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Any non-Londoners living in London? (LDN-centric)
If so, how did you feel about the place when you first moved here? I've been here 4 months now after moving from Leicester (although from Leeds originally) and I'm only just warming to the place. Anyone else hate it here at first? If so, why? It's something I've never been able to put my finger on...
I live near Brixton
But I would have found Brixton terrifying if I had just moved to London from Wales straight away. Maybe it's the location that's depressing you. Have you made friends?
God, I'm near Brixton too.
Charming area, in it's own special way... It was lucky for me that I moved down with 2 friends, and then 3 other friends all moved down not long after. So almost all of my core group of friends in Leicester are here. And yeah, I've met some lovely people since I moved. I have a great set of friends, which has made it all a lot easier for me. We've had bloody rotten luck since moving though. I struggled to adapt to the place, we got robbed, just come out of a kinda long-term relationship. But I have a job now, which is making me a lot happier. Now to get over this break-up... I'll be moving soon. Unsure where though. If I stay in London, I want to be North as that is where my friends are. I'm toying with returning to Leicester, but I'll more than likely stay. I am starting to like it here, as i said... :D:D:D
i think you should give it a chance
Don't move back to Leicester!! You moved to London to progress, not to have an easy time of it
what?!
you're welsh?!?!?!
since when?
SWELSH I'll have you know
Swedish/ Welsh very exotic
really?
explain yourself.
i was unaware of this fact...
oh, i'm the same person as above btw.
I loved it from day one
I liked wandering through crowds of people in Piccadilly Circus thinking that some of them had travelled thousands of miles to see it, and all I was doing was taking a short cut to get my bus home.
Yes
I come from the country, and really hated it for the first year. It seemed like such a shitty deal, what you got for the effort and money you had to put in.
Moving south of the river was the big change, cliche though that is - felt like I'd found the bit of London where I was comfortable, which made going out and finding things much easier. Two years on, I really love it. It's so wide and varied, there's bound to be a bit of it you like somewhere, just explore and try as much stuff as you can. Bit banal, but true.
i loved it straight away
but im not from far away and used to come here a lot anyway.
i found my second year of uni when i was no longer in halls more of a challenge cos ldn seemed way scary. but i did live in seven sisters. lol.
So true:
Don't move back to Leicester!! You moved to London to progress, not to have an easy time of it
I agree 100%. I know this place will be great once I get out of this seemingly endless spell of misfortune. I hate where we live. i can't wait to get the fuck out and move to the North. I love being North. Dunno why. I spend a lot of time there as that's where my friends are. And it just feels so much more like what i thought living in LDN would be like. Where I live feels cold and lifeless. And I can't leave somewhere with such amazing options when it comes to gigs/nights out. :D:D:D
Do you mean north London?
I've had alot of misfortune since I've moved to London too, but I would rather all the hastle and drama if it means I get to stay here instead of moving back to pot noodle land
i moved from leicester to london about four months ago
...inital excitement quickly gave way to a general the fucks up with this place - especially when dealing with things like a bethnal green tube station at 8.30 on a rainy monday monrning..
...being back home over christmas in my little village was so weird after living in london and i know what you mean when you say you cant quite put your finger on it.... such a cliche but it is like a different world down here
perhaps it's the lack of security
i was massively depressed
for the first few months. it was a combination of never having lived away from 'home' before, having to do a variety of shit jobs (the absolute low point was testing strip lighting in some god awful industrial estate near the M25) just to make rent each month and just being totally out of the little comfort bubble i had absorbed.
now i love it and wouldn't live anywhere else on this island.
absorbed?
wtf?
also, to put it in perspective - i was never a very "happy" person but the first few months i lived here was the only time i'd ever considered seeing a doctor about it. meh!
...
hug?
I was born in South Londoner
but should've been born in the country. So I live in a seaside city. I'm glad we all swapped.
I can totally relate
to all of you. Especially whoever mentioned a comfort zone/bubble. I had done the same in Leicester, where I had such an amazing time. And suddenly I was here, and I didn't adjust very well. But I'm slowly getting back on track. I'm gonna like it here, I can tell. The past 4 months have been such a mega drag though!
Doesn't help
that I am surrounded by about 26 estates, all of which have 'social problems', to put it politely.
But London
has far more free stuff to do than anywhere else, surely?
I loved it from the moment I first moved here.
That is all.
Me too.
It doesn't seem to have sunk in that I haven't made any friends since I got here and am a total hermit. Weird, huh?
what do you mean,
welcome back? I posted here yesterday...
I'm moving from Hertfordshire
its a massive step.
I came straight here from uni
I didn't particularly intend to, but I just took the first job I was offered and I thought it'd be good experience, not to mention looking good on my CV.
I like London. I studied in Chester so obviously the music scene is approximately ten billion times better, and that in itself was a big pull.
The only thing is I've been here five months and I haven't made any new friends - I already know a couple of people down here, but I rarely see them and I am getting a bit sick of going to gigs on my own. It's got to the point where I feel like I've almost forgotten how to have a decent conversation.
My contract runs out in March and I haven't decided whether I want to renew it. I probably will, but I'm tempted to go back to Manchester and try my luck there.
I think I'd be...
in the same boat as you, except I went to uni where I've made, like, at least...2 friends!
I must starting going to gigs on my own, never had the balls to do it as of yet.
it's not really a big deal
just don't do what I do, which is get rat-arsed to black out the awkwardness of the between-band period.
I do it all the time, although recently I've started to question whether or not I can be arsed.
A top tip indeed...
i could envisage myself a lonely, swaying, muttering (probably about weasels) figure of a man. Possibly with a urine stain. Possibly not.
Don't stop going now! It's probably better than dragging friends along that actually don't like the music, gets a bit awkward sometimes.
i came here after
living back home for a year to earn money. after a year in huddersfield, anywhere's going to feel like nirvana. as such, i like it here a lot.
I moved down about a year and a half ago
from sunny Cardiff.
It's been mostly gravy. I went from having a huge hardwood floored flat on the 12th floor of a city-centre new build (with huge wall-sized windows looking out over the Cardiff basin) to a tiny box room in bethnal green (for which - haw haw - I am paying more money), and it's still been great. I go through periods of meeting new people, then getting complacent and turning back into a bit of a hermit. And the culture of work/play is a little hectic, still (and getting worse the longer I'm here).
what?!
another welsh person?!
this is getting all too much.
Yep,
Hated it at first. Spent two weeks working in London. Enough time to realise it just aint all that. Sorry, its a cold lonely stuck up city where nobody has any time for you and everyone is forever wanking off about "the tube".
..
i moved to london from northern ireland in august 2006. to say that i loathed living here at first is a huge understatement. i didn't have a job, i didn't have all my wonderful friends and i lived in a flat with mice. in the past few months though i've started to become very fond of the city, and i do feel lucky to live here quite alot of the time. its a love/hate relationship.
hmmm
I have lived in Brighton for 7 years now, moved here from Bedford when I was 18. Am now pondering a move to London and kinda scared... I know I need to shake things up, and I'm up there all the frickin time. I was well up for the move until I actually got an interview for a job in London and now I'm shitting myself.
Think my major worry is having to live in a horrible flat with a stranger, instead of my beautiful flat with balcony & sea view and best friend. How did you guys go about finding housing up there? Is it all horrible and expensive? What areas are friendly for newcomers?
another bedforder!
i'm sorry.
hehe
yes. I got out at 18 and haven't looked back!
Before Bedford I lived in Dallas - that was a bit of a shock.
I moved here 4 months ago
and love it. I moved down with five other people though and know quite a few people who'd moved here in the last year so the 'lonely part' hasn't effected me really. there's so much to do/see and I don't agree that everyone is rude.