A woman who moved from Australia to Wales this year has documented a string of small cultural surprises she has encountered while settling in the United Kingdom, saying everyday differences from home range from household fittings to local wildlife and drinking habits.
Nina Skalonja, 31, said she left Adelaide in October 2024 to join her partner, 28-year-old Ben Roberts, an electrical engineer, after meeting him during a solo trip to Cardiff in November 2023. The couple dated long distance for about nine months before Skalonja made the roughly 10,786-mile move to Swansea, where she now lives with Roberts.
At the top of her list of surprises was the absence of electrical sockets in many British bathrooms. Skalonja, a project planner who also runs an online skincare business called StillInked, said she was "gutted" to discover the two-bedroom house she shares with Roberts lacked a bathroom plug, forcing her to carry a hairdryer between rooms. "Drying my hair in the bathroom was a critical part of my morning routine in Australia," she said. "It was easier to clean hair off the tiles. But now I'm often running between my bedroom and bathroom searching for a plug for my blow dryer."
Skalonja also described British seagulls as "terrifyingly massive," saying the birds looked unlike the species she knew in Adelaide and that she initially mistook one for an albatross. She pointed to the country's unpredictable weather, narrow country lanes and the complexity of British accents as further adjustments.
"I feel like within a 20-minute drive, I come across a new accent I haven't heard of before," she said, adding that she sometimes has to ask people to repeat themselves. She recalled struggling to adapt to driving a manual car on small rural roads, saying she stalled frequently in her first week behind the wheel and remains cautious on hedged country lanes in Wales.
Skalonja highlighted the prominence of daytime drinking in Britain, particularly when the sun comes out, and noted a personal surprise at how full pubs can be even in the middle of a weekday. She compared typical drink prices, saying a pint in some parts of Australia can cost about £3 to £4 while pointing out that London prices often exceed £8.
She also mentioned practical differences such as the requirement to pay for a television licence in the UK and the relative lack of direct sunlight compared with Australia. Despite those contrasts, Skalonja praised other aspects of British life: proximity to European destinations and the availability of low-cost flights out of Heathrow. During visits to the UK, she said she was able to fly to Croatia, Italy, Dublin and Bosnia on fares that cost no more than about £30 each.
Skalonja said she does not consider the move permanent but has embraced life in Britain. "There are definitely things in Australia which would shock a lot of Brits, too," she said. She added that she misses some tastes from home, naming chicken salt and Australian-style coffee, but described the UK as having "a certain charm you just can't find anywhere else."