Settling In? Settling In-ish? Pre-Settling In? Arriving and starting to get settled? Here.

Went through a few different titles for this entry in order to best describe my current state. As anyone who has moved, cross-country, cross-continent, or just across the street, knows it’s a process. Arriving in London was a rather nice process. Orientation leaders from the University met us at the airport, bought us breakfast, and then provided shuttles to either the student dorms or campus. I was deposited at campus as I had some time before my Airbnb became available (staying in an Airbnb until my flat becomes available). 

After sitting in the University’s “quad” (a very cool space, they covered what had been the outside of a building with a glass ceiling to create a sort of atrium) to charge my phone and re-charge myself before calling for a cab to my Airbnb. The Airbnb is quite lovely, though bringing my suitcases up not one, not two, not three, but four stair cases was a workout I had not been expecting. Guess you got to get those steps in somehow! 

The next several days were divided between being “orientated” with at the Uni and trying to set myself up for the year. Some of the things on my “To Do” list were collecting my BRP card and student ID, opening a bank account, top up my SIM card, finding a part time job… quickly I realised that there were more steps to achieving these than I had foreseen. 

The BRP card and student ID were fairly straight forward. After taking a ticket in the help center at the Uni’s library, I proceeded to sit and wait while students speaking any number of different languages shuffled around trying to get questions answered while ticket numbers flashed across a screen informing those with that number to go to a specific desk. Very organised. Very English. When my ticket was finally called I had to not only provide my passport but also my plane ticket to prove I had entered the country. If anyone has traveled to the UK as of late, you may have noticed that they have a rather high-tech way of entering the country, at least for people of certain nationalities. No more officer inspecting your passport and papers, no more passport stamp (which I must confess is actually quite sad for me as I enjoy thumbing through my passport and seeing all the places I have traveled). Instead you walk up to a kiosk which scans your passport and your face and then doors open and you walk on through. So because of this, there isn’t technically proof in your passport that you have entered the country at all. For this reason, I had to provide my boarding pass to the Uni so they could record what day I entered the country. 

On the whole, that was a rather simple and painless process. The student ID card also was quick. Once they had inspected my documents and proved I was me (so glad to have confirmation) I was sent to get my ID card printed. After taking a photo from a far too close, far to low positioned camera (yes, who doesn’t just look wonderful being photographed close and up?) I had my ID card! Very official. 

The other tasks on my list were not quite to easy. After visiting three different branches of two different banks (why so many? Probably because the first bank tried to tell me that as an international person no definitely in the UK for more than a year I had to setup an international bank account. Did some research, the international account is an offshore bank account off the Isle of Man with a £25,000 deposit. It didn’t quite seem like the bank account for me, not sure why), I came to find out that in order to open a bank account in the UK I would need a letter from my University. To get the letter, I had to place a request for it through the Uni and they would then process and post it to me. Since they’re sending it to the flat I am not yet in, I get to wait until I do move in to (hopefully) get it. So alas, no bank account as of yet. The whole thing seems a bit odd to me, especially when despite the bank’s need for all this paperwork the one thing none of them mentioned was a minimum balance to open an account. Is £10 okay? Maybe £20? We’ll see what happens. 

When my banking pursuits turned up unsuccessful, I moved on to getting my phone’s SIM card up and running. Since I had just been in the UK this past June, I still had the SIM card I’d purchased on that trip in order to have internet. I assumed it would be simple enough to just add money to it online. But of course, assuming does not mean it is fact. For the record, you are able to top up your SIM card online, but it requires a UK post code in order to move forward with the purchase. Seeing as I was not yet able to open a bank account and therefore not yet owner of a credit card with a UK address, topping up the phone online was not an option. So off to a store I went to do the whole process in person (because of course in the store they allow me to pay with the my US card). While I waited for my account to be updated, the staff member who was helping me said I had to download the company’s app. About halfway through unsuccessful attempts to change my iTunes store to the UK based one (because as I learned that day that’s the only way I am able to download certain apps which I will need whilst here) I realised that my account had been updated and the app was not at all necessary. So I bowed out gracefully and promised to look into downloading that magical app once I had my iTunes location sorted. 

So at least I now had that settled. Next was to arrange for a part time job in order to fund my monthly phone top ups, grocery purchases, and transport costs (all of which are rather handy when living, well, anywhere). So I went to the employment office at my Uni so see what sort of on or off-campus jobs they could offer. Unfortunately, that, like my banking endeavours, ended before it seemed to even start. Apparently before I can get any job, I need to register for a National Insurance Number (I believe similar to a Social Security Number). While not complicated, it does require an interview whose time slots get filled very quickly. My interview, for example, isn’t until the second week of October. Hopefully by that point I will have a bank account for the earning from whatever job I find. 

So as you can see the “settling in” is still not quite as settling as I had anticipated. But one day at a time! I’ll just be thankful once I can move into my flat and not live out of suitcases which I spend my mornings opening and closing and reopening and re-closing because I can’t remember what shirts ended up in which suitcase after all the packing and repacking I had performed. Seriously considering wearing the same two outfits for the rest of the week in order to avoid the need for inventory reports for each of my two suitcases. Nobody will notice, right?