This is part two of my things-I’m-going-to-miss series. You can read part one here .
London is multi-cultural and that’s one of the things you tend to notice about it. It attracts all kinds of people. Despite this, there are loads of incredible things about London and I have always felt at home in it, so it is a shame to be moving away. Would I live there again? No, probably not. But there’s room enough to visit.
> Prestige and London
London is London. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t know about London, even if they don’t know where it is. I lived in London, and that was an experience and I’m proud of the city that has shaped Britain so much…even if not all of it has been for the better (looking at you, various governmental parties).
> Libraries galore
Compared to Reading’s library, UCL alone has at least four libraries. That I know of. It’s a campus university, but the departments are actually scattered into the city and most departments have their own selections of texts, so the number of libraries that belong to UCL is beyond my count. Add to that, the glory of the British Library – a research library. So, despite its wealth of materials, it’s not possible to ever take a book out of the British Library, but if you’re ever in need of a quiet reading room for research and study of texts that are found very scarcely elsewhere, this is the library to go to.
> Taking the tube to work like a cool kid.
The tube is one of my favourite parts about London. (Said nobody who ever lived in London.) But, seriously, for every person who hates the stuffiness, crampness, urg of the tube, there is another who loves it for its…mystery and practicality. And I am in the latter group. Whilst I chose not to go on the tube daily, the times that I did take it to get from point A to point B (and point C off somewhere in the distance) were mostly enjoyable and such an experience. If you’ve never been on an underground rail system of sorts, I’d say it’s worth a go regardless of what you end up thinking of it.
> Visualising the tube/land system.
When I was younger and travelled on the tube, it was a mysterious underground world, something that never related to where we popped out. Nowadays, I see the roads we travelled, the roads under which the lines must run, whilst I am underground. It all makes sense to me now.
Well, mostly. Then there’s London transport, that often doesn’t make sense.
Angel shopping area
> Starbucks revision sessions
In London, there’s a Starbucks wherever you blink, I swear. And if that’s not your thing, there’s probably a Costa or a Caffe Nero nearby. In the Easter break whilst we revised for our exams, a group of us powered up in the early morning with a coffee and a cookie. Brain food 😉
> Bus routes on the doorstep
Literally. Even with the 390 route having changed since I shifted from London, it still travels through my road.
> I lived with three cats for a year.
Cats…
Are everything to me. They are the most wonderful creatures to exist. I just get cats. Cats make sense.
> It’s living
The thing with London is that there is hustle and bustle, but it’s not for the faint-hearted. But you get used to it, that rush of adrenalin every time you step onto the streets. There’s a genuine buzz about the place that I’m never going to get from sleepy village where the cats are the most interesting talking-point of my weeks.
~~~
Anyways, it’s time to move on, and as much as I miss London, it’s time to get used to a new place.
Goodbye, Tufnell Park
Alexandrina Brant 