longer than someone else’s to process — I have read accounts of the process of applying for the visa I want taking between 6 months and 3 years — you might have to resend a form, forget to include something, miss a field, and so on and so on. If you want to talk to someone about the process, you are better off going to an immigration lawyer, not your Mother’s husband’s brother’s best friend.

That said, there is definitely some value in hearing someone else’s personal experience (assuming they pursued the same visa), but only in the sense that it will help you understand what to expect. And, for that reason, I am grateful if someone can put me in touch with someone in a similar position. But “someone that immigrated too” is a little vague to be of use to me.

As I say, I’m deeply grateful for the thought, this just isn’t very helpful, I’m afraid.

As you might gather from this post: we are, at last, in a position where we are starting to think about the actual immigration process. And that, at the very least, is wonderful. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I mention it.

The large majority of my posts here have been documenting notable differences I’ve observed between the US and the UK. As interesting as that is (to me, at least), I’d much rather be writing about the progress of my emigration. Sadly, we haven’t been able to make a great deal of progress for a while. That changed on Friday, when we made one of the biggest steps: we got married.

The whole experience was rather surreal and unexpected, not to mention modest. We got up at 7:30am and went to apply for a marriage license, and the same day, got married by a judge in a court room usually reserved for small claims hearings. It wasn’t at all what either of us imagined our wedding day being like, but I think we both agree that’s not at all a bad thing. We’ll definitely have some pretty fun wedding day stories to tell, like the old man that was there marrying some 18 year old blimp of a girl.

The judge was super nice, and the whole thing took less than 10 minutes. We both said “I do,” kissed, cried, and got out of there, a couple of very happy newlyweds.

Two of Heather’s friends came along to witness it (though that wasn’t a requirement), which means we have the signatures of Heather’s German boss and a “Hare Krishna” on our marriage certificate. Both of us find this endlessly amusing.

The photos we got aren’t great (we even accidentally left timestamps on!), but we don’t mind: it was a fairly modest affair, and we captured the moments that matter.

We’ll renew our vows once I’m legal in the US and have a proper ceremony, with better photos.

As far as my eventual permanent move here goes, our next step is to apply for the visa. That’s where it’s going to start getting expensive, confusing, and stressful. And once applied, the paperwork will still take around a year to go through, so we’re still in the very early stages. For now, I have 2 weeks left before I have to return to England.

But I’ll be getting back to my wife as soon as I can. Hopefully for good.

Also, we really want to thank everyone that’s said nice things to us — on Tumblr, on Twitter, and in e-mail — it felt really great to see so many people happy for us.

Here are a couple more marriage-related things:

• I made this for Heather as a wedding present
• Our marriage license receipt will make me smile every time I see it, thanks to my ridiculous name
• I also became an Uncle this weekend
• The music blog I write played a big part in our relationship, so, naturally, I posted our song and said a few words about it

This isn’t going to happen very often: I’m going to talk about sports for a minute. I’m not a big sports fan: I used to enjoy watching soccer periodically, and I played rugby for a while, but for the most part: nope, not into sports. I’ll watch the big games — finals, playoffs, etc — sometimes, but for the most part, I just don’t care unless I have some personal attachment — like a friend of mine when I lived in Wales getting invited to play for the national team in a friendly game.

I watched part of an American football game last night and my stance remains the same, but there are some observations to be made.

For the record, it was the Indianapolis Colts vs the New England Patriots. I only watched around 15 minutes of the 4th quarter, but I think anyone else that watched it will agree that I saw the best bit: the Colts coming back from a 17 point deficit to win the whole thing by a single point, in the space of about 5 minutes of play. It was incredibly exciting, and very suspenseful as the clock ticked down to zero.

The most obvious thing to note, for me, is how confusing I find the sport. I have a vague notion of the rules, courtesy of one reading of the Wikipedia page for American Football, but still found it fairly confusing to watch — particularly the concept of “downs.” I figure it’s something you get used to and learn over time, but it struck me that I never had that problem with football in Britain (soccer). From the first game I watched, I knew more or less what was going on. The rules are much, much simpler (as in anything, there are some vagaries and more complex rules to consider, but only for the serious fan), and it’s much easier just to watch.

It’s basically 11 men trying to kick a ball into a goal, while keeping it inside the white lines. American Football can be summarised just as succinctly — a bunch of men trying to throw a ball to the end of the field — but there’s a lot more in between, and a lot more details that matter.

I know enough to enjoy a game — which is all that matters, really — just not enough to avoid being occasionally confused.

Another thing is the sponsoring. Sponsoring stuff is out of fucking control in the US, and sports are no exception. The stadium is sponsored — the Lucas Oil Stadium, in the case of the Colts — the uniforms are sponsored, as is every single other piece of clothing the players, managers, coaches, and anyone within ten feet of the aforementioned wears, along with the equipment (coaches’ walkie talkies, for instance), and the broadcast. Ad slots during a game, too, are highly sought, and very expensive.

That’s not all that different from British football, really, but the Americans have a level of audacity that I just find shocking. Naming your stadium after a sponsor is shameless, and there is scarcely a second during a televised game where someone’s logo isn’t visible.

I don’t even want to think about the amount of money being spent on this game. I’m sure it absolutely dwarfs whatever the Brits are spending.

One other miscellaneous observation: they give players ratings. Fucking ratings. During last night’s game, NBC flashed up a graphic of each team’s quarterback, showing statistics like attempted and completed passes, yards thrown, and so on, and finally, a rating for each player. What is this, top trumps?

And that seems like a rather uniquely American thing to do. As does sponsoring the hell out of every available inch of pitch, uniform, and television screen. As does having scantily-clad cheerleaders breaking up the monotony. As does 22 fully-grown men running around a 360-foot field beating the shit out of each other. (Not to say that football is without its strategy, because it has a lot more than British football does, which I appreciate.)

This all sounds rather negative, but it shouldn’t. Yes, America is a little out of control in some respects, and yes, a ridiculous amount of money is spent on sport, but American football is a superbly exciting game and it’s pretty hard to completely dismiss something that engenders so much compassion, and (mostly) friendly competition. And it’s much the same deal in Britain.

I’m still not particularly interested in American football, but I find it a lot more interesting than soccer.

“They can’t be that different, they’re called the same thing!”

For your convenience: waffles, muffins, and biscuits, in the US and England.

I did take a few liberties with this, in the interest of making an awesome graphic:

• The “England” header should probably say UK, but Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have their own delicacies, and I’m not sure how they conflict with these definitions. Playing it safe.
• The British waffle is potato, and is generally eaten with sausages or bacon or baked beans (or all three!). (Baked beans, by the way, are not supposed to have brown sugar in them, you awful people.) Waffle is actually interchangeable and can mean either a potato waffle or a sweet waffle in England, but if someone says “waffle” they usually mean the potato kind.
• The American muffin is technically called an English muffin, which is equal parts ironic, ridiculous, and confusing. Muffin is also interchangeable in the US, and possibly in England (I’m sure we have English muffins like you guys, but I’d never eaten one before now).
• The American biscuit looks awful, and I do not ever want to eat one. What I call a biscuit, Americans call a cookie or a cracker. American cookies are also fairly common in the UK.

Images stolen from Wikipedia, mostly.

I seem to have a unique talent for obsessing endlessly over minor, mundane differences in pretty boring things. That said: let’s talk about tobacco in the UK and US! At length!

As a person with absolutely no respect for their physical wellbeing, I take great pleasure in blowing large amounts of hard-earned money on smoking. No biggy. Slightly more surprising to American people is that I roll my own cigarettes. I have done for most of my smoking life (which began when I was 18), primarily because of the cost.

In the UK, a pack of 20 cigarettes will set you back a little over £5. I can buy a pouch of tobacco, some rolling papers, and filter tips that will make up at least that many — around 30, before I run out of tobacco — for about £3. That’s a considerable saving on a fairly expensive habit. More than worth the extra hassle of having to roll the damn things whenever I want one, and in practise, that usually means I smoke less, something to do with having to make a conscious decision to make a cigarette before I can smoke it.

As far as I can tell, the savings aren’t quite as pronounced here in the US. Pack of 20 in the UK: £5. Pack of 20 in the US? $5. Huge difference there. (These are anecdotal observations, of course, I’m sure the exact prices vary a little from place to place.) It doesn’t seem to be just a matter of price, though; tobacco is also taxed a lot more heavily in the UK.

According to The Tobacco Manafacturers’ Association, the average price of a pack of 20 in the UK as of April 2009 is £5.85. Most of that is tax: £4.45 of it. The tax in the US is a mere $1.01 per pack. Which, courtesy of Barack Obama, is 61.6 cents more per pack than it was a year ago.

As far as tobacco goes, the cost of the materials to make your own seems to be fairly equivalent to the cost of just buying cigarettes, so it’s not quite as cost effective (though it does work out slightly cheaper, and usually tastes a lot better).

That said, although Americans find cigarettes and tobacco ridiculously expensive, it’s hard for me not to feel like I’m not getting a huge bargain.

There are a couple of other miscellaneous things I’ve noticed with tobacco in the US.

One: the quantities differ. In the UK, when you buy tobacco, you choose between a 12.5g, 25g, or 50g pouch. In the US, your options appear to be 40g pouch or Big Ass Tub O’ Tobacco — I think it was about half a kilogram, but I don’t recall — I only bought one once, because that’s a ridiculous amount of tobacco to buy.

It’s also a lot harder to find loose tobacco here. In Indianapolis, there’s one specialty tobacco supplier, and the odd gas station (Brits: that’s a petrol station) where you can find it. In the UK, every single general store, supermarket and gas station sells it; if they sell cigarettes, they sell tobacco.

There are some interesting regulatory differences, too. It’s illegal to advertise cigarettes in most mediums in both the US and the UK, and both countries require that manafacturers put health warnings on them, but the UK takes that a lot more seriously.

On the left here is a British tobacco pouch. On the right is an American one. (The differences are exactly the same on cigarette packets, too.) Right off, there’s an obvious difference in approaches, but this Wikipedia goes into more detail. To wit:

Anywhere in the EU, there must be at least two health warnings. One must cover 30% of the surface of the pack, and the other must cover 40%. There must also be a picture warning. Some of the pictures get a little graphic. (Though Brazil has us beat on graphic images.)

The US is a lot more lax about it, having one of the least prominent health warnings of all countries.

Warnings are usually in small typeface placed along one of the sides of the cigarette packs with colors and fonts that closely resemble the rest of the package, so the warnings essentially are integrated and do not stand out with the rest of the cigarette package.

Though that is soon to change, with new regulations requiring 50% of the front and back to have warning labels and capital letters.

I’d like to know more about how the US approaches trying to make people quit. It’s already pretty obvious that Brits get way more anti-smoking propaganda than Americans, but that’s a topic for another day. I need a cigarette.

I’ve already mentioned advertising at some length, but here’s one more recent observation.

I saw two commercials that surprised me last night. The first was a Burger King commercial, and the second was a Hardy’s commercial (another burger place, for non-US people). In Burger King’s, they were promoting a new burger and implied that it was better than a McDonald’s burger. I don’t recall the exact wording, but they were comparing the two burgers, and BK’s ad said a) their burger contained more meat, b) probably tasted better than the equivalent McDonald’s burger. They cleverly avoided saying it was definitely better, but the implication was clear and obvious. Hardy’s commercial was a similar situation, but the only specific name they used was “Big Mac,” which is obviously a McDonald’s burger to the majority of people.

Maybe this kind advertising is common to Americans, but it would never happen in British advertising.

For one, as previously mentioned, all British advertising is governed by Advertising Standards, and they set some pretty strict rules for what can and can not be in an advert. One of them is this:

Advertisements must not discredit or unfairly attack other products or services, advertisers or advertisements either directly or by implication

So that kind of thing is flat out not allowed in the UK. There’s another rule that goes like this:

Advertisements must reflect the spirit, not just the letter of the rules

So while you might be able to employ some clever wordplay that indirectly discredits a competitor without actually breaking the rules, the chance that Advertising Standards will let it fly is minimal.

As far as I can tell, the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices handles this in the US, and doesn’t seem to make any such mention of denigration or discrediting of competitors. It does require that all claims be backed up with hard evidence — thus being able to say with certainty that a burger contains more meat than a competitor’s, but not that it tastes better.

Looking south (I think!) up (down?) Pennsylvania (I think!) in Indianapolis (I think!)

As previously mentioned, the hyper-organised grid layout of American cities is a vast improvement on The British Way. It’s logical, efficient, and it makes getting around easier. At the time, I predicted going places being trivial in solo ventures.

I was wrong.

It still makes sense, and I still think it makes for a great navigational system, but it requires a mindset that is far removed from what I’m used to in Britain.

We navigate by landmark in the UK. There’s simply no other way until you know the place well enough to get around without thinking. (Comparison here, if you need it.) We turn left at the hardware store, and take the second right after Craven Road, and drive about 100 yards past the school before turning right. You can’t do that here, because everything looks the same.

I tried to do it that way for the longest time. For the first few months here, the landmark I used to know what street we live on was a traffic cone sat on the corner. I know exactly where we live now, and I could get there blindfolded within a radius of a few blocks, but the cone was still the marker I used at first, and it became a habit after that. Because that’s just the way I’m used to when getting around. And then last week the cone disappeared. As I approached the corner of our street, I noticed that it was missing and had an “am I going the right way?” moment. Without the cone, it looked the same as any other corner in the area.

Outside of abandoned traffic cones, landmarks I was using were certain buildings and stores (turn left when you see Kroger), distance travelled (take the second right), and other miscellaneous structures like bars, war memorials, and trees (seriously).

It took a total of around 4 months to realise that simply wasn’t going to work, after noticing I could still barely make it downtown (a 20 minute walk) without getting confused.

So now I’m doing what I should have done in the beginning — making sure I always know what direction I’m travelling, and trying to remember which streets lead where and in what direction. Heather has been extremely patient with my constant confusion (“we’re walking north, right?”, “South!”), and trying to give helpful pointers where possible — like the fact that we live north of the city centre, and certain streets being one way in a particular direction (Delaware is a one-way north¹). I usually forget within minutes, but I’m finding eventual recognition with repetition.

I’m not really sure why this is giving me such difficulty — it’s pretty fucking straightforward, really — but I suppose the way you navigate your city or town (or country, even) becomes such an ingrained habit that it’s hard to change. Baby steps.

1. The high number of one-way streets is also an oddity I’m getting used to. They’re rare in the UK, generally reserved for back alleys and small roads that aren’t wide enough to accomodate two cars. Here, they can be 4-lane behemoths that serve as major streets.

For the last 3 months, I spent my weekends — and most weekdays — holed up at my Mother’s place in England, doing not a great deal. That got really mind-numbingly boring real fast. So being here in Indianapolis and actually doing stuff is a huge difference, and I love it. It’s just nice to be active, instead of vegetating on a couch all day.

Last night we went to a friend’s party and had a great time. Then today we went downtown and checked out the Labor Day parade — where Heather got a “Health care for America NOW!” sign that she steadfastly insisted on carrying around for the rest of the day — had a wonderful breakfast at a place called Le Peep, then discovered a civil war museum under a war memorial in Monument Circle.

Great day.

I finally have a date for my triumphant return: the 27th of August.

Knowing exactly when we’ll be together is a massive (expensive!) weight off both our minds. I think I smiled the whole day I bought my plane ticket. Relationships are hard enough without not being able to be together, and touch each other, and see each other laugh and cry. A healthy relationship requires physical contact, there’s no two ways about it. That’s what makes long distance relationships so hard. Especially when there’s an ocean between the two of you.

The last three months have been immensely difficult for both of us, and it’s seemed a little bleak at times, especially in the last month. The stress and constant lack of physical contact has caused stress, and unhappiness, and inevitably, some arguments. Knowing when we’ll be able to see each other again makes it all worth it; there’s an end in sight, and a great feeling of We Made It.

We haven’t actually made it yet, of course. It’s a long, hard road from here. But for the next three months, at least, it’s a road we can travel together.

And that makes us both unspeakably happy.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make an update here. Since I got back, I’ve just been working as much as I can, and Heather has been doing the same. But this week, we finally made some progress. We’ve decided exactly how we’re going to orchestrate this Being Together business, and I’ve saved enoguh money to go and visit her again. I’ll start with the latter.

It took a while to find a job here. The recession’s hit Newbury pretty bad, and job opportunities are few and far between, which made it easy to accept a job line picking in a refrigerated warehouse. Not a job I’d ever willingly choose to do, but it was fairly easy, I could pick my shifts, and the pay was better than anything else I’d be likely to find. I’ve also been working a second job editing Marco’s GMSTR. The two combined mean I have enough money to visit Heather again now, so I’ll be doing that as soon as humanly possible. Hopefully while it is still August.

As for our long-term plans, we’ve finalised that too. We dismissed the standard visas as an option early on, since I stand little chance of finding a job that will sponsor me without a degree, so we turned to spousal visas. Which means getting married, something we were both immediately fine with. Long story short, when I visit this month, we’re going to start making plans to get married. Which means I’m getting married some time between August and November. (Yikes!) Then I’m going to leave again, and we’re going to apply for a K-3 visa, which basically gives the US resident (Heather) permission to bring her husband into the country permanently.

There are still ways in which this could all blow up. No visa is a sure thing, but we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure it goes smoothly. It’s going to take about 10 months, as a conservative estimate, and it’s going to be hard, expensive, and complicated, but it’s also going to be so fucking worth it.

I still have a lot of “holy shit” moments when I think about the fact that I’ll have a wife and a new home in a different country a year from now, but it’s the best possible kind of holy shit.