Quote Originally Posted by MacMillan of Rathdown View Post
Contact the British Consul in New York City for full details on what is required to establish British residence. Be advised that citizenship may only be applied for after five years continuous, legal residence in the UK. I might add that the cost of living is considerably higher in Europe (including the UK) than it is in the United States. You may also wish to take legal advise concerning the status of your US citizenship should you choose to take up foreign nationality. Finally, it has been my observation that there is a considerable cultural gap between individuals brought up in the USA and those native to the UK, and this often proves to be insurmountable. I will give you one example:

Suppose you are 25 years old and grew up in the United States. You will have missed out on 25 years of grass roots "pop" UK culture. You won't know any of the soap operas, what music was cool, or what teams did what, when. You won't have grown up with kids TV, Top of the Pops, the Beano, or Christmas Pantos. You won't know any of the TV presenters, you won't get most of the jokes. You will have very little in common with your peers. Ultimately you will be a stranger in a strange land. And by-and-large that is how you will be treated.
It depends greatly on the individual in question. The world is global, especially pop culture. One can easily watch British television anywhere in the world, and UK music has long been popular everywhere. I, for instance, have a very Anglocentric taste in pop music and often found that I knew more about bands and what not than UK nationals. I'll admit that Canada is more 'British' than America, but one could still follow UK culture easily.

My first four years in Ireland (from age 0-4) I barely remember, but my later years spent there (late teens to late twenties) I recall vividly. I also recall that it was really only different in a superficial way. Things are ultimately much the same wherever you go.

During my second tenure there, I had the somewhat unique position of being a native-born 'foreigner', but that wasn't obvious to anybody initially. Except for the few occasional comments from boors, yahoos, and pretentious turds (which can be found everywhere), no one even cared that I was from Canada.