We are A Month In since making our trek across the Atlantic to call a new place home. Sheffield has been a most welcoming city! The people here are very friendly and always willing to take a minute and talk to us.
Maybe peoples curiosity is sparked by the different accent we have.
At times we have felt that we just look different. That does sound absurd. It’s probably more that we are just feeling new to the city, culture and different way of life. Indeed life is much different. We moved from a three bedroom house with a big yard into a 475 square foot apartment.
Going from being able to simply open the back door to let the dogs out was a change, but that is a small adjustment that we’ve had to make in our regular duties.
We have had to restock our kitchenware, find stores to buy the things we need, and learn to live without the things we had taken for granted; small things like not having a microwave and deciding whether we need one or not – so far we don’t. Making our morning coffee with a French press instead of a fancy machine seemed like a huge change, but a few weeks later it is working out just fine.
We find ourselves not missing many of the trivial things that we told ourselves we needed, to live.
Learning how to do laundry a different way was a bit of an annoyance at first. We have just a small washer/drier combo in our flat. The first load that we washed and dried came out fairly damp still. It felt like a HUGE change to not have a completely dry pile. We needed to add a drying rack to our list of things to purchase and adjust our approach. It no longer feels like such a daunting task.
A month in, we’ve realized that it’s about accepting change, something that we are more than capable of, as we open our minds to new ways of living. This was our choice after all, and we understood that there would be unexpected and new things to experience.
We also do not own a vehicle anymore.
We rely on walking to get the things we need on a daily basis. Thankfully, the weather here has been very agreeable, which has made it easier to explore the city. We did get a slight dusting of what the locals called snow; we laughed.
True story, I carried a fair sized waste bin full of items we needed across our new city. Thankfully, we had planned the location of our new home as best we could using google maps. This has paid off, as we have many stores to choose from, and getting things like groceries has not been a huge chore. We simply take a backpack and a couple of reusable bags. A month in and we’ve adjusted our shopping habits.
Gone are the days of visits to Costco.
One or two days’ worth of groceries is all we need. There is time in our day to make the walk over and get what we need. There has been less wasted food and more variety to our meals.
It’s no surprise that Amazon has made having no vehicle much easier. True, there has to be some patience when it comes to relying on deliveries to bring us things we need. It’s just one more adjustment. After these few weeks, it feels like all the things we had felt dependent on are in the past now. It is now the new experiences that we are embracing.
Sheffield is a very dog-friendly city.
We’ve enjoyed being able to take them to the pubs and restaurants. Chevy even sits on the bench in the booth with us! It does help that our boys are well behaved and very cute! They are a built-in icebreaker where ever we go! People are willing to share their phone numbers or social media details, encouraging us to reach out in the future! They make suggestions on places to visit and sights to see, with one even offering to be a tour guide for the day!
We took in an ice hockey game, the Sheffield Steelers of the Elite Ice Hockey League.
While not quite the same spectacle as the NHL we are used to, the fans love their team and it made for a fun afternoon out. The Steelers also won, and it was great for Hayley and I to finally cheer for the same hockey team! We’ve also taken in our first football match at Bramall Lane (which hosted it’s first sporting match – cricket – in 1855), home to Sheffield United – Go Blades!
It was fantastic and was far different from watching a match on television. We felt as though we were truly experiencing a deep rooted part of local culture. The Blades won 1-NIL, bringing our live sports record to 2-0. We definitely left the pitch with a better appreciation of the sport (but still not knowing what the songs or chants were).
After a month in we are feeling less like we are on vacation and more like this is the life that we have now.
The freedom to choose what each day looks like is incredible. To not be bound by a work schedule allows us to live like every day has endless possibilities. As we plan our travels for the next two months, it’s becoming clear that we are living out our dreams and living a life that is absolutely on our own terms.