Ok, so I really didn’t know a lot about this city before arriving last month. We’d never been to the United Kingdom before and it really wasn’t high on our list since it always seemed like such an easy place to visit (as a U.S. Passport holder) that I figured we’d get to it eventually.
There was really not much on my radar to see here. I wanted to see London Bridge (because of the song) and I wanted to see Big Ben (because I feel like it played a part in my American childhood for some reason) but aside from that I figured we’d just play it by ear.
As I write this, we’re in the middle of week three of a four-week stay in London and I’m convinced that there are an endless number of things to do here. It’s the easiest place to stay of anywhere we’ve been. That’s largely because of two key elements: the amazing public transit and it being an English-speaking place.
Public Transit
The famous double-decker buses are a ubiquitous sight around town. In addition to the above ground buses, there are overground trains and underground trains (the tube). Using the system is dead easy, even for a tourist. You tap in with an RF ID (tap to pay) credit card, or a cellphone with Apple or Android pay and you’re good to go.
Tip: I’m sure that there is an Android equivalent but I’m pretty much all Apple at this point so I’ll speak from an iPhone point of view… the most seamless way to go is to set up a default transit payment card. Go to “Settings” and “Wallet & Apple Pay.” Next scroll down to “Transit Cards” and from there you choose the card you want it to use as your default payment. Once that is done, you won’t have to open the wallet app at all, or even unlock the phone. Just tapping the phone at the entry gate will charge the default card without even unlocking the phone. (If you’ve been to Japan, it works just like Sucia).
One more note about transit. Tap to pay works on all of the systems that we’ve seen. For the bus, you enter from the front doors. That’s the only spot that you can tap. (Unlike Latvia where you can enter any door.) On the trains where you have to tap to enter the station, don’t forget that you also need to tap when you exit the station. There’s no tapping necessary to make connections within the stations but you do want to make sure that you tap on the way out at your final destination. Your fare is calculated based on the length of the total journey, not how many connections. If you don’t tap out, they have no idea how far you went so you are charged a fixed maximum daily price. Don’t quote me, but that might be £8.
Expensive
Everything here is ex-pen-sive. It stings a bit extra as a person who is accustomed to US Dollars because a dollar is worth less than a pound sterling. As of today a dollar is only worth about £0.74. So that £15 cocktail is actually more like $20. That said, tipping isn’t a thing here. Going out to eat is a pleasant experience because what it costs, is what it costs. That takes a bit of the sting out.
Groceries here feel like they are similar in price to things in the US. Stuff like milk, eggs, beer, liquor… it’s generally close enough that I’ve not put a lot of thought into it.
Our basement apartment here is so far our most expensive long-stay Airbnb, but the location has been great. We’re in Camden Town which is an area that used to be hugely important in the London music scene. It’s a little over two miles from central London. Evidence of the punk legacy is still around. Our street feels much more residential, but take a ten minute walk up the canal and it’s usually pretty crowded with tourists.
Multi-national
The city reminds me of New York in a lot of ways because the people you see out and about are from everywhere under the sun. Just walking around you’ll hear dozens of languages being spoken and seemingly representation from every part of the world. I’d say that the UK has a much heavier African population (Middle East and other parts of the African continent) but not as many from South and Central America.
The best thing about having so many nations represented is that there is amazing food from everywhere on earth all over London. Indian is the most heavily represented but there are plenty of other Asian and African nations represented. I’ve seen some Mexican and Latin American places around too but not as frequently as my beloved doner shops … and fish and chips with mushy peas … yes, please.
Dance
I’ve had many of my dance friends say that London’s dance scene is big… and, yeah, it absolutely is. It’s overwhelming. One of the early stumbling blocks that we encountered is figuring out exactly how far away things were. London is sprawled out in every direction. Just because you see a dance that says “London” doesn’t mean that you’re gonna be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time. Some of the neighborhoods that claim “London” are more than an hour away by train. After looking a bit closer we started to get it dialed in and found some events that were closer to where we’re staying.
I kind of wanted to find some opportunities for West Coast Swing but we instead found Mambo (Salsa on 2), Casino (Salsa Cubano) and Tango (Argentinian, of course) which gave us more opportunities to dance than we could possibly fit into our time here.
The scenes are big and strong, and there seem to be multiple groups coordinating dances of the same style, so tons of choice. Since we found Casino and Mambo style salsa, we never even got around to seeking out more typical Salsa (on 1) and Bachata dances.. But those scenes look huge too. I found Zouk, but the times and events never worked out with our desire to dance vs doing other stuff.
Museums
Many of the museums in London are free! Big ones like The British Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum are free of charge. And they are all incredible and massive. We’ve been to the Imperial War museum twice now and have not finished the 1st of 4 floors! (In fairness, we’re slow movers in museums.) I think that it would take years to fully explore just these, and there are plenty more.
Theater culture
Ok, I feel like a complete dope on this one but I had no idea that we were in the theater capital of Europe, if not the world. I mean, I know about New York and Broadway, but I didn’t know about London’s West End. That changed immediately the first time we went into a tube station and saw that wall filled with posters for a currently-running play. We’ve seen three so far and plan to go to another tomorrow. We’ve been using the TodayTix app to try and get our tickets a couple of days out. It’s worked well for everything so far, but it didn’t occur to me to see Hamilton until too late. It’s sold out until after we leave.
Weather
Sunny, dry, and sometimes hot! If people didn’t keep telling me that this weather is weird, I’d have a very different view of London weather than what is more typical. We’ve been here for over three weeks and it has not rained a single drop! The downside of that is that they are in drought and the gardens which I’m told are typically lush and green are dry and brown. They don’t water things here or even have sprinklers because… well, why would you need that in such a typically rainy place! Thankfully the weird heat waves this year haven’t been too bad. Like most places here, our apartment doesn’t have air conditioning. So far it’s only been truly hot (above 90f) one day. Aside from that it’s been quite pleasant. (Though we are in for another scorcher tomorrow).
I assume that we’ll be back to London someday. U.S. citizens can stay here for 6 months and it’s not a part of the E.U.’s Schengen zone, so for slow travelers like us it’s a good place to spend time near mainland Europe while not using all of your allowed Schengen days.
