Preserved Topic: This Scot is going Stateside for a week!

Hi y'all

I am being sent over to the US by my employer for some training...

I'm first going to Oakridge Tennessee (sp?) for a few days, then onto Austin Texas for a few more.

I have never been out of the UK in my life, and am expecting quite a culture shock when I go over...

First: any advice to keep me right when I'm over there...?
Second: Any sights/sounds I shouldn't miss in those locations?

Needless to say, I'm really excited. Don't know if I'm going to get much time when I'm not in plane/taxi/hotel/office but I hope to grab any opportunity to get out and about.

1 specific question: Tipping. We don't tip that much here in the UK - sometimes yes, but usually no. Thats very much a culture/society thing I think. When/who do I tip? - and is that something I can claim on my expenses? - should the tip go onto my tax receipt?

OH! and great news... I got my domain back :-) I'm redesiging the site... new era, new look, no bloody time to do it!

cheers,

Pete

Unfortunately I haven't been to either of those places but I wouldn't worry too much about culture shock.

Austin has a legendary music scene but I haven't been.



.:[ Be Bert. Be Ernie. Just be. ]:.

tipping: if you don't tip the waitress, simply don't show up to the same place again

oh, and take advantage of the ladies liking your accent, american girls arn't that smart
Bring the shorts though, Austin gets *very* hot this time of year.

Can I go to scottland since your coming here?

Hah! My parents live in Oak Ridge. They moved there the summer I left home for grad school, so never spent time there as a native myself, just for short visits "home". Can't comment about Austin, but Oak Ridge is an odd place - not in a bad sense, but it's not exactly representative of the US in general. It has a unique history - initially a highly scientific community imported to some big government labs for research purposes during WWII, with not a lot around it for security reasons. There's still a lot of science there now, though less government, more corporate. It has become very self-contained - community music, drama, arts organizations to provide cultural outlets for the residents accustomed to the stimulations of cities and universities. Some lovely scenery though - the Clinch River, the Smoky Mountains nearby - can be very hot and humid, but maybe not so bad at this time of year.

Again, I don't know about Austin, but I wouldn't worry about standing out as a foreiger in Oak Ridge - because of all the science it's a remarkably international town, given its size and location. Five miles out of Oak Ridge is a different story though ....!

Don't worry overly about culture shock - I experience it every time I go there, and I'm from the same country!

Gratuities. Well, I don't travel much, and never on an expense account so I don't know how you should report it. I'd suspect the cabs and the restaurants are the only folk expecting a tip (MAYBE a bellman at the hotel, but since you won't likely be hauling enough baggage to need that service, probably not). A reasonable amount is 5%. Usually you pay cabs in cash so you have to do some quick calculations in your head, but you'll probably be paying for dinners with a credit card, and the gratuity can be added by hand to the total (the receipt will have a blank line for that), so you have time to do the calculation, write it in, and then add up the total. Simple. Most of the time the receipt is a 2-part thing, one part you keep, so that should simplify your record keeping. If you do pay in cash and don't have the right amount for the tip, the server will usually be happy to break a larger bill for you.

I suspect Austin will have more to see and do, but will also probably be a pretty international city. Don't worry about being conspicuous. In fact, most Americans LOVE the sound of a Scottish dialect (I know I do) - you'll probably charm everyone you meet!

Two more pieces of advice - (1) if you are uncertain about something - money, directions - ask. By and large, Americans are pretty civil and (2) if you find yourself having to drive anywhere, uh, we drive on the other side of the road here


Have a great trip.
Finally - congats on getting the domain back! That was a stinky situation!

I've been to Austin a zillion times on business. Quite nice there, really. It's the state capitol, so you can do the "tourist" thing and check out the buildings. Some nice hotels there (in fact, the first hotel I ever stayed at that had high speed internet access in the rooms is in Austin). Texas, for the most part, is pretty "relaxed" with regards to gun laws, so you might see people wearing guns or gun racks in autos. Don't let that bother you (I wish it was that way everywhere).

As mentioned above, it can get REALLY hot down there. Be prepared....

And have fun!

not about this, sorry.
On your site: www.sonicsnail.com, you have a link saying sonicsnail will be back soon, but when you mouseover the link the status bar says clicky, and it's a mailto: link, personaly I don't like that I can't see where I'm going all the time through the status bar, but especially in this case because I have to wait for evil Outlook to open it's new window and then close it, but anyways, sorry if I sound like a jerk talking to you about your site in an unrelated topic.

Maninacan Cell #471
kewl
Mad Scientists

Thank you everyone for your input and suggestions...

I'll read this thread through a couple of times on the plane probably!

I would go through you individually, but I have to address Maninican's post first..

Man; yeah, fair point. I did this in a rush - what is supposed to happen is that you get a white page, and when you click the link the background image appears showing a tiled, shrunk, faded image of my new design.. The mailto: came from the temporary holding page I had before, which had a "normal" mailto link in it.

I'll remove the mailto:.. or maybe just leave the static text.. It was an impulse to show a screenshot of my new design - but wasn't thought through.

Thanks again everyone for responding to this post - though any further input would be appreciated.

As for critiques of my site - wait for it to go online and I'll start a thread in site reviews!

Pete