I am American myself, but actually about to leave here. Tips on the mobile phone.
- All providers are not equal. Orange and T-Mobile run on 1800Mhz which is not as good reception as the 900Mhz banz. Orange in particular has awful customer service. You want Vodaphone or 02. Dont cut corners on this
- Most calling packages actually dont differentiate between weekend and day calls, so just focus on the "anytime component". Anything else is nice, but is not the main course. On the weekends youll be calling peoples mobiles-its on weekdays that you want to call people at their desk at work.
- Those mobile minute packages you get here are actually unlimited free incoming minutes. All packages have this - that is just how it is done here: calling party pays. To put this in perspective, in my three years living here, I have never exceeded my 200 minute calling package, except when I travelled abroad and got roaming charges. People use text messages more here to - cultural difference. Your package has those included as well usually. 50 per month, you will find is quite sufficient. Again, unlike the US, incoming text messages are free
- In the US, 18 month and 2 yr contracts are common. Here they are a sucker play. You can get any phone you need on a 1 year contact - just shop around.

TV stuff
- just bear in mind that America is the biggest exporter of TV content and not all of it is MASH or Raymond re-runs. Many shows you watch on HBO or whatever are often aired here, just that the different shows can be found piecemal on a variety of the local channels here. It is worth taking the time to explore what is on your cable or sattelite TV lineup here, before feeling that you must resort to watching the channels the shows are wrapped in at home
- You will quickly find that there are lots of interesting local shows that will replace (some of) your old faves from home. One joy of being here, I think
- Also, BitTorrent is surprisingly useful and effecive for any obsure American shows