{"id":469339,"date":"2025-10-02T20:44:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/469339\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T20:44:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:44:23","slug":"american-woman-living-in-uk-reveals-frustrating-difference-in-britain-that-has-cost-her-1000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/469339\/","title":{"rendered":"American woman living in UK reveals ‘frustrating’ difference in Britain that has cost her \u00a31,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

An American woman living in Brighton<\/a> has revealed the\u00a0‘frustrating’ difference between the UK and the US that has cost her more than \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n

Kristen Howell-Brear, 27, moved to the Sussex city\u00a0to do her masters degree in archaeology in 2020 and ended up falling in love with the UK and staying and working as a social media manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After five years in the country she\u00a0classes herself as an ‘honorary Brit’, but claims\u00a0the differences between the two countries ‘take a lot of getting use to’.<\/p>\n

Kristen’s most expensive mistake has come from buying a few bits for her wardrobe.<\/p>\n

She explained: ‘I keep making the same mistake at least three or four times a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It’s probably cost me at least \u00a31,000 at this point.<\/p>\n

‘I end up ordering clothes that are way too small for me because I order my US size, not my UK size.<\/p>\n

‘I [have] a bunch of clothes that aren’t my size. I give them to my friends or try to sell them. It’s the most frustrating thing ever.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"American <\/p>\n

American woman Kristen Howell-Brear, who is living in the UK, has revealed the ‘frustrating’ difference in Britain that has cost her \u00a31,000<\/p>\n

\"Kristen <\/p>\n

Kristen Howell-Brear moved to Brighton to do her masters degree in archaeology and ended up staying, after five years in the country she classes herself as an ‘honorary Brit’<\/p>\n

Kristen has also said she’s ‘struggled with the language barrier’ despite speaking the same language as Brits.<\/p>\n

Kristen was actually caught out by this not too long ago when a girl in her university study group asked for a rubber’ – which means condom in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Y’all why do British terminology have to be so confusing,’ Kristen told said.<\/p>\n

‘In the UK, they call a backyard a garden \u2013 but what do they actually call a garden?<\/p>\n

‘In America, we have backyards and you can have a garden in your backyard where you plant […] carrots or mint.<\/p>\n

‘But here, they just call it a garden even there’s not \u2013 what I would consider \u2013 a garden in it.<\/p>\n

‘The Brits always get really annoyed when I talk about terminology differences.’<\/p>\n

Kirsten also questions the terms ‘sidewalk’ and ‘pavement’ and says that Americans have got it right.<\/p>\n

\"What <\/p>\n

What seems like a small difference between UK and US clothing sizes has turned into a pricey and persistent problem for the student<\/p>\n

\"What <\/p>\n

What seems like a small difference between UK and US clothing sizes has turned into a pricey and persistent problem for the student<\/p>\n

She said: ‘There’s pavement everywhere. You’re not supposed to be walking where the cars drive on, that’s dangerous.<\/p>\n

‘But you should be walking on the pavement on the side \u2013 the sidewalk \u2013 that makes the most logical sense.<\/p>\n

‘I also learned the hard way that when a British person asks: ‘Are you alright?’ that’s more of a passing hello and they don’t actually want you to be like: ‘Oh, I’m having a good day.’<\/p>\n

‘But when do you know if they actually want to know if you’re alright?’<\/p>\n

Kristen says this is one of the biggest things she struggled with when moving here.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘It does make more logical sense if you think about it. But having to adjust and use it and understand [military time] is really difficult.<\/p>\n

‘I’ve booked things at the wrong time and got the timing wrong when making plans.’<\/p>\n

Kristen also can’t understand the format of how Brits write the date, month and year.<\/p>\n

She added: ‘I have struggled to adapt to that so much. When it comes to filling out paperwork, I have to go back and redo it because I’ve written the date wrong.’<\/p>\n

She urges people to ‘really pay attention’ when travelling here to save any ‘heartbreak, confusion and disappointment’ \u2013 as noted in her own experience.<\/p>\n

Kristen said: ‘The next British person that tells me that biscuits are the same thing as scones \u2013 I’m going to scream.<\/p>\n

‘While scones and biscuits look the same, they’re completely different.<\/p>\n

‘Biscuits are really fluffy and have a lot of layers, whereas scones are like a pastry.<\/p>\n

‘It’s like a dinner roll and scones are more hard. And not as good.’<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I don’t know why I assumed that Chinese food in the UK would taste almost exactly the same as it does in America.<\/p>\n

‘But it tastes completely different. They just don’t compare at all.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An American woman living in Brighton has revealed the\u00a0‘frustrating’ difference between the UK and the US that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[1169,748,92,393,368,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-469339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-brighton","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-dailymail","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-femail","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115306527029641475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}