15 COSE DEL VIVERE A LONDRA CHE POTRESTI NON SAPERE

15 Things about living in London that you might not know, but might come handy if you are planning to move to this amazing city! So, go through all of them and get a glimpse of what you might end up doing yourself in the near future as a Londoner!

1.COFFEE PRICE

Forget about cheap prices for Coffee and get used to the idea that you rarely will find a good coffee for less than £2.20 – Average is actually £2.60. Yes, lots of profit there my friend!

2.COMMUTING TIME

Unless you are lucky enough to live walking distance from your workplace, or just a short bus ride, be sure your commuting time will be no less than 45 mins. If you are lucky. The average is actually 1h and 15 mins, and you might end living far from work, hence you need to commute for over 1 hour.

3.COUNCIL TAX FEE

If renting a whole flat always consider Council Tax on top of your Rent. It does make a big difference. Council tax fee varies per borough and can increase your bills. Students do not pay Council Tax, but everyone else does. The tax bill can be £30 or even £180 per month, so remember to include this bill when searching for a flat.

4.RENT PRICE
A lot of your money will just go towards your rent. Both if you rent a room or a whole flat, just accept the fact that you can say goodbye to a lot of your salary due to the cost of renting in London.

5.LONDON AS A TOURIST

You might have time to see London most touristic spots at the beginning of your stay in London, but after settling in… you won’t even bother too much anymore, and if you do you will have little time left anyway. You will notice soon how your visiting friends will see a lot more places that you have, and you live in London! You won’t either be interested or won’t have the time.

6.FAST WALKING
You can nearly use this skill on your CV. Fast walking is a skill in London, one you need. If you are visiting London you should be nice and polite and let Londoners walk fast and pass by, we are always in a hurry and you will be too once you have settled in. You might also start to dislike tourists, it sounds bad but it’s true.

7.SPAM PHONE CALLS & SMS

Be ready for a series of SCAM/SPAM phone calls and Messages. The most popular one is the phone call about your car accident. You will be asked about the car accident you have had, and of course, you will be like “what?”. Yes, its scam. Hang up. Make sure every text message you receive is genuine, and it comes from the official number. Do not click on any link unless you are sure it is a legit one. Do not reply to text messages, this will place your number in a call center list and it will get even worse.

8.QUEUE 

You will soon learn that you have to queue. It is a must. If you don’t, you will be considered rude. It is a very British thing, and we do believe it is a rather polite thing to do. So be nice and learn to queue at bus stops too.

9.TV LICENCE LETTER NIGHTMARE

First of all: yes you do have to pay TV Licence. So please do so, it is expensive but you can pay monthly too. However, even if you do pay for it, you might still receive very threatening letters which say you are not paying and you will be sued, or that an inspector will come around and check your Licence. If you are paying (please do) ignore the letters. If are not paying, start doing it.

10.BUS VS TUBE

You will get into the habit of getting the bus any time you can instead of the tube. You will soon understand that it is more practical and that in many cases you save a lot of time too. Plus, it’s cheaper. For more info on how to use transportation in London, read my article about Citymapper, the most used transport app in London. You will be surprised by how cool it is and we Londoners can’t live without it.

11.RUSH HOUR

Not every time you will be given the chance to avoid rush hour because maybe that’s exactly when you need to commute. But if you can…please do and this is another thing you will soon learn: no rush hour thank you very much.

12. NO DATA? YOU MIGHT GO MAD

We Londoners could go nuts without data. And after a while, you will get this too. The list of things you will soon learn to do by using mobile phone apps is endless, so no data means being stuck.

13. FOXES

You will get used to seeing them in Central London too. You will get used to having one in your garden. You will get used to thinking that it is a normal thing to have foxes in a big city. Well, in London it is normal.

14.THE WORLD IS HERE 

We all know already that London is a big city with people from all over the world. So you will be able to hear different languages, but also different English accents. You will soon learn a different English accent from different boroughs! You might end up getting an accent yourself depending on the area in London you live in.

15.PLAN IN ADVANCE

It might sound like a sad thing to say, and probably it is, but unfortunately, you will soon notice that you are too busy for last-minute appointments, even for a quick drink with a friend. You will end up planning meetups weeks in advance and jotting them down on your Google Calendar. Plus, unless you have very cool colleagues you want to hang out with, it is not super easy to make friends in London. That’s why some times use apps such as Meetup or Internations. They organize any kind of event, any kind of dinner, any kind of drink night etc – to give you the change to go out and mingle. Try it out, give them a chance!

 

Hopefully you did find this article interesting, please leave me a comment! Dont forget I have a Youtube channel where I Publish videos about London every week! Dont forget to subscribe to my channel 🙂