Ten things I wish the US/UK had that the UK/US has

I’ve just returned from a week in Leeds.  Leeds is a city in Yorkshire about two hours north of London by train, and I visit it often because my true love works at the University of Leeds and lives there when school is in session.  During this trip, I became very aware of not only the differences between Leeds and my Philadelphia home, but also between Leeds and London. When we travel, we usually go to a country’s primary city: London, Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and so on. However, in cases like London and Paris the cities have become so cosmopolitan that they may not be as representative of a country’s culture as other places farther away from the capital.

I first noticed this when we visited Lyon during our summer trip to Paris, but this trip to Leeds really drove the point home. London is one of the most diverse cities on the planet. Leeds is not only mostly English, the people come mostly from Yorkshire. London is amazingly wealthy. In Leeds, the number of people “sleeping rough” (homeless) is a real problem. London is a global fashion capital. Leeds has half-a-dozen stores competing to dominate the fast, cheap fashion market. London is one of the world’s most amazing restaurant cities. Leeds features an assortment of pubs, inexpensive Italian, Thai, and regional Indian restaurants.

So with all that in mind, here are ten things about Leeds I’ll miss now that I’m home, and ten things about home I miss when I’m in Leeds.

Ten things about the UK I’ll miss now that I’m home

• Trains. You can get anywhere fairly quickly in the UK on a clean, comfortable train. I’ve been to the UK more than a dozen times in the last few years and have never once thought I needed a car.
• The sidewalks are clean. There’s no litter. Anywhere.  Really.
• Marks & Spencer, a UK institution selling food and clothing, has figured out how to sell food to 1-2 person households. Do you want 6oz of fresh yellowfin tuna, a handful of brussels sprouts, and one potato?  Check.  How about a slow cooked lamb shoulder for two, with three carrots and the makings of a salad?  Check.  Chicken vindaloo for two, with rice and naan?  Check.  I’m drooling just thinking of it.
• BBC News is more balanced, nuanced, and less frenetic than any US “news.”
• VAT.  From a consumer’s point of view, the VAT (value added tax) makes MUCH more sense than a sales tax.  In the UK, when something is marked £10 it costs £10, not £10 plus some percentage that varies from town to town.  I like knowing something costs £10, period.
• Cashiers and sales assistants are friendly and helpful.  Really.  It makes a difference to reach the front of the queue and be greeted with a bubbly “hiya!” instead of a grumpy “next.”
• Lively downtowns. They call them “high streets” but it means the central business district. Leeds is a modest city but there are four (!) department stores and very few vacancies in a pretty large footprint. We saw the same thing in Manchester and last summer in Lyon.
• They still have bookstores. Good bookstores. With good books.
• It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for the US not to adopt the metric system. Not only is it so much more practical, everybody else in the entire world uses it.
• Perhaps because of its location, Leeds is a lot less ethnically diverse than London or most US cities, but the UK is light years ahead of the US in terms of age diversity. The high street is full of teenagers, seniors, working people, students, and millennials, all peacefully coexisting. You almost never see teenagers and seniors in the same place in the US.

Ten things about the US I miss when I’m in the UK

• Good internet. There’s almost never a time when I can’t get a good connection in the US.  In the UK, not so much.
• Even though Leeds is amazing at providing home cooks with great basic ingredients, nothing can beat the US at making specialty ingredients available. I can think of eight different places within a fifteen minute drive from my house where I can get obscure Italian, African, south Asian, Polish, Mexican, Vietnamese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, or Korean ingredients.
• Television.  The US has figured out how to make the maximum amount of quality TV shows available to the maximum number of people.  The UK – no.
• Beer.  This may come as a surprise, but the craft beer movement in the US provides more and better options than the UK, although any beer in the UK is better than Bud Lite/Miller/Coors/etc.
• Contrary to popular US opinion, our police are way less obtrusive than UK police.  I just can’t get used to police with an automatic machine gun, pistol, and highly visible bullet-proof vests on the street.
• In the UK, there are no currency bills below £5.  This means that you get a lot of £1 & £2 coins. They weigh a lot while they clutter up your wallet, forcing you to pay attention to how many coins you have.  In the US, we still have a $1 bill and that is just so comforting.
• Apparently, there is no such thing as sunshine in the UK. I was there for seven days and didn’t see a single ray of sunshine. Back home in Philadelphia, it rained, it was cold, it was sunny, the weather changed, sometimes for the better. In Yorkshire, it was cloudy, damp, and sometimes it rained. For seven full days.  And nights.
• For the same reason that the US should adopt the metric system, the UK should relocate their steering wheels to the left side of their cars and drive on the right side of the street like everyone else in the world. It takes me three or four days just to get used to looking the “wrong” way for oncoming traffic.
• I don’t think there is anyplace in the world with more coffee shops per foot than the UK but for an American, that’s not necessarily a good thing because they all take Italian coffee to a ridiculous extreme. Costa, one of the most popular chains, features a diagram of their different coffees that had to be designed by someone with a doctorate in engineering. But, just try to get a hot, strong, steaming cup of American style coffee and you are totally out of luck. Even Starbucks doesn’t have American style coffee (filter coffee in the UK) on the menu. Some places carry it off-menu, but it’s never hot enough and never strong enough.
• Believe it or not, tipping in the US is easier to handle than tipping in the UK.  In France, it’s easier yet – you don’t tip.  Everything is in the price. In the US, you tip everyone – waiters, bartenders, hairdressers, taxi drivers, housekeepers, everyone.  In the UK, it isn’t at all clear who gets tipped when, at least not to me. In restaurants, usually but how much? In pubs, no. Taxis, I’m still not sure. UK – go one way or the other.