u/honey-ink

I am traveling from NYC to CDG with my cat and the restrictions say the carrier must be 46 x 28 x 24 cm/ 18 x 11 x 9 in. I cannot seem to find a carrier anywhere that meets these dimensions, especially in height.

I know it needs to be soft sided and most can probably squeeze but I cannot risk being turned away as this is for a (permanent) international move and my entire house will be packed & gone at that point.

Has anyone traveled Air France with a pet and have any experience with a carrier that works? I’ve seen people mention Sherpa but it doesn’t seem like they do fit the requirements (though it’s hard to tell because their website is so barren of actual information on carrier sizes other than swearing they’re “airline approved”).

Hi Friends! This might seem a bit silly, but I’m moving to London for work next month, and I’m feeling especially stressed about being an American abroad during a time when my home country is so (rightfully) judged abroad.

I know once I open my mouth, I won’t be able to fool anyone but I had an American coworker tell me that a group of Brits told her they could tell she was American by her shoes. She wouldn’t tell me what shoes she was wearing, but this has haunted me since.

To be clear, I’ve been to London lots of times and I’ve lived in NYC for my entire adult life, and I don’t think I’ve been wildly out of place there. I am quite fashion conscious (not a wild trend chaser but I do follow them loosely), but every time I google this topic I see:

“Don’t wear baseball caps”
“White sneakers”
“Bum bags”

Which to me all sounds like it’s geared toward a middle aged man, not an early 30s woman (can I wear off-white sneakers?? I have collapsed arches, I wear sneakers a lot 😂)

So TL;DR — what are your cringe moments or dead giveaways for Americans/tourists in general in the UK? Or am I just way overthinking (as usual)?

This may sound silly, but I get so frustrated sometimes with how my brain can hold on to big concepts but I can’t for the life of me hold on to names, dates, figures, and it makes me feel so stupid.

It doesn’t matter if it’s something I’m genuinely interested in or not— I just can’t hold it. For example, I love elephants. I worked with elephants in the wild for a year and when I tell people this, they’ll frequently ask, “oh, what’s a fun fact about elephants?” Or, “how much does an average lifespan of an elephant?” And I have looked these things up dozens and dozens of times in my life, but I cannot hold on to the facts.

This happens across history, politics, literature, anything. I get really interested and read about a topic, then I want to talk about it, but the end result makes me feel like I sound so dumb because it’s always “oh I was reading about this guy in— oh, um, some country in Eastern Europe I think? Or maybe it was Northern Europe? Anyway, it was— in the 18th century, or 19th, maybe?”

I know this sounds like such a dumb problem but it makes me feel like such an idiot when I’m trying to have conversations with people who have amazing recall and can name a philosopher and the direct quote, or a country and city and the exact year something happened.

I know a lot of this is just performative citations but… just wondering if anyone else ever feels insecure about this.

Hi All, I’m moving to London in about three months and I’ve just found out from my (US) psych that the antidepressant I’ve been taking that has finally worked for me (Vilazodone/Viibryd) is unlicensed/not prescribed in the UK.

I will have private health insurance on top of NHS through my job (Bupa) and am also willing to pay out of pocket, but I’m unsure if either of these would matter. When I google, it says ‘To get it privately, a UK-registered psychiatrist must issue an "off-label/unlicensed" private prescription, which you can then have filled by a specialist international pharmacy’.

Has anyone had any experience/success with this? I’ve tried dozens of medications over the years and this is the first one I feel good/stable on so I am very very reluctant to switch if I don’t absolutely have to.

Any advice would be appreciated.

EDIT: Found a home, but will keep commenters posted if it falls through! Thank you ladies! 🩷🩷

I’m moving to London and I am so exhausted from trying to sell my things, find respectable places to donate, etc. I remember when I was younger I couldn’t afford nice dresses and could never find anything nice secondhand. I don’t have the time/energy to find perfect homes for all of my clothes but I’ve put aside a small bag of what I think are the nicest items (good condition or new with tags, or high resale value), and I’m wondering if there is anyone in Brooklyn who would want a bag of 5-6 dresses (Reformation, Free People, and Never Fully Dressed), a nice leather trench (avec les filles), Skims 38F new with tags, 38F Freya bathing suit NWT, some other random things. I’d like these to go to an actual plus size woman rather than some random man on Buy Nothing who is gonna resell them so I thought I’d try here first. Happy to send some photos if there’s any interest.

EDITED: it looks like this doesn’t require a prescription in the UK (and actually is cheaper than in the US) so problem solved !! Thank you everyone who commented ❣️

Hi all,

I’m moving to London in October with a cat who is on prescription food. I already know all the caveats about not being able to fly directly into the UK with a cat in cabin (I plan to go via France), and needing all the proper documentation (I have a USDA certified vet who is ready and waiting to do all the paperwork within the required window).

The part I am most anxious about is my cat’s prescription food. My US vet has offered to write me a physical prescription but I’m not sure if UK vets would honor it. Obviously, I would not like to take up valuable suitcase room with very heavy canned and dried food, but my vet strongly discourages him eating anything else. I’m wondering if I should ship food ahead of time to my temporary housing (if this is even allowed?), or if I should bring a couple cans in my checked luggage and try calling vets near the temporary housing to see if they have any recommendations?

I know the general area my temporary housing will be in for at least 30 days (city of London), but not where I’ll live long-term, so I’m hesitant to fully commit to any one vet ahead of time, especially given some vets I’ve seen have monthly subscription fees.

Any advice?

EDITED: it looks like this doesn’t require a prescription in the UK (and actually is cheaper than in the US) so problem solved !! Thank you everyone who commented ❣️

Hi all,

I’m moving to London in October with a cat who is on prescription food. I already know all the caveats about not being able to fly directly into the UK with a cat in cabin (I plan to go via France), and needing all the proper documentation (I have a USDA certified vet who is ready and waiting to do all the paperwork within the required window).

The part I am most anxious about is my cat’s prescription food. My US vet has offered to write me a physical prescription but I’m not sure if UK vets would honor it. Obviously, I would not like to take up valuable suitcase room with very heavy canned and dried food, but my vet strongly discourages him eating anything else. I’m wondering if I should ship food ahead of time to my temporary housing (if this is even allowed?), or if I should bring a couple cans in my checked luggage and try calling vets near the temporary housing to see if they have any recommendations?

I know the general area my temporary housing will be in for at least 30 days (city of London), but not where I’ll live long-term, so I’m hesitant to fully commit to any one vet ahead of time, especially given some vets I’ve seen have monthly subscription fees.

Any advice?

My aunt struggles with ADHD and remembering appointments. She often shows up late or early to appointments, and I want to help her but I don’t live nearby.

She has an iPhone but isn’t the most tech savvy. Ideally, I’m looking for an app that she could use voice-to-text to just say something like “I have (type) appointment on (date) at (time), can you remind me?”

Really crucially, it needs to support multiple reminders in push notifications. She needs to be reminded the day before, hour before, etc. But we’ve talked about it and she will put the appointments into her phone calendar but doesn’t set up the reminders correctly or mis-inputs the time.

It would also be great if there were a widget feature for easy access from her Home Screen but this isn’t entirely necessary. I can help her with the setup, but it needs to be able to be easily managed. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Coming from NYC where StreetEasy exists, I was not prepared for the particular hell of Zoopla and Rightmove. My complaints are thus:

- The price filters: Why can’t I type in a custom threshold? £250 is a massive range. Just let me type a number into a box. This is not a radical feature request.

- The radius: Particularly heinous on Rightmove, which only lets you set a distance radius. This is insane because as any Londoner knows, a place 10 miles away can have better transport links than somewhere 2 miles away. Zoopla’s commute filter is marginally better, but why on earth can’t I just select multiple specific neighbourhoods or postcodes? This is the single biggest thing I miss from StreetEasy.

- The algorithm: I am psychotic about flat hunting. I want to see every listing. The easiest way to do that is scroll until I hit familiar territory… except that’s impossible because even sorting “newest first” doesn’t actually show things newest first.
And god forbid I accidentally click one listing in the wrong area, suddenly that’s all I’m shown. I’ve used the “hide” feature and selected “not interested in this area” as the reason, and they will continue to show me properties in that area. If you’re going to algorithmically lobotomize my search results, at least make the algorithm work.

I know about setting up alerts. I’m not here for tips (unless actually they solve my problems listed above easily, then feel free to share). I’m here to moan. Please join me!

I’m moving from Brooklyn to London this fall for work, and I’ve already found so many of my (British) coworkers telling me certain neighborhoods are unsafe or sketchy, but when I talk to other New Yorkers who’ve moved there, it sounds like it’s way overstated and perhaps Londoners are just a bit more sheltered/easily shocked than I would be as someone who’s lived in various areas of Brooklyn for 10+ years.

I’m genuinely wondering, when people say areas are sketchy - how seriously should I take it? For context, I’m a single woman who’s lived alone for years, and I’m looking to do so again in London. I don’t want to feel unsafe, but a lot of the warnings seem to be for areas I’ve been to in London before that felt perfectly normal/safe to me.

So: for choosing a neighborhood in London, what areas would be on your absolute *avoid* list?

I lost about 60 pounds since buying my Oura ring ~1.5 years ago. When my ring got loose, I bought one in a size down as I of course noticed my data was less accurate.

But it feels like ever since then, it just cannot keep up with the changes. It’s constantly telling me my heart rate is low, my body temperature is low, and penalizing my sleep scores because of it. It also seems to have a harder time differentiating between me being awake and asleep than when I first got the ring, and it’s even changed my chronotype from “late morning” to “early evening” - but then I get poor scores on sleep timing daily because I’m going to bed “too early” for my chronotype.

I don’t want to lose all my previous data by doing a total reset or new profile, but it’s really frustrating feeling like my scores are constantly low even when I’m doing what I’m supposed to. Has anyone else experienced this, or is it possible Oura’s readings have just gotten generally worse over time?