After spending most of the winter break and christmas working, it was time to celebrate new year in the lake district of England. The town I was heading to – Allonby is located, as my friend describes it, in the middle of nowhere. But it can be found on the maps near the shore line of the Irish sea. What’s more, you can even see Scotland far into the sea, from the shore of the city.

City of Bath is one of the ancient cities of England which have survived the Roman as well as the Georgian period. The beauty of city and the Roman baths are the main attraction for most visitors to this place. Needless to say, I was also interested in seeing the architecture of the city.

St Fagan’s or Sain Ffagan open air museum is a unique concept of museum where the remains of the 19th century village are preserved for people to see. This museum houses various small huts, cottages and a spread out castle.

The next castle on my list was Castell Coch. I chose this one next because I fell in love with the Welsh countryside which I saw in my previous visit to Caerphilly Castle. Since this castle was also on the outskirts of the city, I decided to explore this next.

I took the bus to the castle which was on the same route as Caerphilly which gave me beautiful landscape view of Cardiff suburbs on the way. The castle is at a hill top. So the bus dropped me to the nearest stop and I walked about 10 mins uphill to reach the castle entrance. crossing the golf course entrance, I reached castle Coch and admired its beauty from outside.

As usual, the castle had a security ditch around all around it and the heavy wooden chain doors served as a bridge to the castle when opened. From the inside, the castle is not very large. But the rooms and halls of the castle breath grandeur. You get a glimpse in the daily lives of the Bute and his family. I realized that most of the facilities like hot shower and bathtubs which are normal utility for us, was once a luxury affordable only by the most elite.

Since it was small castle, I quickly completed the tour and came back out. Outside the castle, there was a small path heading into the wild. Out of curiosity I wondered onto it and found a small clearing some 50 paces inside where children were playing and picnicking. I finally returned and decided to take the same bus back as I had bought a day pass. What I did not know was that day pass was only valid inside the city and is not for the outskirts. However the nice bus driver honored my ticket and let me travel on it explaining that I should be careful in buying a return ticket instead of day pass for long journeys.

After finalizing my accommodation, it was time to move in now. I was sad about leaving my temporary luxurious and spacious accommodation and move to my permanent flat. And that’s why I wrote a very nice review about the place on airbnb through which I had booked the place. I booked an Uber and moved to my current accommodation, which is in Liberty Severn Point in Blackwier Terrace. I moved into my flat, and it looked so dead. There was no noise in the whole flat as if it was empty. I put my stuff in my room and went to the kitchen to get some water, only to realize that I had neither a glass nor any bottle to drink water from. And I was thinking where to buy stuff from as I had no idea about the place. And then one of my flatmate- Becca walked in. We introduced ourselves and got talking. And then another flatmate- Shannon came in. And the three of us got talking. I picked there advise on where to buy stuff for myself. And both of them suggested that “Tesco extra” will be a good place for everything I need.

So I emptied my suitcase and decided to take it along as I had a long list of things to buy. Now here is where this blog will be useful to you if you are moving to the UK, particularly Cardiff. I will try to describe the things that you can buy here, and the standard of the items. This will help you decide how to buy things, what to get from India and what to buy here.

So I took my suitcase and wheeled it along the Taff river to the Tesco extra. Now all you folks, remember. You get duvet and other home stuff only at Tesco Extra. Not at Tesco metro, Not at Tesco Express, but only at Tesco Extra. So only go to Tesco Extra. I reached Tesco Extra, also commonly known as the big Tesco, and took a trolley and put my suitcase into it. You don’t have to leave your packets/bags at a bag drop location like Big Bazaar. People are more trusting here. Also, to get a trolley, you MUST have a 1 pound coin with you. You get a trolley only when you insert the coin into the trolley slot. The coin gets stuck in the trolley, and you get it back when you return the trolley.

The first thing I looked for was a Duvet. It is the equivalent of “Kambal” or “Razai” as we call it, except it is very light in weight. Now here is the thing. Before you go out for buying your bedding, have a quick look at your bed. If you feel that the bed is too large for a single bed, but not equal to double bed by Indian standards, then you have a double bed by the UK standard. However, if you think the bed is a double bed by Indian standard, then its a Queen size bed by UK standard. And if its larger than the Indian double bed, then its a King size bed. But you are more likely to get a single or a double bed by UK standard. So just gauge your bed. And that’s the size you want to pick for your Duvet, Duvet cover and bed sheet. Another important thing to remember while buying the duvet is its warmth. How warm of a duvet do you want. This is measured in “Togs”. The higher the tog, the more warm the duvet. I would suggest not to pick anything lower than 10-10.5 tog. Go For 13.5 tog or above. According to the size of the duvet, buy the duvet cover and the bed sheet and bed cover. Again, Tesco has a range of all these items. So you can browse through the aisle and decide on how cheap or expensive stuff you want.

The next thing was picking up pillow. This was a simple pick. I picked the cheapest option and it has done well so far.

The next item was buying the cutlery, containers and cooking utensils. I would say, save this shopping for another store on city road called City Home Store. I will talk about that later in detail. They have a wide variety of cutlery and knives and forks and cooking utensils. More than Tesco at least. I dint know at that time and bought myself a non-stick pan from Tesco. Which was not a bad deal, but it was a compromise on the size. Tesco also has cutlery, but I found them to be expensive and very heavy in weight. But you can buy the soda glass from Tesco. They are cheap. As well as the water bottle. The quality is far superior than the other bottles that you will get in other stores.

I also bought a big plastic box to keep my dirty laundry. But I would suggest you get the flexible foldable ones from India. They are dirt cheap in India and wont be a hassle to bring. I also bought myself a metal wire bin as a trash can. That was a splurge as I didn’t really need it. I bought it just to play paper toss.

From there, I moved to the health and beauty section to buy soaps and shampoo. I couldn’t find any soap bar and realised that body gel is the go-to soap for body. So randomly picked up a nice looking body gel bottle and a shower sponge/loofah. Also, I couldnt find the lifebuoy bar 😛 so bought a handwash bottle. I also realized that I did not have to bring a hoard of toothpaste, shaving foam, skin cream, etc (basically toiletries) as they are not very expensive in the UK and have a big overlap with brands available in India. Which reminds me, if possible, get stationery with you from India. Notebooks and pens are very expensive here when compared to India. Moving on.

Once I was done with these, I moved to the food section. And I bought the few basic things like vegetable oil, salts, spices and vegetables that you need if you are planning to cook Indian food. I also bought a packet of cereal and a small can of milk for breakfast. You will notice there are many different flavours and varieties of almost all the packed items that you buy here. It is all a matter of taste. You will have to taste different flavours and see which one you like the most. I personally buy skimmed fat free milk and natural set curd. Natural set curd is not very popular, so not available all the time. When that happens, I pick Greek style yogurt. In bread, I buy the toasties. These are closest products you can get to products back home in taste. When buying spices, I looked through the isle of spices and herbs and realized that the Tesco brand spices was very expensive and insufficient in quantity for Indian food. But when I came to the international food isle, I spotted the packets of coriander powder, turmeric, cumin powder, etc by the brand “East End”. These were perfect for my everyday consumption. And these are available at Tesco express and Tesco metro as well. Keep in mind that these spices are not available in other popular supermarket chains like Lidl and Sainsbury. Now with spices added to my trolley, it was time to buy pulses (which are called lentils in the UK) and rice, aata, and vegetables.

To my dismay, I was informed by one of the employee that Tesco does not keep yellow daal. However, you can find other kinds of daal in the international food isle. I also realised, that rice in the UK means Basmati rice. So you will mainly find Basmati rice packets everywhere. I picked up a 2kg packet of Laila brand Basmati rice. I dont make chapati/paratha myself and picked up readymade roti of the brand Nisaan. There are two option – Nisaan Chakki Roti and Nisaan Tawa Roti. They do not vary in taste by much. You can pick anyone. I picked up 4 packets of Nisaan Chakki Roti.

Next I moved to the vegetables aisle to pick some vegetables. Now the most bizarre part of vegetable section was that the English do not use the “English” name of the vegetables. For example: Baigan, which is supposed to be Brinjal, is actually called Aubergine in the UK. Bhindi, which is supposed to be ladies finger, is called Okra. I picked up a few pieces of aubergine and a few packets of okra along with a 2.5 kg packet of potato. When I came to the onion section, there were regular onions and red onions. The regular onions did not look like onions to me. So I went with the red onions. You should get both and try them both. They have a slight difference in the taste. I don’t mind either and now go for the one which is cheaper. Then I picked up a cucumber which did not look like the cucumber that I was familiar with. But it turned out to be ok.

While passing through the isle, I also picked up canned red kidney beans, canned baked beans for breakfast and readymade daal makhni packets. If you buy canned stuff, make sure you also buy can opener. I did not, and had to borrow my flatmate’s. Or you can get one from India. You get a lot of canned food in the UK. A proper can opener will be very useful.

Finally, before heading to the checkout, I picked up a box of Ariel for washing clothes and two random solutions and a toilet brush for cleaning the bathroom. And a toilet paper roll pack. Then I went to the checkout counter and got everything billed which came out to be about 100 pounds. I then came out and booked an uber as I couldn’t carry everything. And my ride was a red Mercedes s- class which dropped me right in front of my accommodation. Since I did not have cutlery, I borrowed my flatmate’s for the day, and went to city road the next day. I will talk about that in my next post along with my clothes shopping experience.

After landing at Cardiff international airport, which is quite small by the international standards, I was greeted by a very warm Immigration Officer. He asked me some routine questions and went through my CAS letter before approving my entry into the UK. As I was a student, he suggested that I take the bus instead of the cab to save on precious pounds. “You don’t want to get ripped off by the taxi”, he said handing me back my passport. I thanked him and headed towards to exit to locate the bus stop.

Now for those of you who have not been outside your country before, things can get pretty daunting once you exit the airport. You are suddenly thrown into a new environment where everything is different from back home. This puts you at loss about what to do and where to go next. All your mental preparation and readiness goes for a toss. For someone who is comfortable in English language, has the accommodation booked, and can use mobile apps comfortable, getting to the hotel from the airport should be walk in the park. But trust me, it has nothing to do with your language fluency, or how good of a planner you are. The excitement and the apprehension of new land and new way of life can get quite overwhelming. This happened to me when I was travelling to UAE for a conference. Even though I had my hotel booked, maps downloaded and addresses in my hand, I was clueless about my next course of action upon arrival at Dubai airport. I was travelling with a friend and we both thought that we had the same experience. Lucky for us, we had each others company. And so, from my history I knew that I could experience something similar upon arrival at Cardiff. To overcome that mental block, I sat down in the exit area of the airport and tried to shake off all the excitement and nervousness. I was finally in Europe, and was going to call this place my home for next one year. But I had no idea about how to initiate my life here. It was time to figure it out.

After about 15 mins, I exited the airport with two large (23 kg capacity) suitcase and tried to search for the bus route to my booked accommodation in the bus stop situated right across the airport. But this was a challenging task. I knew street name of my accommodation, but had no idea of the closest bus stop to my place. Hell I didn’t even know if there was any bus in the area where I wanted to go. From 4 years of Chennai experience, I knew that the spellings and the pronunciations of the stops were not going to match due to vernacular inflexion, and I will have hard time communicating the location with locals. So I decided to first take a bus to Cardiff Central station, which is right in the heart of the city; and then a cab to my accommodation. Content with my plan, I decided to board bus #T9, which was also recommended to me by the Immigration officer earlier. While I was waiting for the bus, I realised how chilly it was outside. It was only the first week of October, yet it felt like Indian December.

When the bus arrived, I was the first one to board it. This was partly due to the cold weather and partly the excitement. To my horror, I was informed by the driver (the only attendant in the bus who also gives you the ticket) that CARDIFF BUSES DO NOT ACCEPT CASH UNLESS TENDERED IN EXACT CHANGE. The fare from airport to Cardiff Central was 5 pounds. But I had a 50 pounds note with me. At first, it did not appear to be a big issue. After all, I had my prepare international Visa card, and I could easily pay by card. Then came the next shocker; CARDIFF BUSES ONLY ACCEPT PAYMENT VIA CONTACTLESS CARDS. Apparently, contactless cards are a big thing in the UK. This was a problem. I was stuck now. I began considering all my options… should I disembark? should I ask the shop inside the airport for loose change? should I withdraw 5 pounds from an ATM? Frankly, none of them sounded very appealing. I was also under pressure as there was a queue forming behind me of people wanting to get on to the bus, and I was holding the line. I was struggling with my options, when suddenly, the person behind me stepped forward and very generously offered to pay my fare. What? I couldn’t believe it. 30 mins in the UK and someone was already offering to help me. Wow. I immediately knew that life was going to be good in this city. I profusely thanked the gentleman and boarded the bus. I was a little worried about the crowd as I had the two huge suitcases with me, and were occupying a lot of space in the bus. But I very quickly realized that bus was not the most popular choice of transport from the airport. There were only 2 more people, other than me and the driver, in the bus throughout the journey. All Cardiff buses have free wifi access. So I connected to it and called home, and double checked my plan of getting down at Cardiff central and taking a taxi.

Passing through the lush green Welsh countryside, I arrived at the Cardiff Central station. The bus dropped me at a pavement on a busy square, and I spotted the huge a building with huge lettering which said “Cardiff Central Station”. Sticking with my original plan, I decided to take a taxi now. I was still worried about not having change with me. But that problem became secondary when I realized that there were no “wave and stop” taxis in the area. And since I did not have a local SIM card yet, I couldn’t call a radio taxi or an Uber. So there I was, standing on the pavement with two large suitcases and a carry bag like a fool, not knowing what to do next. My solid plan had run into trouble.

Thinking about what to do next, I remembered something a family friend had mentioned about Cardiff when he lived here. He had casually mentioned that almost all of Cardiff has free public WiFi connection. If what he said was true, and I had no reason to doubt him, surely the Cardiff Central station would have a WiFi. Also, there would be taxis coming to drop people and I may be able to hire one at the station. I moved towards the station to give my improvised plan an action. Thankfully the two suitcases had wheels. So I joined them together, and placed my handbag on top of them, and pushed them like a trolley. It was not the most efficient or fancy one, but it got me going.

Once outside the station, I tried to talk to several cab drivers who were dropping people. But all of them had another customer waiting as they were all radio taxis. Dejected, I moved to the inside of the station and was able to connect to the internet. I tried to book an Uber, but that also did not work as the app had no cash payment option and it would not accept my Indian card. So I again moved outside the station and tried my luck with the cab drivers. Finally, one of them agreed and he also had change for 50 quid note. I gave him my address and he dropped me right outside my booked accommodation.

Checking in was smooth as the owner had already provided me with elaborate instructions on how to enter the building. I realized that by some stroke of luck, I had booked an entire 1 BHK apartment for less than the cheapest hotel room in the area. It had a kitchen, a living room with a TV and Netflix, a bedroom, bathroom and a backyard. Jackpot. Loved the place.

I quickly freshened up and headed out to the Cardiff University Student Union to collect my Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), which is like a residence permit for foreigners. I wanted to collect it the same day it was the second last day for its collection from the student union. After that, they would send the BRP back to the UK Home office, and collection from them would require a trip to God knows which place. And so I didn’t want to delay the collection for the last day. On the way to the SU, I was also checking out all the eating joints as I was beginning to feel hungry. I also had to arrange dinner from somewhere. After collecting my BRP, I took a baguette meal and a sandwich meal from a corner store. Ate one immediately and saved one for the dinner. And finally returned back to the flat as the jet lag was starting to hit. I slouched on the super comfortable sofa, which doubled as a bed, to relax for a bit and switched in the TV. Sometime at around 11:30, there was loud knock on my window, and I realized that I had dozed off on the sofa. Some passerby had knocked on the window because the lights were on. That was strange. Why would someone knock if the lights were on. So I went outside to check. The moment I stepped out of the flat, it was clear why my window was knocked upon. In the entire neighbourhood, my window was the only one which was still lit. All other windows were dark as people had switched off the lights before going to bed.

I went back inside, and opened my sandwich dinner which had gone cold. Thankfully the flat had a microwave, and so I heated it up before having it. I was excited about the next day as I was going to meet my supervisor and finalise my permanent accommodation. With that thought, I called it a day.