What she found the most difficult was the lack of knowledge on available resources in the UK. “Nobody was able to like, sit me down and have a conclusive conversation about this is how the NHS works, and this is how you access the healthcare services that you would normally use back home,” says Marianna who had to figure it all out on her own.

In Canada, most accessible bathrooms are always unlocked. But in the UK, many disabled bathrooms follow the radar key scheme – something which Marianna was not aware of.

You can book an accessible bus in Toronto which she would use often. But since moving to England, she has struggled with public transport accessibility. “One of the biggest struggles I dealt with was a lot of bus drivers asking me how badly I needed the ramp on a scale of one to ten as they manually have to put it out. But if I'm asking you, I'm fairly certain that I need it. I wouldn’t ask for it otherwise,” she says.

She also had to learn how to do different things that she never had to do. Throwing out rubbish was different – there aren’t trash chutes in UK student accommodation. Unlocking doors was different as she was used to a pin pad or biometric lock.

“I just found the process of dealing with accessibility issues or outages different and challenging at first. Now that I understand how it works, I'm better at advocating for my needs,” says Marianna, who is much more settled now.

Not only has she faced issues with accessibility, but she has also struggled with making friends. Some of her friends in Canada she’s had since the age of 14. They were never bothered by her physical disability. This wasn’t the same experience she had here.