not on a holiday. not on a year abroad.
but for real.
you fall in love with and marry a . . . Brit.
or a Scotsman or a Welshman or N. Irishman, etc.
and you get to read, years and years after you've been here, British passport and all, loads of anti-American comments. on 'have your say' and everywhere.
you take your elder daughter to nursery and they say, 'oh, are you American' and then they smile when they hear your daughter speak with an excellent Scottish glottal stop and hear her say, 'My father and I are from Edinburgh.'
you think of Sir Winston Spencer-Churhill: 'Americans are bastards,' and his retort, 'Then I must be half-bastard,' he being the son of an American woman.
you are a breed apart, forever.
you see your children grow up. you know that if you weren't here, they'd never have come to pass.
but they are foreign to you.
and no one who didn't live the UK who is American will ever understand that. how can they?
your children, they may bolt when they are 18, they probably will.
and when they do, they won't be American, excpet in passport and Social Security number.
despite all your influence.
they are British born and bred.
and you cannot change that, no matter how your accent or views have never changed.
they are British and somehow, passport notwithstanding, you are a breed apart.