Which is the best country to live in?

I feel sorry for you, kiddo.

There is no country in the world in which you can take the bus and hear nothing but British English spoken.

But there's still a chance, with no need to move:
Build a time machine and go back, say 50 or 60 years. Nice double decker busses and hardly a speck of a foreign language.

Or better still, you could open up your heart and mind.

No, wait! Honestly, I think building a time machine would be an easier task for you.

I feel soooo sorry for you, kiddo.

It would be best for all concerned that you stay where you are, although you'd fit in nicely in certain parts of America surely. Under no circumstances consider Australia, I'm told the flies are as horrid as multiculturalism.

I had a love, years, who was sicilian. His take, to the extent I remember it, was atavistic.

He's only eighteen. Hes still a teen-ager. Maybe it can be looked at from the standpoint - although he said that he doesn't think the people on the bus using different languages are talking about him - that in actuality, to a certain extent - it's a natural function of adolescence to believe that EVERYONE is talking about you.
He'll grow out of that - most people do.

But what I hear him saying is that he's upset with the change. And so he's directing his upsetedness and attributing his discomfort to the change that he sees and hears - and that's the different people who have arrived to make what was once familiar and comfortable to him, unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Again - I think it comes down to what you're used to. I grew up in a neighborhood and I would say a town - in which there were no Baptist people but my family. I'm SERIOUS!
We had to go to church, be edict of my parents, two or three towns over where a bunch of transplanted southerners had gotten together and built a church for all the transplanted southerners.
So here I am, one of six children being raised by two fundamentalist, southerners in the middle of a town where most of the people were living in Jewish households with three kids max and the remaining were Catholic with a few mainstream Protestants thrown in.

They all looked at me and my family like some exotic oddity that lived down the street. So what do you do? You know - I went to Hebrew School with my Jewish friends - took part in their seders - tried to wear a chai and a star of David necklace (my mother drew the line at that).
I went to catechism with my Catholic friends - dreamed about what name I'd pick for my confirmation name if I could have picked one (I wanted Theresa). Because what was the other choice? To sit down there in my own house, just learning my own culture's ways and feeling isolated?

But if I had felt uncomfortable, I think it would have been understandable.
It's not easy to feel encompassed and surrounded by the different and unfamiliar and to be the odd one out. Especially not when you're only 18.

But I do think that, in general, British people seem less able to roll with change than Americans. They have a long and hallowed sense of tradition that Americans just don't have.
And they do seem to believe (it seems to me) that there's only one right way to do something or one right way to say something...there doesn't seem to be a lot of innate flexibility in the British psyche.
I mean the other day, I said, 'Okay - I'll be there at quarter of one. And the person said, 'Quarter OF?! You mean quarter TO one, don't you?
And I was like -'Oh Jesez - same thing - you knew what I meant, didn't you?

But that person just wanted me to say it his way instead of my way - whereas when they say things their way - I don't even notice it- as long as I know what they mean.

What the heck is going on with these slashes in contractions? At first I thought it was just my computer, but now I see that there are the same slashes in the contraction that is in Fbaezer's quote.

This is a test- I just typed an apostrophe and on my screen it looks normal - now I'm going to post and see what happens when I use an apostrophe.

Yeah - those weird slashes are there -except now there's one instead of three for every apostrophe.

it's don't can't won't man's wouldn't

That's funny.

The backslash is used in computer programming when there are quotes because the quote character has meaning in the computer language (i.e. the language doesnt know if it is a real quote, or if it is being used as a symbol)

Generally for quotes that are really part of text, you add a backslash. Someone obviously got a little carried away.

As a programmer, this is familiar bug.

Maybe it is different where you come from. Different cultures bring different ways of life. Some not as preferable to others. And I am not racist, and I do like to get to know different people. I am not xenophobic, it has nothing to do with that. It is that fact that there are so many foreign people in my area. London may be a very diverse area, but many of the people who were born in this country do not like the way it has become.

That's my favourite oxymoronic quote of the week.

I am learning another langauge thanks. And the immigrants should have to learn English if they wish to an English speaking. They only come here because the skilled jobs are here, and for the benefits of this country. I am not blaming the immigrants themselves anyway, it is the governments fault for having such relaxed laws. You in America have had points system for many years. We have had none of that, we let anyone and everyone in. It has benefited this country in more ways than it has created drawbacks. Anyway Britain has reason to join the Iraq war, it's not as if they started it is it???

Well, obviously, England is not the best country to live in, with all those disgusting foreigners who won't speak English. I mean, really, who would put up with that?

It is not long ago that in USA a positiv diversity meant just white with European background. Jews could not be members in certain clubs, Afro-Americans, at that time were called something else, did not have the same rights as the whites and there was segregation.
Now EU states to a certain extent have taken in people as refugees, illegals, asyl seekers etc. Many of these people have not a chance to work, but live off social benefits, sometimes even higher than the citizens in the country.
Then there are problems when people who in their own country are enemies and then get to live in the same apartment house, go to the same school.
There are mobbing by EU kids against minorities in a class. There are mobbing against EU kids when they are minorities in a class.
There are people who do not want to learn the language in their new country, they still try to have the same laws as at home. Why do we have refuges for girls being afraid of a forced marriage? Simply because there is a reason for it. We have honoury killings - something new for EU.
The majority of the non EU citizens are a plus for our countries, but the minority which does not want to fit in are the ones who make people get mad at all of them, which is a shame.

I am not mad at them. But have you not seen the future predictions for the population of the UK?? They're mental. This country is crowded enough already, yet still it lets foreign people in. The UK should be sorting out it's own problems instead of welcoming people in. No doubt we gain from the skilled workers from India etc. But there are too many people doing nothing in this country.

I know how things are in certain parts of GB, especially around London.
I did not mean that you personally are mad at anybody, people are getting mad.
Why do you think that ultra right parties are growing in EU?

But if you change your mind and decide to move to the US, for your own sake, stick to Boston, Los Angeles and similiar urbane centers, because if you land in an airport in the rest of the country (e.g. Birmingham, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Lexington, Des Moines, Butte or Fargo) they will string you up the first time you open your mouth.

Most Americans, at least the ones who are not smart and urbane and live in Boston and Los Angeles, just hate foreigners.

You are overeacting so much. I don't find it that bad. And anyway I think I would prefer life in Britain 50 years ago.

" TEST "

I've lived in 7 houses in 5 different states in the U.S. Austin area best by far.
Right now, U.S. is the best place (for me) to live because that's about all I know.

With all the bad dentistry and overdone mushy food?

Canada is consistently rated on the of the worlds best, however we embrace our multicultural roots. I don't think you'd like it here either.