A small, strange, island

Yesterday during the obligatory birthday phone call from my parents, my mother mentioned that one of her friends had asked her why I stayed in England after I finished my degree. How do you answer a question like that? "Well, I thought about the money that I'd have to spend on the plane ticket and decided I'd be better off buying booze"? Yes. That would so go over well. At the time I answered with a vague and nebulous "Because it's nice?" but after having slightly longer to think about it, I think I may have come up with some reasons that are slightly more interesting.

1. How can you not like a country where people actually chase cheese down a hill?
2. No George Bush.
3. There are tiny little cottages that are older than my country, and people pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to live in them.
4. Hedgehogs.
5. Being able to walk through thousands of years worth of history in a few steps.
6. The ability to take a cheap flight to mainland Europe. And it's actually cheap. Like £50.
7. Cool accents.
8. My boyfriend lives here.

That's all I've been able to think of thus far, but I'm sure the reasons will keep building up. It's not so much that I don't like the States, because I do. It's just that this is where I am right now. And for a bit longer too.