Our adventures in London come to an end in mid-February.

We’ve been living here for the past two years, and it’s mostly with a sense of relief and exhilaration that we leave - it was great, but London is not working out for us on the long run.

Above all, I see this period as an investment: a great starting point for our careers, a strong base to build upon, a safe first step on the path of working in a different country. I feel very lucky, living in London enabled us to start fully realising our potentials. I’m also grateful to so many people: friends who encouraged and hosted us when we landed here, employers who hired us, trusted our skills, and helped us with various administrative issues.

Still, even aside from our careers, there were some good things about living in London.

The Good

First and foremost, it’s about people: I enjoyed that people come from a multitude of different backgrounds. You can hear a dozen different languages throughout a day. It’s a stimulating, buzzing, truly multicultural city. It is very welcoming - I never felt like I was an outsider, my foreign accent and average English was not once a problem in getting myself across. I never had to worry that someone wouldn’t take me seriously. I’ve met some great people and I’ve made some friends at work whom I plan to keep in touch with - this, I did not dare to hope for, thinking that making friends in adulthood is almost impossible.

On a less personal note, I liked the steampunk vibe of the city - the coexistence of the ancient with the high-tech. A couple hundred years old ruin next to a modern metal-and-glass building: the rocky remains of the London Wall from Roman times alongside the vibrant colors of the Lego Technic-like, exposed elevator mechanics of 88 Wood Street, complete with a playfully colored vent shafts of the tube underneath, Super Mario-style. The view of the skyscrapers in a foggy evening, as you walk from Shoreditch to Liverpool Street - it feels like being in one of those Deus Ex cyberpunk videogames.

I also enjoyed living in a prosperous first world country with all its quirks - good quality products, general abundance, great salaries, fantastic customer service and a working health-care system (much better than at home, at least).

I quite like the concept of a pub meal too, and the fact that most pubs offer something to eat (with that said, I was bitterly disappointed in pubs in London - see later below).

I became a fan of Waitrose, and I often tell people that the Waitrose in Granary Square is my favorite spot in London. They think I’m joking or being sarcastic, but I think they just haven’t been there yet. There are live jazz concerts on Thursday evenings and there is always some good single malt whisky on sale. Their New York Cheesecake is the best I’ve ever eaten. Just in general, it’s a whole new level of good quality food items to me. It’s a temple of consumption, ready to fill your culinary needs.

I actually liked the weather too, although summers were way too hot for me and it doesn’t rain as much as I hoped it would (contrary to popular belief, the avarage rainfall is almost exactly the same as in Budapest).

I like that I can get cheap books (World of Books became my favorite place to order from).

Also, people seem to know how to have a good time - on the way home, it’s nice to peep into a pub through the window, and see cozy people chatting and drinking pints with their friends.

The Bad

With all the positives, there are a lot of negative things about London that make me very happy to leave.

Living in Kings Cross, I realised that this area, and maybe London in general, is a honeypot in a sense - you know how they write “A blend of EU and non-EU honeys” on the bottle of honey you buy at the store? Well, Kings Cross is attracting all kinds of people, including the not so great ones, ultimately producing a blend of EU and non-EU street crime for you to watch out for. You can meet the kindest people and also the lowest of low-lifes from all over the world.

There are junkies everywhere - it’s not a pleasant experience to have to wake up at 2 am to the shouting and wailing of people high on some designer drug, gone terrifyingly insane. It was also the first time I saw someone injecting heroin on the street (in our street, couple meters from our house).

I also didn’t like the filth - London is very dirty. There’s litter everywhere.

One of the most significant things I dislike about London however, is the noise. There is always some kind of noise, and there is just no escape. Neighbours, scooters, trucks, drunks, junkies, party animals. It’s a zoo without fences where animals go free - a terrible place to live, in all honesty.

Air quality is awful and gross. Water is so hard you must use some extra softeners when washing. Well, at least there’s drinking water from the tap.

Pubs are a huge waste of time and money. When I came here I was initially thrilled that I can experience the great pub culture of the UK, but I was quickly disappointed - going to pubs, ironically, is a sobering experience. Paying 6 quid for a beer that you drink in front of the pub, standing on the pavement, because there’s no place to sit inside, is unacceptable, not something I would like to do ever again. Inside a pub, the music is usually so loud that everyone is shouting, and so you can’t have a proper conversation.

London is also extremely crowded: there is just not much space for the few million people who live here. It’s also hard to get out from here to a truly quiet place. If you want to enjoy a peaceful weekend on the countryside, be prepared to travel three hours and pay a hefty price for the train and a BnB.

Conclusion

That was quite negative, but I wanted to give an honest account of our time here. Obviously we are very lucky to have experienced it, and working here is just fantastic - living here, not so much.

I’m sure living in Scotland will have its own challenges - but I’m very much looking forward to them!