This year marked my five years in England, five amazing somehow terrifying years. Before moving to England at the age of 20 I lived in a small village near a small town which was near another small town. I have always felt like I needed to see more than that and I have visited the UK for five times before moving here. First time I went to London was when I was 12, I was lucky enough that my parents paid for me to come on a school trip to Paris and London and I was mesmerised, of course I was sold after seeing all the posh buildings and everyone being super polite and nice to me. I was always a Harry Potter fan so that helped a lot. Vinegar chips served by our host family didn’t necessarily did it for me but that was just one teeny tiny detail. 

(Picture of me carrying CVs around and handing them to everyone who cared. I have NEVER found a job through this method. :)

There was a lot of exploring done in the first weeks in Brighton and I was loving it all but I was also very stressed about finding a job. My English was great but I didn’t have much experience and was very ‘fresh’. I will always remember Megan, my supervisor who hired me for my first ever job for a big catering company. My first job title was ‘Catering Assistant’ for bus drivers in a canteen, I had to cook, take money, orders, clean and cash-up all this by myself. I was given all the evening shifts and earning minimum wage which back then was £6.30 but I have never had a real fulltime job before and I was so happy and even surprised how much I have earned in one month. I am smiling now thinking about it because you can imagine it wasn’t exactly a lot of money but I was able to pay my rent and buy food and even some clothes and that was all I wanted back then. I didn’t last very long in this job to be honest but I had another part-time work working for a digital agency as a Czech coordinator, it was a really interesting job in a multi-national environment but unfortunately I was made redundant together with maybe 15-20 more people and slowly but surely the company disappeared after two big clients didn’t want them anymore. That was sad. I managed to land a marketing job with a small company and I was super excited but after a month of working for this lady who seemed very nice I was paid £300 less than agreed. She was a foreigner as well and being exploited by another foreigner was tough. From then I remembered to always sign work contracts and never take anyone niceness and politeness too seriously. There are a lot of shady people around! 

I was diagnosed with Epilepsy two years after I moved to England and I ended up in a ambulance and hospital twice. I was robbed. I have also experienced depression which almost drove me away from the country. I was homesick a lot and thought about moving back quite a few times. There were periods when I didn’t like living in Brighton but it was usually due to my own circumstance and by that I mean I hated my job :). It wasn’t always skateboarding down the beach while watching sunset and eating icecream. It was often worrying about money and the next place to live, not having any savings or any friends to call. I often felt lonely and wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay but I am glad I did. It was all worth it.