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Thank you to you all for your advice, I started looking at apartments and houses to rent and was pleasantly surprised at what I found! Some really nice places around, affordable and in nice places (thank you Google Streetmap!). So I would now be more than happy to live alone. I think you are right with buying a used car, this seems the best option for me. Leasing has its upsides but of course I want to explore as much as possible and I don't want to be limited by mileage. I still hope to come over soon and have a look at some places, but I now have some idea of what I want so thank you for helping me! I was thinking of the Dormont/Mt Lebanon area as it's quite leafy but not too far from anything. I will keep you all treated!
Thank you to you all for your advice, I started looking at apartments and houses to rent and was pleasantly surprised at what I found! Some really nice places around, affordable and in nice places (thank you Google Streetmap!). So I would now be more than happy to live alone. I think you are right with buying a used car, this seems the best option for me. Leasing has its upsides but of course I want to explore as much as possible and I don't want to be limited by mileage. I still hope to come over soon and have a look at some places, but I now have some idea of what I want so thank you for helping me! I was thinking of the Dormont/Mt Lebanon area as it's quite leafy but not too far from anything. I will keep you all treated!
Dormont and Mt. Lebo is a very nice place to live and it is right on the T line if you don't want to drive to downtown when you have to go there (even though the T doesn't compare at all to the Underground in London assuming you are from around there)
I don't live in Pittsburgh, but I grew up in Pennsylvania and visited the city every chance I could. I hope you come to love the "Steel City" just as much as I do from afar! It's an awesome place! Sure, there's a bit of "grit" here and there (some flats in need of rehabilitation, some potholes in the streets, some cracked sidewalks), but the architecture has always kept me coming back. Welcome in advance to the states!
I lived in Dormont and found it rather difficult to get to 79, especially during rush hour. Mt Lebanon would probably be worse. Maybe I just haven't picked up some super secret route in the past 20some years.
I'd stay stick to Robinson or Bridgeville, depending on how long you want your commute to be. They are all close to 79 and have good access to shopping. If you are more concerned with being within 5 miles of the city, Carnegie, Crafton, and Greentree all have quick access to the highways and are walkable towns with many tree lined streets, local businesses, etc. and are quite affordable.
I have a Jeep Patriot and a Ford Focus and I love them both. I would recommend the Jeep for low gas mileage and 4x4 while still being inexpensive. Do you typically get much snow in England? Keep in mind we had 4 feet of snow in February. Thats a once every ten years fluke for quantity, but it does snow a few inches regularly throughout the winter.
Another note on driving, it can be difficult if you are not familiar with all the routes. A common old joke is "you can't get there from here" in response to asking for directions. There are a ton of bridges and tunnels and PennDOT likes to do things like close a major bridge and tunnel at the same time on a Saturday evening. However, if you stay out in the I-79 & Parkway areas, you should be fine. By the way, another Pittsburgh quirk, we do not typically know or commonly use the numbers of the major highway routes (79 is the exception). I live a mile from the Parkway West and could not tell you the route number with certainty! They are referred to as the Parkway North, West and East. There is no South, that is West Liberty Ave... which changes names about 5 times along it's course.
As for meeting people, the previously mentioned groups are great, and there are a lot of active professional groups in the area. I am in one for civil engineers and we have a blast! I find the more specific the group, the more likely you are going to have common interests.
People are typically VERY friendly and nice here, despite the often dreary weather. It is not uncommon for people to go extremely out of their way to help other people.
Thank you to you all for your advice, I started looking at apartments and houses to rent and was pleasantly surprised at what I found! Some really nice places around, affordable and in nice places (thank you Google Streetmap!). So I would now be more than happy to live alone. I think you are right with buying a used car, this seems the best option for me. Leasing has its upsides but of course I want to explore as much as possible and I don't want to be limited by mileage. I still hope to come over soon and have a look at some places, but I now have some idea of what I want so thank you for helping me! I was thinking of the Dormont/Mt Lebanon area as it's quite leafy but not too far from anything. I will keep you all treated!
Hi danadoodle - just came across this forum whilst pondering a relocation out to Pgh from in the UK. Just thought I'd drop you a line and see how the move turned out for you etc? My wife and I (both not long turned 30) are considering a switch across the pond through a promotion within my company, and are looking into all the practicalities involved. I'm fairly familiar with the city myself as I've been back and forth with work for a few years now, but there's a big gap between that moving out there full time!
I'd be keen to hear about your experience if you wouldn't mind sharing? All hints / tips (from anyone that is) gratefully accepted!
Hope all went well for you in any case & all the best.
Hey,
My husband is English and I have been in England. Okay, where to start, off I 79, north or south? What are your hobbies, do you want to be close to everything or safe and in a rural area? We live in the north right off of I 79, wexford exit. They have nice apartments/townhomes in the area. What is your budget, that will effect a ton in regards to where, what, etc. My friend is a manager at Toyota, so when your ready, I will be glad to email you his number. Depending how long you plan to stay, well that will depend on lease vs purchase. You will need to immediately buy a GPS, we moved here almost four years ago and I could not live without it. I bought it when I arrived here, my husband had it waiting for me. If you like to drink a lot the south side is where a lot of bars are. A lot of my husband's coworkers whom moved here from other states moved to Mt. Lebanon area. Everything depends on what you want to spend, how long you want to drive to work, and what your hobbies are.
I've been here 6 mths now, and it's a really nice place to live. I'll break it down into categories of what I have learnt:
Social Security Number:
You can get this after about 2 weeks of having moved here. I went to the Mt Lebanon office, and was out in 15 mins. No queues.
House:
I'm renting in Mt. Lebanon. It's about 20-40 minutes to work 12 miles south (depending on traffic lights - they are sooooo slow). It's a lovely place to live, and close enough to the city for excitement, but also far enough away to be quiet and safe. There is also a little downtown and loads of shops around. It's also got a T station, though I haven't ventured onto public transport yet. I haven't really found any dodgy areas yet...
Housing here is very very cheap compared to the UK! I came over from Hertfordshire, and the prices here are possibly even cheaper than Northern England. This is the first place I've ever lived that I can afford to buy.
Utilities:
A right pain to set up without a SSN, but it is doable. You have to pay an extortionate amount in deposit, and for the gas you have to get an affadafit signed (!). But it can be done.
As for telly, phone, internet and mobiles, well I have been very slow on the uptake and only signed up a couple of weeks ago. Very very expensive!! I don't know how easy it is to set up in the early days, but I had no problem, even getting a mobile on contract. My car loan must be helping my credit rating!
Car:
You NEED a car. Moderator cut: link removed, please read the tos I bought a Fiesta and I love it. I do wish I had gone for a manual instead of an automatic, but c'est la vie. If you go with these people, here are a few tips:
- If you choose to go with these people, you need to order the car before you leave the country. As soon as you land, they can't help you
- The UK people never pick up the phone or respond to answer phone messages. Best to call the US number
- They will stalk you until you order the car, then forget about you
- I had to have my finance approved by a specific date, as I needed to collect the car the day I returned the rental that my company hired for me. I pestered them and pestered them for this and eventually got it a week before the deadline. It was extremely frustrating!!
- Very happy with the car though!
- You DO NOT need a US licence to buy a car, doesn't matter what people tell you. Get an international licence from the RAC or the AA and you will be covered for a year. You DO need a Pennsylvania state ID though.
- I got my car insurance from Progressive, as they insure people on a UK licence. It's extortionate (especially after having had 10 years no claims!) but it's insurance!
- I haven't passed my test yet, but I have been round the Bridgeville course. It's the recommended test route, and takes about 10-15 minutes in total. You do need to parallel park though.
- As I said, I have a fiesta. It's a lovely car, I have the sedan, which is huge compared to my mum's Fiesta! However, it is rubbish in the snow. PA deals with snow much much better than in the UK, and it seems to have constantly snowed since December. It's only been a real problem recently, in that the gritters haven't made as much of an impact as hoped, and my car is useless when the roads are slushy and icy. Luckily I can work from home, but I wouldn't recommend the car as an only car. Unless you get a manual, in which case you might have more control. I don't think you need a 4x4, other people have no issue. Perhaps I'm just a bad driver
Food:
Still not got my head around this yet. It all tastes a little 'different'. But you can find cheese at Giant Eagle, and they also have a British section with Branston and salad cream, Heinz beans etc. No Ribena though (and US don't have cordial).
Drink:
The alcohol situation is very confusing. I don't drink very often so not a big deal, but... the only supermarket that sells alcohol is Giant Eagle. And this is a very recent development, I believe. There are wine shops, and there are beer shops. Wine shops do not sell beer, and vice versa.
Banking:
I do not have a credit card. I know I should, but I don't like them. But to build up credit, it's probably a good idea. I transfer money over to my UK bank account via Paypal. Local banks here can't do it other than wiring the money across, which is expensive. Citibank can do it, but the account set up was so laborious I gave up in the end. I do have an account but I never use it. I didn't find them very helpful and they kept losing my data.
I can't think of much else... if you have any specific questions please let me know and I'll do my best to help!
Oh and also, I stole my mum's Garmin and updated with the US maps via the Garmin website. And Susan is correct, a satnav is a necessity! Pittsburgh is not the easiest place to drive round. I still use mine all the time. But drivers are so polite here, and relaxed. I haven't heard a horn beep or seen any road rage at all!
It's always good to get an update from folks who came here looking for advice.
Pittsburgh isn't just cheap compared to the UK, it's one of the cheapest major metro areas in the U.S. too. One of its major selling points as it tries to attract new investors and residents is that it has a very high quality-of-life to cost-of-living ratio. Mt. Lebo in particular is a good pick. There aren't really any dodgy parts of Mt. Lebo but there are some dodgy parts of Pittsburgh proper not too far away.
Expense of phone/internet/telly... not sure what to tell you. I'm one of the 3 to 5% of Americans who still gets all of his TV (telly) programming via over-the-air broadcast because I refuse to pay for a heaping pile of channels that are 10% wheat and 90% chaff. Between internet, home phone and 2 mobiles -- one each for my wife and me -- we pay about $90/mo. Granted, we use our mobiles (cell phones in American parlance) minimally which allows us to choose minimal per-minute plans. But we shopped around for plans that fit our usage patterns and availed ourselves of technologies that allow us to minimize our costs -- namely, using VoIP for home phone service -- and we have no complaints about the costs. Then again, we have no basis of comparison to determine whether we're paying too little or too much compared to other countries.
Good call on the Fiesta. It wasn't available in the U.S. yet when we first had this conversation so that's why it wasn't brought up before. An auto takes some of the peppiness out of driving, particularly in a car with a small engine, but driving around the hilly terrain of Pittsburgh with a manual can be a challenge sometimes. Winter tires can help your winter driving woes a little bit, but a small 2WD car with a short wheelbase can be a challenge in snow even in the best of circumstances.
Food: I'm not sure what "cordial" means in a food context unless you're talking about flavored alcohol mixers and the like. I'm also not familiar with "Rabena." But anyway, we process our food more than most of the rest of the world. We also use corn byproducts in damn near everything because we grow so much corn here that we have to invent ways to get rid of it. Pick up any common item at the grocery store that involves grain, baking or sweetening and I practically guarantee you the word "corn" will appear in the ingredients list. Maltose? Corn. Dextrose? Corn. Ground beef? It doesn't have an ingredients list, but guess what that steer ate at the feed lot...
Drink: laws vary from state to state. Pennsylvania has among the most arcane and convoluted alcohol laws in the U.S. In most other states, it's a considerably more straightforward affair. Most Americans can walk into a dedicated liquor store and choose from a wide variety of beer, wine, hard spirits, cordials/liquers, et cetera. It's also fairly common in other states to find a limited alcohol selection in grocery stores, and an even more limited selection in convenience stores and gas (petrol) stations.
Banking: If PayPal's conversion rates are reasonable, there's no reason to do anything differently than what you're doing. If you don't plan to be here for more than a few years, the incentive to build up a credit history has limited value, especially since you can always find ways around a limited history. PayPal also offers a MasterCard that will debit charges straight out of your PayPal account so that you can have the convenience of accessing your UK-linked account directly without having to transfer funds first. You may wish to look into that.
Finally, Garmin rocks. Just make sure it's not in "pedestrian" mode when you're navigating around Pittsburgh or it will eventually instruct you to drive your car up or down a staircase.
Welcome to the big bad USA and I hope your stay in Pittsburgh is a pleasant one. I know mine was.
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