London is the capital of Great Britain
London. I am 100% sure that you have heard about this city. Starting from early childhood, 6 six years old, you were told about it as about kind of another reality. English lessons all the time tried to make this feeling that the United Kingdom is mystery place. That is why your expectations for this city are so high. What makes you even more detached from this place? Visa. You need to be privileged one to visit city of the Queen. All these create the image of London as idealistic, fairy and reachable place where live only once whom I cannot be.
From the time you went on your first English lesson you remember this “London is the capital of Great Britain”. Then when you are handing your tickets with the destination “London”, you cannot believe your eyes. Because even your English teacher not surely has been there.
The expectations are very high for this city. I will say you feel disappointment when you get there. Because it is not a mystery or magic place but usual city. To say that there is nothing to see there would be bad of me. I would say there are too much to see. The result: you are overwhelmed, spoiled and cannot see anything exciting or do not want to do this. All the time you feel that you expected more. Let me give you few examples. Trafalgar Square is the main square in the city, the heart, but really not impressive at all. The house of Parliament and Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) is probably the face of London, well … not so high, not so big. Red phone houses – the dirtiest place in London. But it does not mean anything. Actually the architecture is impressive. Tower Bridge or Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus and many other places will remain in my memory till the end of the days.
Feelings. First, I got to the city, I started to hate it: too many people, too many traffic, too big, too overwhelmed. Too fast getting dark and too expensive public transport. The most suitable words for this city – too much. I even did not realize what was going on but complaining to myself how I hate the city I wanted always to come. Hopefully, I was lucky to meet some people from Germany we had a talk and I realized that I was not alone: they felt the same.
As I was leaving at friend’s place (he is a student at UCL) I was able to meet some students from this university and basically feel a little bit the atmosphere at the place. For a person who studies at the university with total number of students about 450 persons, I was quite lost in backyard when about 1’500 students got out of their rooms. I have visited some premises and concluded: “it looks like you expect to see it”. If to talk about dormitories, all students live separately (one person in a room), I have found it quite interesting because of the reason behind it (students should have their private space to be able to work productively).
Sometimes my mind occupied the question: how could they survive with such a high level of prices? But the question appeared even faster than I expected. They care a lot about everything they consume. Example, for most of Eastern Europeans it is okay to just open the tap and brush the teeth while the water is flowing. Well, if you are in the UK, you will not do it anymore. Most of apartments still have separate taps for cold and hot water, so you close the sink, open both, fill the sink with water for a little and that is it. You use this water for all your washing procedures. Another example – electricity. Each socket has a switcher. If you do not use the socket, you should switch it off. Because otherwise you consume some amount (frankly speaking insignificant) of electricity in vain. And the last but most disturbing – heating. Everywhere is extremely cold. I was waking up 3-4 times at night because I just got cold. The normal temperature in the house is about +18 degrees Celsius. I was not ready for such conditions. But they got used to it.
If you are reading this sentence, then you think that London is absolutely the worst experience for me. But it is not true. Let me explain. London is the city which hit you few times and then is waiting for your reaction. Everything changed in the morning. I woke up with the strong feeling that I love this city. It forces you think a lot about number of things, if you succeed then you will love London, no then not.
London is savage city. City for the richest, for the most successful. If you are not, then step aside and do not stay on the way. If you are extremely rich, you will easily find the place where to spend all your money. If you are not as rich, then enjoy watching the shops windows.
The traffic in the city is enormously fast. Everyone is rushing somewhere. You do not choose your speed, the stream does it for you. Nobody cares about traffic lights, people just run all the time. I think from the sky it looks like a lot of ants moving randomly. The only word I can say about it – chaos.
The last moment to cover in this post, when you arrive to London you expect to hear everywhere English. Well, you will be disappointed. All most everywhere, except the City (business district), you will hear every language but English. Quite disappointing, but you know, here we are.
Well, it will be quite difficult to conclude such a disorganized flow of thoughts. I was surprised how my expectations about the city and real observations went in different directions. I was surprised by many strange things which are normal for its citizens. I was disappointed by range of things. But overall, I am so happy about visiting it. I absolutely fell in love with it, but only as a tourist. I will be excited to come here again. But I am not ready to live in London. I am not ready for such a traffic. I am not ready for such way of life.
That was my London: my thoughts, feelings and expectations. P.S. before I went to the station to take my bus to the Stansted Airport, I visited for the last time House of Parliament and listened to Big Ben ringing. It was raining, dark, lots of people running somewhere, but I was just standing for 15 or 20 minutes at one place. I was observing the city and let it go through myself. I felt calm, enjoyment and sadness because I had to leave…