It is a rich city and it feels like it. It is not uncommon to see Ferraris, Rolls Royces and G-Wagons when casually driving down the street. Middle income neighbourhoods are littered with Porsches, Teslas and Mercedes Benz(es?). An Algerian Uber driver I spoke to told me cars are not that expensive there as compared to those in other parts of the world. There is also a general feeling of “the person you’re standing next to might be very important”. This is partly a function of it being all of the following: touristy, finance hub, tech hub, government administration centre, etc. Or maybe this is just a big city thing and I was out of the loop.
London is insanely expensive. I don’t drink coffee but I saw my sister routinely buy a cup of it from corner shop cafes for like £6-£10; which I found ridiculous for a medium sized drink you can finish in 15 mins. Ubers cost an arm and a leg, even for short distances.
I learnt the hard way that Airbnbs can be very unreliable; and that I should always be weary of dual-party marketplaces. This is especially true for people shopping for mid-range rentals. The experience is always different, but prepare for the worst because (sh)it (sometimes) happens.
London is very, very trendy! Everyone here looks, quite literally, like a million dollars.
Cars, are on average, bigger than those in Scotland, but the roads are just as narrow with the exception of the major highways.
Biking is extremely popular. It is not uncommon to see bike traffic alongside car traffic, which reminds me… London traffic should not be underestimated! It is far, far worse than you think.
Like any big city, people in London are (and look) very busy. Some people seem to just be relaxing but I suspect that’s mostly the tourists. True Londoners are hustling and it shows.
There is a higher-than-average usage of rent-a-bikes like Limes, Forest etc.
Big cities are just figuring it out, and there are lot of imperfections. But they have figured a lot out, and that shouldn’t be under-appreciated. For example, the tube is very, very good: its reliable, fast, safe, and has great geographical reach. You can’t say the same for most big cities.
People in London are very fit! You’ll find scores of people in running gear in parks on Saturday morning just running. Granted, I was there in the height of summer so it’s possible this is just a summer thing but it felt like 100 different run clubs were going on in downtown London that morning. The crowd is very millennial stretching into GenZ.
It’s insane how similar the radio sounds practically everywhere; especially the music stations. Nearly all the cities I’ve travelled to have a station called HOT 97 or KISS 100 or a permutation of that. And they all use the same ad-libs, sound effects, you name it.
London is, according to Londoners, pretty unsafe, and I’ll admit I was a little scared on my first day there. My sister lived close to London for some time and advised us on where to/not to live safety-wise; and there was a lot of places that were on the “do not book” side. Uber drivers say the closer to the city centre, the better. We lived a bit of a distance away from downtown and found it alright.
More on my point about it being easier to socialize in bigger cities: I suspect that this may be partly come from the fact that there are a lot of outsiders who moved there for work/school (and are thus away from their families/friends) so they are equally lonely and are thus more open to talking to strangers and making new friends. This is in comparison to smaller cities that may be more insular. Again, I might be wrong.
