A young woman recently learnt about some things about life as a Brit after moving to the UK, which have sent her into culture shock. Moving somewhere to a new city or country can be an exciting and fulfilling adventure, but it also means you have to leave behind some of your favourite hometown traditions, food items and more.
Ebony May moved to the UK to study a business degree at the University of Hertfordshire. The 21-year-old, who owns her own cake business, has been sharing life in England on her viral TikTok page, @ebonymaybakess. Ebony is making sure she does a lot of exploring while studying – from day trips to London, tap dancing lessons at Pineapple studios, and taking holidays around Europe.
While she has been having plenty of fun, the young woman says there are a lot of things that have shocked her since moving abroad. Ebony, who has been living in the south of England for around four months, said: “I am going to tell you about the things no one warned me about when I moved to the UK.”
“This is just my observations, no hate,” she added.
If there is one thing us Brits know how to do, it is having a a good time. Ebony has been left shocked by how much of a thing day drinking is. She said: “How much of day drinking is a thing here – I did not realise, but as soon as the sun comes out, everyone is on the p*** and like I literally went to Camden the other day and there are kids with their families and then there was just a bunch of drunk people stumbling around in the middle of the day.”
“I feel like it’s not that popular in Australia unless you’re going to like a festival to be day drunk,” she added.
She has also been stunned by how people “go crazy” for when the sun comes out in the UK. She noted: “Because the sun is lacking so much here in the winter, as soon as the sun comes out in spring everyone is like laying on patches of grass. You’ll literally go to a park and there will just be a sea of people. I feel like that’s so random.” She noticed people’s change in mood depending on the weather, observing that people are “happy again” when the sunshine appears.
Ebony says she was gobsmacked after seeing a bee for the first time since her move. She said: “I didn’t know you guys have massive bees, like I was eating lunch outside one day and there was this bee that was thick, it was like a proper bumble bee that you see in kids movies and I didn’t know that they actually existed but I was so fascinated.”
Also on the animal front, she has been surprised when spotting the amount of squirrels running around parks in the UK. “So cool,” she insisted.
Ebony was delighted when friends who had visited the UK or residents had told her that it is so easy to catch trains to different places, including other European countries. She expected she would use this service all the time, but was stunned by how expensive it can be.
Ebony explained: “No one told me how expensive trains are. I’m budgeting, living off my savings, I can’t really afford to trains everywhere because it’s so so expensive – and I didn’t realise this, I thought it would be so easy to travel everywhere by train, but no. And just like public transport in general, that’s where most of my money goes.”
Ebony has also been surprised by the lack of bacon and egg rolls on offer in eateries. She shared: “For example, the first day that I arrived here, I had no food in my uni accommodation and I went to a café and I got a bacon and egg roll – or so I thought it was a bacon and egg roll- – but it was literally a bacon bap which is literally just bacon inside dry bread.”
A bacon and egg roll in Australia is a breakfast item consisting of bacon and a fried egg served on a bun or bread roll. Many places also add items like avocado, tomato, rocket, cheese and different sauces to the treat too.
Were you surprised by any of the differences mentioned? Comment below…
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