I love cities – always have and always will. There is always something breathtaking about the noises, the lack of space, diversity of people and activities that make the home of millions feel the exactly the same yet so foreign. Stalling a year in New York, I embarked on an adventure to London to gain an outside perspective, to travel, to test my independence, change a career path and most of all – grow up. Through a series of fortuitous events, I left for a year long adventure to the Old World. Many thoughts ran through my head. Would my adventure in London be a freefall from what I was experiencing in New York? Would the other Mountbattens like me? Would my colleagues at UBS appreciate my media-only background? How would I adjust to non 24-hour subways? Ahem, the tube.
I landed into London with a sense of excitement, a bit of worry but most of all jet lag. My wisdom of London was based on two week-long trips to the city, work experience in New York City for two years and an English boyfriend. I was a bit scared of becoming too all-knowing of London with the resources I had at hand. I knew coming in to try to not make comparisons, to take London for what it is - a diverse city of millions with infamously bad weather, double-decker buses and cooler accents than I would ever own. I knew there would be rude, hurried people, obscene amounts of wealth, many different types of cuisine, nightlife, persons and old buildings right next to new. Not much to my surprise, I felt that the atmosphere here is the same back home. I quickly settled onto the enclaves of Shoreditch and Soho. I found my favorite café in Flat White and my local pub at The Eagle. My food cart on 53rd and 6th became the carts of Whitecross Street Market. Primark became my Forever 21.
I immersed myself into determining my right locations for bars, restaurants and other potential London hot spots. Using my resourcefulness, I soon realized that being a Londoner was similar to being a New Yorker. Unfortunately, I did not find my New York Magazine for London. I tried to research the The Times as well as the Guardian. No luck. I was told, “Felicia, they’re not the New York Times, New York Magazine. These are national papers. The London-based focus is going to be harder to find than you would get back in New York.” While this person was correct in an aspect, there were good guides and websites to be found. I found urbanjunkies.com, londonist.com and le cool London. Nevertheless, we need a magazine of living in London.
While my personal adjustment to living in London was not much of a surprise, there was an adjustment in the professional sector. My previous work experience consisted of assistant work in a newsroom of a national radio news channel. The casualness and frantic nature of the place would be completely different to what I would experience working at UBS. Hello to defending one of the largest financial firms in the world. Goodbye exposing downturns of said company. Hello smart dress. Goodbye Chucks, t-shirts, undone hair and face. Hello hierarchy, team meetings and blocked websites. Goodbye YouTube and Perez Hilton.
The work life I have at UBS has been an interesting one. My daily 20-minute walk to the ‘Square Mile’ consists of passing by markets, too many Prets and EATs for my liking and well-dressed men with popped jacket collars. During lunch, I am mostly perplexed at the amount of sandwiches that one country can come up with. I’m slowly realizing that the £3.49 lunch combo at Boots is the best deal around. The food isn’t half bad either. Perhaps I should come up with a survey about good City eats and publish them for a London newspaper. Alas, I have so many things to explore and enjoy in this city of 8 million.
Overall, I have enjoyed my adjustment period to London town. Although I’ve been hindered by the supposed ‘Fresher’s flu’, I still love cities – always have and always will.
