9/17/12
Yesterday I went to the mall with some friends to finally
get a cell phone. We got on the tram (like a trolley) and headed to meadow hall
mall. It’s a huge mall! Everything in the UK is small: stoves are small,
bathrooms are small, and stoves are small. So I expected the mall to be not
much bigger then Greece ridge mall. Oh no, this place is pretty big. And so
busy! There were a ton of people there, granted it was Sunday afternoon. I went
to Orange (a UK cell phone company) to set up a new plan. But half way through
setting up a plan they told me I couldn’t because my credit card didn’t have a
chip in it.
For all those that don’t know, pretty much every place in
the world but the US credit/debit cards have a chip in them. They scan the chip
instead of swiping a card. Since my cards don’t have these fabulous chips in
them I can’t use my cards in many places. Such as Boots, a cosmetics store here
kind of like a pharmacy and Ulta had a baby, when I tried to buy a hair
straightener because mine won’t work. Or Argos when I tried to buy some pans,
grrrrr. I ended up just getting a pay as you go Sim card for a pound from a
company called three wireless.
But the rest of the day in the mall was fun. I finally was
able to buy some essentials such as a plate, and a set of utensils. After the
mall we hoped back on the tram and headed to Opal. I was planning on organizing
my room but I my friend Natalie, from Venezuela, came in crying because she had just found out
her Grandma had died. I let her use my skype to call her family and then ended
up hanging out with her for a while. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be so
far away from your family when something like that happens. So Padalino’s none
of you are allowed to be ill, or die, or have anything bad happen to you while I’m
here. I just don’t have time for that J
Today I had a ton of running around to do. I had to go back
to get my Visa and qualifications verified at Elmfield house. While there I met
another girl that is doing my course and we ended up having lunch together. She’s
pretty cool so I feel like we’re going to get along well.
After lunch I went to Santander (a bank) to set up a new UK
bank account. I will get my new debit card next week and then will finally be
able to set up a cell phone! Woo hoo! There are so many little things here that
have to get done before I can really settle in. Like I can’t put money on my
phone sim card till I have a Uk bank account. So I can’t text or call people
till then.
I went to Tesco to go get some food for dinner. I invited my
roommate Bettie along from China and her, her friend Li-li and I headed off to
Tesco. It’s been hard adjusting to how small markets are here. Growing up with
Wegmans and Walmart has really spoiled me. For example instead of having a ton
of frozen vegetables like I’m used to, there were frozen peas, frozen corn, and
frozen carrots, and that’s it. I signed up for this really cool service online
though were they will deliver groceries to my door so that will help with the
really specific stuff.
I made dinner for Natalie, and Flor. After dinner we went
out with my roommate Sophia from Argentina to a pub called Red deer. It was
really fun finally getting to go to the famous English pub. They had a string
band playing folk music which was great to listen to. We sat and talked for a
while and we met a girl that had just finished her master’s in archaeology and
she gave us some tips on the course. After a few pints we were starting to fall
asleep at the pub so we called it a night and headed home.
Some of the hardest things to adjust to:
1)
Cultural norms that everyone knows but
international students don’t, like how to open the tram doors or what a chip
and pin is.
2)
How small and limited the food selection is in
markets
3)
Having to carry everything back with me, like I
can’t get a whole bunch of groceries because I can’t carry them.
4)
Metric conversions, I didn’t know how high to
set the oven because it was in Celsius not in Farienhight!
5)
Even though everyone speaks English some people’s
accents are really hard to understand. I swear the guy on the tram was speaking
another language!
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