Six months in and although we haven’t ticked a lot of boxes or accomplished a hell of a lot, there is so much to be grateful for. We’re not jobless, we’re not homeless and more importantly – we survived our first UK winter (bonus!). Our house might be an oversized shoebox, but it’s warm, has an actual working oven (not that Nikki knows how to use it) and for the first time since landing in Heathrow, London feels like home.
When people often think about working and living in London, they picture spending all their weekends and holidays jetting off around the continent, travelling from city to city. But the reality, for most, is that you spend months and months saving, just to escape London for a few days. And we were struggling to even do that!
Flights are cheap, but throw in accommodation, travelling to and from airports (I’m pretty sure Stansted must be the most awkward place to get to in the UK!), spending money and food/drinks, and before you know it, your cheap getaway is no longer the budget-friendly weekend you’d hoped for.
It would be too easy to blame it on the costs that come with living in London. It might be an expensive city to call home, but all the bloody distractions that come with it don’t help when you're not exactly pulling in big money. Six premier league clubs – take your pick! West End shows – of course! Nights out at the pub and cocktails in the city – never going to say no! So this is why – after six months – the only time we’d seen the inside of a plane was a weekend trip to Cologne, a German city which is £20 return for a reason…at least the pretzels were nice.
So, we put our heads down and stuck it out, knowing that our time would come. And it did – anyone that follows Nikki on Instagram would know that. Our first year away really did finish with a bang – a Christmas escape to Reykjavik, Iceland. It might be the temperature of a freezer, but wow. A white Christmas, snowmobiles, the Northern Lights, the Blue Lagoon and just enough alcohol to protect us from the cold, it really is worthy of a blog on its own. But for now, I'll leave it at that.
The first year of any new country is always the hardest, but we survived. Before I go, I leave you with 10 key London lessons, learnt after 12 months away:
- Don't go to a supermarket without a £1 coin (apparently Londoners can't be trusted with trolleys)
- It's socially acceptable to drink on a Monday
- “Going for a pint” is never just a pint
- Trying to find a decent pie is an impossible task – don’t bother, it’s just not going to happen
- Emirates Stadium is the world’s biggest library
- It's okay to be drunk at lunch time if you've been to bottomless brunch
- TFL bus drivers are pretty much the meanest people you’ll ever meet
- Never ever try to stand on the left of an escalator
- Unless you like being inside a pizza oven, stay away from the Central Line
- Going to Wetherspoons is always a good idea
SG
Photo Credit: ME! (Pretty sure that’s the greatest photo I’ve ever taken!)