London Wrap-up

Now, as I've mentioned, this site has been pretty much a love letter to London (and England in general) since day one. Lately I have corrected this, as I'd like anyone interested in visiting or moving there to get a more well rounded picture.

But just for the sake of a kind of proper closure or to balance the summation or to appease the curiously Churchillian markings in the frost on my window...a quick parade of positive points.

Boredom is bore-derline fictional
See what I did there?

Seriously, even if you are low on cash you basically have to be terminally stupid and/or lazy not to be able to find something to do in London. I couldn't even do a brief summary of all there is to do by way of music venues, museums, restaurants, pubs, nightclubs, galleries, theaters, cinemas, shops, libraries, parks, markets, novelty locations...let me put it another way. If you are a Person with Interests and A Little Initiative, then you shall find somewhere in London that Caters To You. Time Out magazine is basically the bible of things to do in the city, but obviously there are other sources of information on the matter - many, many sources. Given that this sort of thing was the real meat and potatoes for this site, I'll stop here. Throw a dart at the archives and you're bound to hit an entry filled with my rabbling on about one fun place to go to or another.

Transit
Like anywhere on Earth, longtime locals will groan about the public transit system whenever they get the chance. I'd be lying if I said I never had my own frustrations with the famous London tube system or that I hadn't experienced the joy of having myself compacted into the side of a train car during rush hour. That being said, getting around London was easier and quicker than anything I have experienced anywhere else I've ever been. The slowest late periods and Sundays still managed to blow the finest Ottawa bus service out of the water - and in this I refer not only to the tube but the overland rail and London's own bus services. Like a lot of things in the city, it's expensive...but a clever individual can really get a lot for their money.

I will say this, if you have the extra time and patience then the bus system can actually be much better for your wallet (generally running at half the price) and your peace of mind than the tube. When I worked in Barbican for a stretch in August, it only added ten minutes to my route to take the bus and I often got half the double decker to myself (plus the childish good fun of a double decker bus ride). The bus is also advantageous in that you better learn the space between neighborhoods and see London as a whole, instead of disconnected dots of radius surrounding tube stations. Overland rail, which is much more prominent south of the Thames than tube lines, also carries this advantage.

By and by, whether you go for a day or a year, do not waste precious currency on any map guides to London unless they are the London A-Z. This is widely accepted as the finest guide to finding your way about the city and it is sold in damn near every book, stationary and even corner store in the city. There are a variety of sizes and formats, but a standard paperback sized version will do you plenty fine. A cousin of mine who has lived in the city all his life, working in various locations, still gets some use out of his copy thanks to the density of London neighborhoods.

I said it before and I'll say it again, Google Maps does not have your back in this city. Only a month ago it got me lost down some dark alleys about half a kilometer off-target from where I was trying to get to, despite punching in the correct address. To be fair, I shouldn't have placed so much trust in the green arrows location, but to be vanity fair the damn thing should be accurate - particularly when you consider that Google Maps is powered by the imprisoned souls of Christopher Columbus, James Cook and Marco Polo.

Anyways - at the end of the day, Londoners have an understandable love affair with the tube system which walks hand in hand with the daily grumbling. This has led to some rather amusing and detailed websites which you may enjoy checking out. Serious fans of the film Amelie could get a bonus kick out of this one.

Employment
If you are just looking for a steady paycheck, as opposed to gunning for a specific career path, than this is in fact a good city to be in. Recruitment agencies grow like weeds and though they can be a waste of time, I can honestly say I got all but one of my jobs over there through the durn things. Skilled workers (i.e. anybody who can put around in Microsoft Office Suite) who want to do a kind of working vacation in London shouldn't have a big problem once they get past the initial obstacles posed by immigration.

Football
Plenty of stadiums and enthusiastic pubs in which to catch a game. I myself lived not too far from Arsenal stadium. Even without being a rabid sports fan, I found myself getting a little sucked in. If you want to work your way in with the locals, you could do a lot worse than to follow football and learn enough to join conversations on the subject - just be careful who you swear allegiance and to keep an eye on what team any given group of pub dwellers may be supporting. The infamous football fan violence-o-rama phenomena isn't as bad as it's made out to be, but folk can still get more worked up about it than politics and religion combined.

and finally...

The one line hit parade
- Old and varied architecture, lots of it!
- The relatively new smoking ban.
- Hell of bike lanes/paths.
- Waitrose supermarkets.
- Wide availability and variety of alcoholic beverages.
- A cacophony of ever changing and specific-yet-vague slang. My personal favorites would have to include lairy, chav and shrapnel (definition C). Though not slang per se, the term gormless will always have a special place in my lexicon.

And finally, finally (for real) finally...

London is a place where you can count on more before less, louder before quieter, faster before slower and so forth. There are many, many aspects of the city that I would define as being neither better nor worse but simply more intense than anywhere else. This is something which drew me from the comparatively quiet hamlet of Ottawa, but I can honestly say that after thirteen months there I am happy to be in Carp again - which I shall put up a couple of updates about, if only to show that it has it's charm and places of interest. From there we shall see!

Mid to late Janurary is looking to be a more realistic time for my moving to Toronto. I reckon that I should maybe try learning from past experience? Specifically, I think that if I had found the patience to save a little more money and weigh the pros and cons of who to stay with while I sorted out the job/apartment equation in London...well, it might have taken me a lot less time to get settled in and I wouldn't have felt like my situation was as precarious as it did on some days. So I reckon I may grab a short term job doing whatever, so that I can pad my bank account a bit more before heading down.

Anyways!

I doubt this will be the last time I write about England just as I do the notion that I shall never return there. A friend I made is moving to Berlin in the new year and, depending on What Happens, I may fly over to visit her - and Berlin and maybe Paris as well.

I promise, this is not the end of this here bloog.

BLOOG.