Moving to the UK

Greetings from a small village in Oxfordshire!

It has been some journey to get here (physically and psychologically). It all started last night when I was packing. I was watching the Eurovision and decided to pop upstairs to add in the last few bits. I thought there was still room in my suitcases but I had completly rearrange them to close.

This morning, I woke myself up early due to nerves and all the excitement of moving. My parents made me a fry up while I was getting dressed. We put the final pieces in the car and we were off. I did self check in and went over to drop off the two bags that I had booked. Due to new weight restrictions, it is not 20kgs per person, not per bag. I had tried so hard to make sure that both my bags were under the 20kgs. But she tried to charge me €240 for the "extra" 20kgs, I was bringing. I had split my stuff between the two bags and had forgotton which one was more important. I quickly did a swop of t-shirts for laptop cables and runners for toiletry bag. I sent one bag off with DHL to be delivered on Tuesday and took the heavier one with me. She didn't charge me for the extra 2kgs. After that initial panic, I was on my way.


I landed in Birmingham around lunch time and got the free monorail to the train station. The train took about an hour to Oxford. There was no room left in the baggage rack so I had to wait with my bag in the exit area. A staff member from the company and his wife, met me at the train station and gave me a lift to my temp accommodation. I dumped my bag and realised that there was no duvet, sheets, bin, hangers etc. A lot of my stuff was in the other suitcase.

I also found out very quickly that in a small village, most stuff closes at 4.30pm on a Sunday. So heading into town at 4.15pm, was not the best plan. I did discover a Cineworld, which was the highlight of my day. I found a Tesco express and picked up a few essentials like: Hula hoops, chocolate, diet coke with lemon+lime and rice pudding. I may need to make a list next time. I was unable to find anywhere that sold a duvet, blanket, sheets or pillow, which are not provided in my room.

I got back to the house, found out how to use the internet and started to send webtexts. For my first evening in my new town, I am watching 'Night at the Museum', having paella for dinner and going to sleep under a towel with no pillow. This is going to be some adventure!

I will try to keep this updated with more interesting stories.