Expat Chronicles: Things to Love (and Not) About London

The other day, for no good reason, I googled “fun facts about London.” The idea just popped into my head out of nowhere, and like any good puppy dog, I chased it across the yard and into the neighbor’s pristine flower garden, where I dug around madly, ruining the lovely chrysanthemums.

Anyway, I came across a site devoted to this very thing.

Here’s something I bet most people don’t know, but I kinda did (sorta), being a learned man-about-town: The smallest city in England is…London.

Don’t believe me? Bet you a dollar!

Per the aforementioned website:

The official “City of London” is actually about 1.2 square miles in size, otherwise known as the “Square Mile,” and it has a population of roughly 7,500 people. On the contrary hand (contrary hand?), Greater London is a 606-square-mile area of England that is home to around 8.7 million people.

Greater London is a megalopolis of different boroughs and incorporated cities, but the technical “City of London” is just a space in the middle of all these other places. I didn’t know this until one day a few years ago when we wandered into the City of London on a long weekend stroll. It’s actually not much more than a little banking/financial district with very few spots to hang out and relax. This being the weekend, hardly anything was open. Yawn….

Here are some other fun facts, per the website:

• London is considered a forest because there are almost as many trees in London as there are people. I can attest to this. London has trees aplenty.
• More than 300 languages are spoken in London – and none of them will get you a refill on your water in a restaurant.
• Flying a kite is illegal. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 states that it is illegal to fly a kite in parks, other public areas, or in a way that annoys other people. And if you ever fly a kite in violation of the law, you risk receiving a fine of up to £500. This explains why I have never seen a kite in London.
• About a thousand bodies are buried beneath Aldgate Station, which was built over a Bubonic Plague mass grave that was uncovered by construction workers in the 1860s. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to the Aldgate Station. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go.

*****

As we prepare to depart London after 5.5 years and return to the United States, I figured it’s a good time to devote a blog to this fine old city. There are some things about London that I will never understand, some things that will always annoy me, and some things that send me into a blind rage (the endless construction projects, the laissez-faire attitude toward service, the dog crap on the sidewalk, the dipshits who shoot off fireworks after midnight…).

But all in all, this has been a top-shelf experience, and London is a grand place. The city has seeped into my soul and will reside there forever and anon. I’ll blog about my deeper feelings about London in a couple of weeks, right before we leave. For now, I just want to share some of the things I love about London – and you might, too, should you ever decide to visit or live here.

Green Spaces

We’ve traveled to a lot of very big cities as a family, and in my experience, none can hold a candle to London when it comes to the number of parks and green spaces. We personally live within walking distance of one very big park and one smaller one. This is a blessing when you have young kids (or even if you don’t).

Asian Food

I’ve never been to Asia (maybe someday), so the only experience I have with Asian food is in non-Asian countries. I will only compare London to places I’ve lived – mainly New York City and Los Angeles, both of which have large Asian populations and many Asian restaurants. I give London a fairly big edge over them when it comes to Asian cuisines like Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Middle Eastern. That’s the only edge it has, food-wise. But it’s an important one.

Diverse Neighborhoods

We live in Bermondsey, in the borough of Southwark, in the southeastern part of London, right by the Thames. Our neighborhood has multi-million-dollar homes and inexpensive, rent-controlled council flats – all on the same block. We have wealthy lawyers and doctors as neighbors, as well as working-class postal employees, cashiers, and cabdrivers (I’ve met all of them). Our kids can walk to schools with a rainbow coalition of students from all over the world – literally, every continent except Antarctica. Everyone lives and works and shops side by side. You just don’t find this kind of thing in most places.

Canary Wharf

This is the banking district that has pretty much supplanted the City of London as the financial center. It’s a sleek, modern, very unLondon part of town with breathing room that many Londoners look down on. As I’ve written before, Canary Wharf is a nice change-of-pace from the rest of the city simply because it doesn’t look or feel like the rest of the city.

Tower Bridge & Surroundings

The perfect antidote to Canary Wharf (and vice versa). The Tower Bridge/London Bridge area is very London – filled with old buildings, busy streets, ancient pubs, quirky bookstores, open-air markets, museums and galleries, and every kind of restaurant under the sun. It’s also a tourist destination because the one place in London you want to have your photo taken is in front of the Tower Bridge. The madding throngs are part of the charm. Bonus: It’s walking distance to our home.

Schools

We were lucky enough to find a London home within walking distance of excellent schools. This might be the thing we will miss most, as parents. Not only do our kids get a great education free of charge, but you don’t have to worry about school shootings like back in the US of A. We will be moving to a comparatively safe, anti-gun, pro-civilization enclave back in the States, with excellent schools. Hopefully the experience will repeat itself over there.

Jazz Clubs

There are few things I love more than going to see live music in a cozy jazz club, and London has numerous options. Before I injured my knee I saw at least a couple shows a month. The clubs I frequent the most are Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, the Pizza Expresss Jazz Club in Soho, and the Temple of Art and Music (TAM) in Canary Wharf. Personally, this is probably what I will miss most about London.

Bookstores

I’m going to make a guess here: No country has more excellent bookstores per capita than the UK, and London is probably the best big city for bookstores I’ve ever been in or ever will be in. Yes, there are chains (Waterstones, Foyles – both terrific). But there are also dozens of independent bookstores covering every kind of genre you can imagine, from first-edition collectibles to comics. If you are a big reader, this city is your dream come true.

Access to Europe and Elsewhere

As a native of the United States, I’m used to being isolated from the rest of the world. The USA is bordered by two mighty oceans to the east and west, Canada to the north, and Mexico to the south. There are some lovely Caribbean islands not far away. That’s it. In London, we are a short train or plane hop away from dozens of European countries, not to mention north Africa. And it’s not like all these places are the same – they each have distinct cultures, languages, cuisines, people, and customs. It blows my American mind that you can be somewhere totally different in a matter of a couple of hours.

History

It’s not uncommon to find yourself walking along one of London’s bustling streets and pass a plaque on a building that says, “Karl Marx lived here,” or “Sigmund Freud lived here,” or “Charles Dickens drank here.” Not far from our home is the Tower of London, which dates to 1066, during the Norman Conquest. We’re also near the modern version of the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, a near-exact replica of the original, which was located only about 700 feet away. Not far in the other direction is the Mayflower pub, a restored 16^th century public house located where the legendary Mayflower sailing ship was moored. That ship crossed the Atlantic in 1620 and gave Englanders their first glimpse of America.

*****

In the interest of fair play, here are three things I do not love at all about London….

• Riding the Tube: I’m not sure anyone anywhere actually LIKES crawling into a subway, and in many ways London’s subway/tube service is little different than anywhere else. But God, how I hate it. Service is continually disrupted due to maintenance/repairs or transit strikes, which usually means you are packed ass-to-ass and nose-to-nose with total strangers. I’m convinced this is the least enjoyable experience in the world.
• Tennis TV coverage: The modern version of tennis was invented in England, and London is home to the world’s most prestigious tournament (Wimbledon). You’d think this would be a great place for a tennis fan. But nah. It has the worst TV tennis coverage I’ve ever seen, anywhere. There are about 100 men’s and women’s pro tournaments at the top level every year, and you can see maybe seven of them on TV in London. When the BBC televises tennis, it’s simply godawful. They’ll literally cut a match off in the middle to switch to other programming. They’ll spend 45 minutes talking about an upcoming match while a dozen other actual matches are being played that very moment. One of the “top” tennis announcers here, the insufferable Andrew Castle, is a monumentally annoying twit in love with the sound of his own voice.
• Drivers: When they aren’t racing about at high speeds – even on residential streets with lots of kids, pets, and older folks – they stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, and sit there until they work out whatever the f**k they need to work out in their heads. Then they press the gas and blast off, then stop, then go, then stop, then….

The latter three are mere quibbles that can be easily dealt with by A) avoiding the tube at all costs; B) getting a subscription to Tennis TV for most tournaments and turning the sound down on those they show on TV in London; and C) brainlessly cursing every brainless driver, while shaking your fist like a grumpy old man.

On balance, there’s a lot more to love about London than the other way around. We’ll miss it here, even as we look forward to the next adventure.

Note: The headline photo was taken by Susan, and how cool is that? The others I took.