red tape

I wasn't able to apply for my student visa until after I got back from Italy because the UK Border Agency keeps your passport while they're processing your application. It's iffy whether or not I'm going to get my passport back in time for my plane ride to London on the 25th of September.

I'm moving to a place where I'm not going to know a single soul, where I'll have to learn how to be a student again, where they drive on the wrong side of the road and I'm not going to have a clue how to get around and - even though they speak english - the locals' accents can make them difficult to understand.

I'm not going to have the same kind of income I've gotten used to, and returning to a student budget is sure to be difficult. Especially because I'm going to be living in a place that is just a hop, skip and a jump from many of the places I've dreamed of visiting (Greece, Ireland, Spain, Germany)... It's going to be very difficult to be budget conscious.

So. The logistics of my trip are up in the air, I'm going to be lonely and I'm going to be poor. But I'm not at all worried about any of those things. I'm pretty confident that all of the little details will fall in to place. There's only one little issue that keeps popping in to my head on a regular basis and it's so trivial and silly that I can't believe I spend time thinking about it.

Here's what's bugging me lately. I have a studio apartment lined up in Leicester, so my sleeping/living/cooking/eating space is basically going to be one small room. You know how when you're cooking say, spaghetti, or stir fry, and your whole kitchen will reek of ground beef or onions or whatever? And you know how if your stove vent isn't running the food smell will get in your clothes, and you won't really notice until you're out getting a coffee or shopping or something and then all of a sudden you catch a whiff of yourself and you think, "Oh weird, I smell like dinner."

I'm worried that because I'm pretty much going to be sleeping in my kitchen that my bedding and all of my clothing are going to smell like dinner for my entire stay in Leicester. And I don't want to be that girl. I don't want to be the one who walks by and people say "Hey, do you smell shepherd's pie?"

I hope they have Febreze in England.