Cons of being an international student in the UK

As you could have read in our previous posts, we are studying in the UK but we are not from here. Being an international students in UK has many advantages but also disadvantages. Let me start with the bad things.

1. TELLING PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE NOT AN ERASMUS STUDENT. “Ohh, so you are international student? You are here just for one semester with Erasmus, right? What?! You are here for the entire university studies? That’s so cool! I couldn’t do that, I would miss my home. Aren’t you missing home?” (Btw yes, I am missing home.)
2. DRIVING. People are driving on the wrong side of the road. I personally take it as an attempt of British Government to kill all the immigrants – unsuccessfully – that takes us to the third disadvantage:
3. WALKING. Almost 40% of London’s population are foreign-born, which means that almost half of the people believes that walking on the right side of the sidewalk is correct and the other half protests and walks on the left side. Therefore, you basically cannot walk a mile without saying at least twenty times sorry to someone who is walking right opposite to you and there is 99% chance that you will go through few very awkward seconds unsuccessfully trying to sidestep someone.
4. EATING. The food. I’m sorry to everyone who is from the UK but in most cases, you just cannot cook (or maybe it’s just the students here?). I’m really sorry, but cooking pasta or eggs in the kettle? Nope, that’s not how you do it. And the fact that the just-put-it-in-the-microwave section of foods in Asda is basically a quarter of the entire supermarket? Ehh…
5. STRUGGLING WITH THE LANGUAGE. I actually do understand perfectly people with British accent but guess what? They don’t understand me. Let me make something clear. I have absolutely no accent, my English is very clear, therefore everyone should understand me without any difficulties. But they just don’t. Dunno what’s wrong.

Anyway, all those little thing make my life here more exciting and funnier, you never know when you will discover a spaghetti on the bottom of your tea cup or you when a car will hit you because you look to the wrong side of the street.

Are you an international student? What are you struggling with?

Next post will be about advantages of being an international student in UK.

Sleep tight!

xx

M.