How To Survive In London

Great, the only picture I have of

me at work is eating a burrito..

Firstly, apologies for the length of time since my last post. March was so busy for me with family birthdays, a trip to Amsterdam (I've got a post to follow about this trip), loads of extra work etc. etc. This post has been in the planning stages for quite some time so hopefully you all will like it.

I've been living in London for five and a half months now (can you believe it?) and I think I am finally starting to get the hang of it. It sounds like a really long time to get used to living somewhere but for someone who has lived in the countryside for 21 years of her life, London is quite a big change!

So I thought I would create a 'How To Guide' for living in London. I used the word 'survive' because sometimes it can feel like a real jungle.

Food comes second

Although there are loads of amazing places to eat in London, there aren't many cheap ones. My work backs onto Leather Lane which hosts the most eclectic mix of food stalls and shops. There's falafel shacks, burritos shops, special cheese toasties stalls, juice carts, massive salad stops, pretty much everything you could want to eat. But I rarely let myself 'eat from the street' because in London, everything is on a budget!

Most offices these days have a communal kitchen (I'm yet to find anyone who doesn't have one) with a kettle and a microwave. If you're clever you can easily save £30 a week by bringing in your own food, whether it's leftovers, a can of soup or a home-made ham sandwich. It might not be that exciting but it saves you money to spend on all the other tempting things to do in London.

The nightmare that is the tube at rush hour 

The tube is one thing that you really cannot prepare yourself for. Even if you catch a jam-packed bus every now and then, it's nothing like catching the tube at rush hour everyday. In my first month or so I used to work an extra hour each day just to avoid it.

You'll soon learn that there is absolutely no such thing as personal space on the tube. In fact I could tell you quite a few stories about my escapades on the tube but I might save that for another post (let me know if you're interested).

Never fear though, there are a couple of tips which can make catching the tube not that bad:

Firstly, make sure you take your coat off, and your backpack (tube etiquette for you there), before you get on because it is always super hot and you don't want to turn up to work sweating like you've just run all the way there.

Try to learn which side the doors open. If you're going to be on for a couple of stops, you want to be on the opposite side to where the doors open because there's always more space that side. The most space is down the aisles between the seats but then you have to hold on and if you're short like me, that's not ideal.

The amazing Frozen Oyster wallet I was
 given for Christmas (best present ever!)

Remember where the exist are on the platforms. This can take a while, but if it's your daily commute it's worth it. Getting into the carriage the right distance along can save quite a bit of time if you're in a rush to get to work. Platforms in central London are quite busy at rush hour.

Keep your oyster card/contactless debit card in one of those wallets. Everyone hates the guy who gets to the front of the queue then holds everyone up while they mess about looking for their card. If you're going to use it every day you want to keep it safe anyway.

Pace yourself - seriously!

Going out for drinks in London is entirely different to student drinking or a pint in the local pub. For a start, it's at least double the cost. Like food, it's hard to find an alcoholic drink that costs less than £5. Even soft drinks are expensive.

Cocktails, cocktails and more cocktails.. Seems to be all everyone
wants to drink in London! 

Money's not the only reason you should pace yourself though. Heading straight from work to the bar can be a  dangerously long session. Even if you finish late on Friday at 6:30pm, if you're planning to go on to a club that's a solid 5.5 hours drinking! Probably longer than you had in mind at the start of the night..

It's important also if you're heading straight from work to grab something to eat first. You'll most likely be heading home on your own at the end of the night unless you've made other plans or stay at a friends, so you need to be capable of looking after yourself.

Take everything free you can get your hands on

Piccadilly Circus shot by me on my first week in London.

Granted there are a lot of different expenses to consider in London but there's also a lot of free things as well. Perhaps the best thing about catching the tube is the amount of free weekly literature you get offered - from the Metro every morning and the Evening Standard to Time Out magazine, InStyle and Sport.

There are also loads of free events and things to do, such as sightseeing. Just because you live in London doesn't mean you can't act like a tourist as well. A trip to see the Houses of Parliament, The London Eye or Trafalgar Square can be just as interesting as paying a hefty amount to see the crown jewels in the Tower of London. So do some research (probably by reading Time Out magazine or looking on their website) and find something free to do instead.

An antidote to feeling like a small fish in a HUGE pond

It's quite easy to feel insignificant in a big city like London, especially if you come from a small town like me. There are so many people buzzing around you with their own problems, priorities and interests. You can catch the same tube at the same times everyday and never see the same people. That's just how it is. But there are actually quite a few positives to this. If you do something stupid (normally getting on or off the tube) it really doesn't matter because you'll never see those people again anyway. If you want to lip-sync to your favourite Jessie J song on the tube who cares. There is so much diversity in London that it gives you have the freedom to do whatever you want, wear whatever you and act however you want (within reason). So although at first it's a little intimidating, London's actually quite empowering!

Hopefully I've covered a lot of the main issues you might face living in London. Most of all, make sure you enjoy it because otherwise you might as well live somewhere that's cheaper with fresher air!

My First 5 Weeks in London

These last 5 weeks have been completely crazy for me. It would be fair to compare them to university Freshers' in their diversity and the number of new experiences I've had. However, they've definitely not been as fun as Freshers'. I think I had quite an idealistic vision of living in London, some sort of British cross between Carrie Bradshaw's life and Rebecca Bloomwood's (from Confessions of a Shopaholic). It's definitely not been how I imagined it. At the start, going a day without getting lost was a massive achievement!

5 weeks ago (41 days to be exact), I left my family home in the quiet town of Stroud with nothing more than a very small suitcase, a handbag and a backpack full of noodles, and caught a one-way train to London. All I had planned ahead of me was a job I hadn't started and the promise of a place to stay with a couple of good friends from university. Ideally I would have liked to have found somewhere to live before moving but with such short notice from my future employer this was not an option.

(Me and Deannah at a
university hockey social)

For my first week and a half in London I stay with a friend from my old university hockey club. I'm so grateful for her letting me stay. I have no clue what I would have done otherwise - probably ended up in a massively over-priced hotel somewhere.

From the moment I found out I could finally move to London (I've been wanting to live here for a couple of years at least) I started trying to find some sort of accommodation. My friends and family suggested looking on www.spareroom.co.uk, which for anyone who's not been on there is an online advertising space for rooms.

The way it works is you browse through all the ads and email the advertiser to try to arrange a viewing. But one key detail I didn't know was that as a basic member (non-paying) you cannot contact any advertiser whose ad is less than 7 days old. After speaking to a friend who'd recently used the website to fill her old room I found out that most rooms went in the first 7 days. So at the earliest opportunity I paid for 2 weeks membership (£14.99 for a 2 week deal) hoping that would be all I needed.

From that point I was organising as many viewings as I could, travelling all over London hoping to find anywhere nice. What I did know was that the whole thing would suddenly turned into a popularity contest. It was like there was a whole new job to apply for, 'full-time flatmate'. I even had a second-round meeting/interview (how ridiculous!) which turned out to be a complete waste of time because at the last minute they offered the room to a friend anyway.

It was getting to the last couple of days of my 'early bird' membership and I still hadn't found anywhere to stay and if I'm quite honest, I was starting to get quite worried that I might never find anywhere. I organised 4 viewings for the last Saturday before my membership ended and just hoped that one of them would be The One.

I'm happy to say that viewing number 4 is where I am now living! The house is really nice, only 5 minutes walk from the tube station, 30 minutes commute to work (which is really good for London) and the people already living here are really nice. I've only really met one of them properly so far but I couldn't really be happier with this house.

So after 5 weeks of a sleeping bag, a sofa and at times even the floor I now have a bed! I've even brought my electric blanket from home so I'm feeling quite luxury.

I'd like to say a massive thank you to my brother and his girlfriend Sarah who let me stay with them for 4 weeks after having only moved into their new flat themselves. Without their generosity I'm not sure I would have stuck it out long enough to find somewhere to live. I definitely didn't realise how stressful not having your own bed would be!

I'm now getting used to working like a normal Londoner, sweating on the tube at rush hour and eating street food for lunch.

I hope this post hasn't been too boring just reading all about my life. Maybe my mistakes might just help you if you move to London or you can laugh along if you made the same ones as me!


My next post in a couple of weeks will be about the first two months of my new job and the truths of full-time employment!