Living in Wales

American Woman Notices ‘Big Differences’ Living Between Wales and United States

Woman notices ‘big differences’ living in Wales compared to her life back home in the US.

@schlond.poofaa, a Tik-toker from New Jersey studying in Aberystwyth University, shares the cultural shocks she has experienced since moving to Wales. Her video has gathered up 107,000 views since uploading it. 

#1. “Dying your hair pink is a trend here and I like it!”

She starts off by sharing how much she loves the old ladies dying their hair in different shades like pink, blue, or purple. “I guess this is a little trend for them and I think this is the perfect thing to do when having white hair, because it gives a base for that.”

#2. “Steak cheaper than American dollars”

Another thing that she noticed was the cost of living crisis—“We’re a lot cheaper here than most American stores. I got a steak for £3.99 which is roughly five American dollars. I’m like, that’s crazy because at a shop back home that would be $10-15. It was like a good cut so that was crazy to me.”

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#3. “Food tastes ‘soggy’ and ‘weird’”

The Tik-toker goes on talking about the quality of food and its crispiness that she usually enjoys back home but is something else here. “The British bacon was soggy compared to the streaky and crispy counterpart across the pond. The British-made pizza tasted ‘really weird.’ I haven’t had like a good pizza here and its really sad to me.”

#4. “Shopping makes you feel like you don’t have much here.”

She complained that there is a lack of diversity when you move around shops here. “Back home you’d be able to go to H-Mart, or there were a lot of Mexican markets near me, or Italian markets, Eastern European markets, a bunch of different stores that you could go to to buy food from a certain culture’s cuisine.”

“They don’t have that here, at least where I live. I live on the west coast of Wales so obviously it’s not the same as someone living in London.”

#5. “The accent barrier….”

“Pronouncing your consonants very well isn’t a thing as much from what I’ve experienced. I know people who have the Welsh Valleys accent, which I love, but ear is like ‘YUR’ and year is also ‘YUR’. The amount of words that sound exactly the same, they’re completely different words sometimes so how do they sound the exact same?”


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