This week Her Campus Leeds talks to Australian born and bred Ryan Mees who has packed up his little life in sunny Sydney and moved all the way to cold and rainy England. A big move for a young lad of only twenty-two. He’s just pased his second year up in old England so we’re finding out how he’s finding it, what he’s missing most about Australia and what his plans are!
Hey Ryan, thanks for talking to us. You moved to England in October 2014! Tell us a bit about your decision to move?
Living in England had been on my mind for years, so when it came to the actual decision it was an easy one! With Australia being so isolated it always intrigued me to see the UK and Europe where you can cross borders by car or train to countries where they speak different languages, have different currencies and hold different customs.
What was the most challening thing about moving away from sunny Aus?
Easily the most challenging thing about moving from Australia is missing my friends and family. Living on different hemispheres to your parents that you’re use to seeing every day is really hard.
How have you found living in England, what are the major differences from home?
Living in England isn’t too different to living in Australia to be honest, the big differences are the cold cold weather, before coming to England I hadn’t experienced minus degree temperatures, so that was a big shock to the system.
England’s not all bad, tell us a bit about what you’ve enjoted the most?
I’m a big football (we call it soccer in Australia) fan, so coming to England where its practically a religion is amazing, I’ve been to a few matches and the atmosphere is like nothing I’ve ever experienced! I also really enjoy all the history that the country has, with Australia being so young we don’t have as much historical buildings as England, only just the other day I walked past a pub that was older than Australia itself!
You’re hoping to move back home eventually, do you have any plans before you move back?
I’ve got some big and exciting plans before i head back to Australia for good, the plans to drive around the UK and Ireland, then venture around Europe for a few months before spending 6 months working and living in Canada, but once thats done i think it’ll be time for me to go home.