End of first year medical school in Newcastle England and I’m finally back in Toronto. Being part of a Global Scholars program at St. Georges School of medicine in Grenada I had the opportunity to complete my first year of medicine not on a tropical Caribbean Island, but in the pseudo modern city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom.

For the majority of my conscious life, I’ve really only lived in one city. Sure, I lived in China for the first 6 years of my life… but only 3 of those years are probably memorable if not extremely blurry by now. The one city that I grew up in, and for the most part shaped the person I am today belongs to Toronto. Moving to Newcastle from Toronto and studying for only one year may not seem like very daunting of a task, however it is not without its differences.

The biggest adjustment I realized the second I landed in Newcastle I had to become accustomed to was the efficiency of service. It seemed that every pub, restaurant, or shop in Newcastle operated at a “leisure” pace. No matter what day, what time or what circumstance you were in, all the service workers had a laid back attitude and non-nonchalant way of going about things. In addition to slow service, all the shops closed at 7 PM sharp every weekday and even earlier on weekends. The luxuries of 24 hour pork bone soup back in Toronto was gone. Instead, I had to actually “cook” for myself and do groceries consistently! Absurd!

All joking aside, the studying in Newcastle has taught me many things and being truly independent is among one of the skills I learned quickly. I feel this first entry is quickly turning into a never ending essay about Newcastle so I’m going to end here and probably post another one later on some of the quirks and benefits of living in Newcastle.