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Language... don't you think I speak great
English as it's my second language? Just kidding, but when I was
a little kid we only had holidays locally and I always assumed
that I'd been speaking Irish! Actually we get the odd Irish
language programme on TV now and there's a whole channel devoted
to broadcasting in it in the Republic. Since Northern Ireland is
so small that it's possible to pick up their TV stations too if
your aerial is pointed in the right direction so you can get
their three channels (one being in Irish is totally useless to me)
and our two BBC channels and the three commercial ones. We've
cable in Belfast and there's the satellite so you can get another
50 or so if you really want them. |
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Housing... Houses are pretty affordable here
so generally speaking it is only the 'working class' (for want of
a better word) who live in the terrace houses or flats (apartment
blocks). Everyone else lives in semi-detached (duplex) or
detached houses or bungalows. We're in a semi so it's only the
left hand side of the house in the photo that's mine. Something
like 60% of people own their houses, though they're generally
paying a mortgage (which usually runs for 25 years). Due to the
tax system here it's cheaper to buy a house by borrowing money
than it would be using cash which is pretty fortunate as most
people wouldn't be able to fork out the full amount in cash
anyway.
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Banking... We've really only the four proper
banks in Northern Ireland (you don't get the local banks like you
do in the US anywhere in the UK) along with maybe a dozen
building societies (similar to the savings and loans in the US).
It is unbelievably difficult to open a new bank account these
days thanks to anti-money laundering legislation brought in
several years ago. Once you've passed that hurdle you can have
cheque books, savings accounts, credit cards, cash cards, etc.
Shops that accept credit cards accept both Visa and Mastercard so
either one does when you're here (that's not the case in the rest
of Europe though). Similarly most of the cash machines will
accept most of the cash cards. Courtesy of the American influence
(well, more likely the Anglo-Saxon influence) you generally only
get instructions in English although foreign cards are sometimes
offered a choice of English, French, Spanish and German. All the
shops accept cheques as long as you have a 'cheque card' as these
actually guarantee your cheques up to the limit on the card (usually
£100). You can usually (always?) use your cheque card to get
cash in the machines. Exchange controls... we don't have any, so
if anybody is inclined to carry out a suitcase stuffed with cash
(or bring one in) then they can. We've a limit like the $10,000
one in the US where the banks have to report deposits to somebody
but I don't know what it is. |
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Shopping... The 'corner shop' has basically
bitten the dust and apart from the city centres people mainly
shop in shopping centres (malls). Generally people would just
shop once a week but my Mum likes going to the shops so she's in
them a lot more often than that, even more so since Dad retired.
We don't get the same chains here as you'll have seen in the US
though we do have rough equivalents for most of them. We've food
shops (like Tesco, Sainsbury, etc.) and all sorts of clothes
shops as well as department stores. I think the only one that you
may have seen is Brookes Brothers (which is actually a British
shop!). We don't have the likes of Harrods and Tiffany in
Northern Ireland but London is full of shops like that. I guess
we get at least some of the designer labels here but I've never
been looking out for them. |
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