Greetings from Staines-Upon-Thames in Borough of Spelthorne in Surrey, England!
It’s been four months since I arrived to this beautiful small city near to London called Staines-Upon-Thames. I call it city even though a village might be more accurate way to call it. The best part of city is the river Thames next to my work place. I have really enjoyed long walks along the river side.
I got my internship place with three weeks’ notice so I was really in a hurry to find accommodation and arrange everything. In the end I found a nice house to stay in with a live in landlady and her son. The house is located very close to the office where I work, only 10 minutes’ walk.
I came here to do my internship in a small fundraising company as Business Administrator. The work has been interesting, I’ve been participating in all the different aspects of a fundraising business starting from face-to-face fundraising till collecting and entering donor data and preparing weekly reports for the client companies. After the first month I’ve been basically taken care of all the daily administration work and communication with our clients. Before leaving the company I will also teach the new employee how to do the work, so I would say I have been involved in all the aspects of running a small start-up company.
Before coming here I didn’t really know anything about England. I have been on an exchange before in the Netherlands, so I was really surprised when I experienced quite strong culture shock during first few weeks. This whole country seems to be very different from the other European countries I’ve visited. All the small things like new currency, different units of measurement (I will never get used to miles), cars driving on the wrong side of the road and children wearing school uniforms have been very new to me. Not to mention the small talk and people addressing me as “lady” “love” or “dear”
Even though first months were quite challenging for me and I missed home a lot, it’s starting to be better now. I’m getting used to the way things are done here and I have met nice people here both foreigners and British. I’ve visited London a lot and after the first shock of too many people, I’ve really learnt to love the city. I’ve seen Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham so I have been a tourist as well. Mostly I’ve enjoyed just walking around in London, getting used to the underground/tube (which is horrible and too hot here) and meeting new people. I’m not really that great at being a tourist.
Also, I don’t own camera, so all the photos are from internet. But everyone knows how London looks like anyway, right?
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