Why I love UK

Today marks 5 years since I first set foot on British soil and now I can’t imagine ever wanting to live anywhere else. Last year I’ve made a funny list of 15 things I learned as an expat in UK, the year before I wrote about how I’ve changed a little and three years ago I talked about feeling at home. Something I’ve noticed that, through the years, I’ve started talking more and more about me as a Brit. Does it matter that I’m not born here? I don’t know and I don’t think it matters. For me, how I feel matters more.

I love my life here and this year I was keen on talking about why. I always struggle with this posts because I don’t want to leave the impression that life in Romania is bad in any way. It’s not. Most Romanians love their lives there. I just prefer to live here, it’s more suitable for my style, to my approach to living and my beliefs. It gets too serious, so lets switch to my:

10 reasons Why I love UK

1. The weather! I might have mentioned this before (100s of times). I can wear my shoes most of the time. I love that. The same applies to clothes. I’m used to a wider range of temperatures, so the Liverpudlian weather is pretty much a Spring/Autumn type of weather all the time.
It doesn’t rain.

2. FOOD. Chips, I love chips and not those thin French fries, pies, roast carrots, houmous with all sorts of additions like roasted peppers or mint and asparagus, Brussels sprouts, risotto, curries, cheddar, soups, lemon meringue pie, sticky toffee pudding, banoffee pie, scones, mince pies, Eton mess, salted caramel, Christmas puddings and Victoria sponge. Not all are British per say, but I discovered them here.
Another thing I love about food is that I can get so many different ingredients that I never used before, some British, some oriental: Rhubarb, chard, winter melon, parwal, plaintain, purple yam, black beans.

3. Having fun. There are so many amazing things we can do here, like driving an F1 simulator, going to a 200 year old pub or a castle, a beautiful tearoom or an old mill.

4. The landscape is beautiful. I’m one of those persons who finds boring a landscape with a blue sea and a white beach. At the same time I can admire for hours a windy coast with a dark looking water and rocks. I also love the green hills with sheep or cows dotted here and there. The hills are still green in winter. The canals are beautiful all year round and it’s very relaxing to walk along them.

5. The literature and the music. I read Byron as a teenager. I also read Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters. I will also read modern novelists like Mary Balogh or Sophie Kinsella. My favourite song is Imagine. To mention a few: Elton John, Queen, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Amy Winehouse, Adele.

6. Beautiful cities and villages. I love Liverpool, London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, York, Conwy, Powis and so many others.

7. Tea. I didn’t use to drink tea, now I tell my husband we should get a new flavour of tea. From flowering tea to the traditional Earl Grey, I love tea. I can’t imagine how I lived so many years without cream tea.

8. Helpful neighbours. They will pull your bin in the garden if you are not at home. They will take a huge parcel if you are not in. It’s fab.

9. Bird feeding. I fed geese in The Netherlands for the first time, many years ago, and I loved it. The birds are quite keen on getting food and they will take it from our hands, that’s so cute. It’s one of my favourite pass times.

10. Outlander and Game of Thrones. I don’t need to cross the border to see the filming locations. It’s true it’s quite a hassle to get to Northen Irland as the ferry takes a lot and it’s the only way we can get there with the car. But, that being said, I hope we’ll go there in the next couple of years.