I moved again!

A quick update of the beginning of another chapter.

Hi all! As you may know, I have recently moved to Reading, England for a year-long Master's program. Things went well during my first week and I am looking forward to the next few as I continue to settle in. I don't have many reflections to make quite yet but I am happy to share a few things about my new home and program.

Moving here actually went more smoothly than I imagined. Of course I was still tired, but the actual travel piece was relatively comfortable and very low stress (even got upgraded to first-class and served breakfast on my last flight). The buses/taxis made it easy to get to and from my hall, so I could pick up some of the essentials I had not packed. Slept comfortably the first night and woke up feeling rested. I'll be honest though, my room still looked like this for a while...getting organized was a mid-week activity.

I am living on campus in a flat with eight other people. We have had a good time getting to know each other and I think we will all get along well this year. My hall is close to both the center of campus and my academic building, so when I am running late to classes or events I won't have to run as fast or as far. That shouldn't happen so often though because all of my classes will start AFTER 9 am (no 8:05s for me! woot woot!).

Campus is full of green spaces and very walkable. It has everything you could need - Coffee shops, grocery store, restaurants, bars (an obvious essential ;) ), and I think there is even a hotel. Over the past week, central campus has been very active with socials and various activity fairs.

Reading is a city of just over 160,000 people and I have found it to be a great place to live so far. I had the chance to head into the downtown area a couple times this week. Once, was during a walking tour of Reading organized by the school. We saw some of the historical/cultural sites including the Abbey Ruins, the Museum of English Rural Life, Forbury Gardens, and different spots on campus.

We are about 20 minutes by train from the center of London, so I took advantage of that for the first time this weekend. Sunday afternoon we headed into the city for a short tourist session. It was just under a week since the Queen's funeral, so there were still areas where people could go lay flowers in tribute. Saw many of the typical 'iconic' London spots like Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and Big Ben. Then stopped in Borough Market for a lunch of fish & chips and (to really channel my inner tourist) made our way to a couple of locations in Harry Potter. All of that and we only managed to take the wrong underground once. *pats self on back*

Finally, in case you forgot I moved here for school...here's a brief summary of what that looks like so far: My course of study is MSc in Food Economics and Marketing, under the Graduate Institute of International Development, Agriculture and Economics (GIIDAE). Last week, we worked on selecting our modules and this week we will begin class. With just about 100 students in our department, 50 or so countries are represented. So far in my course of study, there are six of us. 2 from Greece, 2 from Kazakhstan, 1 from Austria, and me. In addition to my coursemates, I have had the chance to start meeting many people within the department. I have enjoyed getting to know and learn from everyone.

That's all I've got for this check-in, but I plan to continue with updates throughout the year. Look forward to sharing more! Cheers!