<<Well, just don't move to Florda if you're still working.
My husband has been at a place for 10 years and gets 10 vacation days and 6 holidays, and that's the maximum anyone can get at his company!>>

Yup. That's my state and I have never heard of anyone being able to "negotiate" more time off than other employees. I live in a university town and umemployeed graduates pour out every year and are happy to take a starting job with few benefits to get a pay check until they find something better elsewhere.

There's no way I could have negotiated more time off than my boss had. The only person in the company that I worked for who got more time off was the president.

Nolenomad has it right: <<I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy for most employees in the US to dictate how much time they'll get off... especially if there's competition for their position.>>

Bill Bryson has returned "home" and has really gone native.
He is now the President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England

I have thought about this for a while.
Probably not.

Why:
There are places in the U.S. that appeal to me BUT I am not sure I would be entirely comfortable in a country that does not have a good social safety net and universal healthcare. Things are not perfect here in Canada but having once had to use the social safety net (long story) and having had to use the healthcare system on a number of occasions, I am not sure I would have the same level of security that I do here. It comforts me to know that if my husband lost or changed his job tommorrow, it would not impact on the healthcare I could receive (I have some serious, chronic, potentially life threatening medical issues).

Also I am simply not terribly comfortable with societies where militarism seems so much on display (at least to an outsider). Things related to the military appear to an outside to dominate the U.S. landscape. Also and I guess I find this the most disturbing - militarism and patriotism seem so closely intertwined in the U.S. (The "Support our troops by not disagreeing with government policies" mentality is just plain scary to me).

Please don't confuse this with any hostility to the U.S. I like most Americans I have met and I enjoyed any trips I took to the U.S. I don't like aspects of the U.S. foreign policy (but then I don't like aspects of Canada's foreign policy).

Consequently although I can think of many parts of the U.S. where I would like to live from a physical standpoint (nice weather, appealing scenery, little crime, good ammenities) I am afraid for the above two reasons a permanent move would probably never happen for me.

I have no plans to move to US, or any other place.

<i>I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy for most employees in the US to dictate how much time they'll get off... especially if there's competition for their position.</i>

Which is why it is important to hone your skills and make sure you are a significantly better candidate than the crowd. If you are highly-skilled and well-respected, you have the leverage. If you are just another Joe, then you have to take what you can get. It isn't easy, but it is possible. I guess I am saying that, if you are a sought-after talent, then the US can be a great place to live.

&quot;If you are just another Joe, then you have to take what you can get..


it would seem that most people in the US and in Europe are &quot;just another Joe &quot;..
What they &quot;have to take&quot; may be different.

<i>What they &quot;have to take&quot; may be different.</i>

And I would say it is far, far less different than many here presume it to be.

Isn't it wonderful that we don't all want to live in the same place? Going to a new place that is different than the one in which we live, is fun and educational. Home is where the heart is certainly is true and while I love traveling and living in different areas of the world, I always want to come back home and get in MY BED!!! That does not mean I have to &quot;put down&quot; other places, I am too secure within my own self to need to do that but there is no place like home!!!!

USA - definitely not. No interest whatsoever.
Europe - definitely yes.

Nver been to the US so this is only based on general impressions:

For a few years? Yes. Absolutely. Such an interesting and diverse continent to explore. I'm more interested in experiencing small town life and some of the more remote areas than the big cities (which don't strike me as being THAT different to European ones).

Forever? No.
I couldn't move anywhere so far from home and my roots.
I think I'd miss too much from the UK, in a way that I wouldn't miss it in, say, Australia, as that has a more 'British' culture. Cups of tea to cure-all. Talking non-stop about the weather.
I'd really miss 'banter'. I live with a non-British man and I don't get enough banter in my life as it is!
Also, for the US specifically, the gun laws /religion (come on, what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that? I wouldn't want to be around when those ignorant kids have grown up and are running the place. What other rubbish have they been taught? That's not a quality approach to education)/healthcare/worldview would mar staying there permanently.

<i>what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that?</i>

I would suggest that, if such issues are important to you, that you become a bit better informed about the reality. There was a brief scare about this when some overzealous board of education members tried this in Kansas. They were promptly voted out and all is back to normal. Moreover, to call their actions a ban is not really accurate. What they did was remove the requirement to teach it from the state-wide curriculum mandates. Individual school districts remained free to require it.

I would say the risk of a large-scale &quot;ban&quot; being introduced and actually sticking is exceedingly low.

<i>I wouldn't want to be around when those ignorant kids have grown up and are running the place. What other rubbish have they been taught? That's not a quality approach to education</i>

As somebody who studied at the university level in the UK, and who currently lives in Denmark, I would say that you are pretty wide of the mark. The US educational system actually places much more emphasis on breadth of knowledge than the UK and Danish systems (I'll never forget having to explain to several of my British hall-mates what the Magna Carta was). And I had no trouble, whatsoever, scoring a first during my year in the UK.

Indeed, I found the curriculum far less rigorous than my university education in the US, particularly in a lack of mathematical and scientific rigor being applied to the social sciences, which seemed, at times, to be something of a glorified history class. A good friend of mine found the same true at Oxford. He praised the minds of the faculty (he studied for a year as an undergraduate and again on a Rhodes Scholarship), but felt that the undergraduate students were not consistently at the level of a top university in the US (at the upper end, they certainly had their share of brilliant minds), and that it was easier to coast by if you wanted and avoid the hard work.

Not every product of the US educational is a genius, but I don't think you have to worry about a generation of imbeciles running the world.

And this shouldn't be taken as too much of an indictment of the British system. One of the smartest people I know is an Oxford grad, and he is widely read and we converse on a broad range of topics. But, I suspect his brilliance would not have been dimmed had he gone through the US system.

This is a pretty civilised thread, but I must come in about evolution.

An American friend is at her wit's end because her ten year old son is being bullied at school.
It seems that the trouble is that his father, an academic, teaches &quot;Evil lution&quot; and has spoken out strongly at public meetings.

<i>An American friend is at her wit's end because her ten year old son is being bullied at school.</i>

I suspect the bullying has little to do with his father's stand on evolution. In my experience, bullies tend to pick their targets first and come up with reasons later. And the bullied kids and their parents often look for their own reasons as well. As you might expect, they tend to blame it on some virtuous trait of the kid or the family - they are smart, or they are kind, etc. In reality, the kid is usually just different or smaller or shy or whatever.

That evolution can be easily turned into &quot;evil lution&quot; means little more than when they twist a kids name in an attempt to make fun of them (i.e. don't name your son Gabriel).

And, FWIW, Denmark has a bullying problem prominent enough that it is the Crown Princess's pet cause. And her &quot;solution&quot; (something about teddy bears) was lifted from a similar program in her native Australia. It would seem (without excusing it) that bullying is pretty universal.

&gt;&gt;Individual school districts remained free to require it (teaching of evolution).&lt;&lt;

Not where I live. And I live in a state where the landmark case was held.

Interesting debate. I am a Oxford graduate and found the Rhodes Scholars pretty dim though very people skilled. I guess there must have been some but not in my year.

The Magna Carta thing is interesting as it is seen within the US as far more signigicant than it is in the UK. Despite that I fully agree the ability of individuals to retain any information in their brain is pitiful. Magna Carta is as De-fenestration is to a Czech or Hoover is to an American. I have met natives of each country who know nothing of all such issues

&quot;Also, for the US specifically, the gun laws /religion (come on, what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that?&quot;

Not sure whether I'm embarrassed, but I am amazed and saddened. As this is something happening in places about as remote from me as I am from Europe, I have no vote. If such a thing were to happen where I live, I would not be sending my kids to that school and I'd be working hard to get a new school committee voted in. But it never will, as people with a point of view that would make that a possibility are a tiny minority in my neck of the woods and I believe in most of the US.

As far as guns, yes, I take any opportunity to add my voice to those seeking to restrict them. While the gun lobby is incredibly powerful politically, that does not mean that the average American has their opinions. Nor does it mean that the average American has any contact with gun wielding people other than law enforcement personnel. Gun crime is not present to any noticeable degree in most places in the US.

As far as religion, I can only echo what has been said here by many Americans: that I do not notice the intrusiveness of religious views in the vast majority of the people with whom I have contact. For most people, religion is a personal choice with no bearing on anybody else. As for the minority who do wish to impose their religious views on others, they are extremely visible in the press (which I imagine is intentional on their part in order to spread their message widely) and presumably that is why so many Europeans posting on this board believe they represent a substantial percentage of the population. In any setting in which I have ever lived, worked, or spent time, they do not.

I believe it is the very diversity of people in the US as well as the widespread tolerance of minority viewpoints that in some ways is responsible for the misconceptions held by people living abroad about life in the US. Anybody with any agenda has a voice, and those with very big agendas have very big voices. If those are the only voices one hears from abroad, however, one has to look more closely for the opinions that are less exciting in the headlines and the many voices that are engaging in the discourse of a vast and complex society.

I see it here on Fodors; no matter how many well-reasoned, balanced presentations there are of the several sides of an issue, there are those who hear only the most strident voices or the most simplistic viewpoints and then extrapolate that they are representative of the whole.

&quot;As far as religion, I can only echo what has been said here by many Americans: that I do not notice the intrusiveness of religious views in the vast majority of the people with whom I have contact.&quot;

1/3 of my friends in the US have strong religious views and can be very judgemental as a result. I love them anyway but we tread lightly when it comes to religious and political views.

Have you forgotten Magna Carta?
Did she die in vain?

<i>Not where I live. And I live in a state where the landmark case was held.</i>

Then you must not live in the US. There are no states where teaching the theory of evolution is &quot;banned&quot;. If you believe differently, then I would ask that you explain how they manage this, in light of Epperson v Arkansas.

Nikki, Your post was exceptionally well articulated.

It will, of course, fall mostly on deaf ears particularly those who have a friend or family member who meets the negative stereotype and immediately becomes emblematic of an entire nation.