Oxford
Sunday February 26, 2017
I've finally made it to the United Kingdom, where I'm boarding temporarily in Oxford until I figure out what I want to do. It seems there is a high administrative overhead in opening a bank account, getting a tax number and finding a flat, and of course London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. The weather is exactly as I've expected it to be - cloudy and wet - but it is winter after all, and I expect it to warm up over the next couple of months.
It was a very early start in Reykjavik - 5am to be precise - to get to Keflavik Airport on Saturday, but the flight was short and I arrived in Gatwick just before noon with no problems at immigration. The bus to Oxford took two hours but at least it had free wifi. The first thing I noticed upon arriving is how gorgeous the buildings are; so full of character and rich with history. The food scene is apparently quite lacking here, but I'll be exploring the city tomorrow and will give you a proper opinion after I have experienced it myself.
I have at least managed to obtain a local SIM card for myself, and fortunately this deal allows me to roam around Europe with 12GB of data each month at no additional cost. Again, obtaining this was not a trivial exercise and reinforced the notion that bureaucracy is rife here. The app for managing my account and usage was only available in the UK App Store, so I had to create a new account in order to download it, and honestly I was rolling my eyes so hard at just how unnecessarily complicated things can be. Despite all this, it's all sorted now, and I've even managed to catch the fourth regional Pokemon, Mr Mime. That leaves Heracross (South America) and Corsola (equatorial countries), thanks to Generation II dropping a week ago.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:28pm on Sunday February 26, 2017 :: 0 comments :: 