Pinch me, I’m dreaming
I still can’t believe the stars aligned to get me here.
I studied abroad in London in the fall of 2011 as part of a program called IES Abroad. It was the perfect fit for me, as it allowed me to satisfy requirements for both my English and Drama majors, while allowing me to live in Chelsea and have four day weekends to travel!
While my time in London in 2011 was enough to make me want to live here again someday, I wasn’t so sure my life would ever bring me here. I was tied to my restaurant job(s) and the NYC audition scene, and short of booking a West End show, I didn’t see how I would ever get here for longer than a vacation.
Incredibly, my job at TodayTix has given me the opportunity of a lifetime. While I had (subtly, I’m sure) been hinting for a while that I had aspirations of moving to London, things really kicked into overdrive once Quinn had moved and we were doing transatlantic long distance (doable, but hard, y’all). As luck would have it, a business need arose in London for which my specific skill set would be a significant advantage, and suddenly it was “how soon can you move?”
Like any operations professional, I immediately jumped into planning and spreadsheets. I was lucky enough to have visa support through work, and I’m currently in the UK on a Skilled Worker Visa. When you’re moving to another country, obviously a visa is the first thing you have to check off the list.
For me, the list was basically this:
- Get visa
- Get movers
- Get rid of stuff
- Buy Nothing
- Take things home to Mom & Dad’s place?
- WHAT TO DO WITH FURNITURE? (yes this was in all caps)
- Figure out end of lease stuff
- Figure out actual move date
- Plan going away party?
I know this list probably looks crazy, but just having something written down made me feel like I was in control (dear reader, I was, in fact, not in control). Let me break it down a little further for y’all.
Visa. Again, SUPER lucky that mine was sponsored through work. Visas cost… a lot of money. According to the UK gov website, application fees for skilled worker visas range from £719 to £1,639 GBP ($918.02 to $2092.68 USD). There are additional fees beyond that, and frankly, without the lawyers to guide me it would have been a lot more stressful. You start by submitting a ton of documentation including details about yourself, your parents, and everywhere you’ve traveled in the past decade. Once all of that is compiled and submitted, you go to the USCIS (US Citizen & Immigration Services) Application Support Centre to have a biometric appointment. Then you send proof of both those things plus your passport to the Embassy within five days of your appointment, and pray. I’ve heard horror stories about how long it can take, but mine was relatively quick (only 11 days from appointment to approval).
When I tell y’all trying to figure out movers led to three separate breakdowns I am not exaggerating. I did a ton of googling, and requested a quote from what I thought was one moving company. It was basically a bulk request system, and I was FLOODED with quotes for weeks, because since I still didn’t have an official moving date, I couldn’t confirm with any one company. You can ship things in bulk using these big moving companies on either a plane or a ship. Air shipping is much quicker, but proportionally more expensive than freight shipping. Finally I just picked one that was based out of Philly because the price seemed to be on the lower end and their accents reminded me of home…. I did not necessarily always make the most logical decisions here, but it ended up being a great experience thus far. I’ll update once I get my stuff, which should be about seven more weeks.
Ah, arguably the hardest part: getting rid of stuff. You see, I love my stuff. All of it. Clothing most of all, but honestly everything. While I’ve gone through the occasional purges, much of what I had was stuff I’d been schlepping from Washington Heights apartment to Washington Heights apartment for at least five years, some of it since 2013. Dresses remind me of the occasion(s) they were worn for. The green suit I bought for the Tavern on the Green re-opening in April 2021, the dress I bought at Forever21 on my lunch break for the Once Upon a One More Time opening night last year, the incredible gown I got at a Rent the Runway sample sale and wore to my cousin’s wedding in 2019 – they all have a place in my heart. What I had to decide was whether they deserved a place in my luggage and in my tiny London closets.
I had a clothing swap lined up with friends in late April, and after three rounds through my closet and drawers, ended up with multiple giant suitcases of clothing to swap. For things I truly couldn’t let go of yet but knew I wouldn’t need often enough to justify the lost space, I made space in my childhood bedroom. Beyond clothing, I gave away a ton on Buy Nothing. Giving away all that stuff made me feel lighter, but there were also moments of feeling untethered, like my stuff had tied me to this place, and without it, I might just float away to another country (spoiler alert: I did).
End of lease stuff was a huge stressor for me and for my roommate at the time, but our incredible super eased a lot of our fears. My roomie has a new place lined up that’s within her budget, which helped assuage my guilt at having to leave her, and he told me to just leave any furniture I wouldn’t be bringing, so yet another (all caps) challenge solved!
Then… the actual move date. Once you book a flight, it’s real. There’s something very finite about choosing your seat on your one-way flight to a new country, let me tell you. I knew I wanted to move over Memorial Day weekend, because that Monday was also a Bank Holiday here in the UK, so I’d get a freebie day to settle in. I originally planned to fly Sunday night, but in the end it made more sense to use Friday for the movers and a final carload of stuff for my parents house, come back to NYC Saturday and tie up loose ends, and fly out Saturday night. Quinn would meet me at the airport and we’d head to the flat to unpack for 48 hours, then I’d dive back into work Tuesday morning. I think if I could do it over, I’d probably have taken Tuesday off too, but hindsight is 20/20.
And finally, a party?? Or … a farewell tour? Including a party? I can’t lie to y’all, I was so unbelievably stressed about everything else that even giving people a bar to meet at felt stressful. So I turned to my work family at Tavern on the Green to see if we could do it there, since it had been such a huge part of my life as a New Yorker. They went above and beyond and threw me a small party, which I supplemented with a ton of one-off drinks, coffees, meals, and shows to make sure I saw as many friends and family as possible before I flew the coop.
And there you have it. The nitty gritty of getting here. While I didn’t feel the need to detail them all one at a time, I had many panicked moments. I cried a lot, especially saying “goodbye for now” to my friends and family.
As Stephen Schwartz so eloquently wrote,
“getting your dreams
It’s strange, but it seems
A little, well, complicated” – Wicked
And this dream? Logistically and emotionally complicated. And also incredibly exciting! So, stay tuned for the story of week one in London.
