I’ve been in California for just over a month now but I thought I would backtrack to the beginning: my September arrival. I am lucky enough to have family friends who live in Oakland, California, so I was able to stay with them for the first week. This helped enormously with getting acclimatised to Californian time (8hrs behind the U.K), setting up an American bank account and getting a sim card, all essential things for a year abroad. Staying with family friends also gave me the opportunity to experience family and school orientated activities for example, I was able to go to freshman high school volleyball matches, middle school Saturday…