I’ve got to say that I think Londoners are friendly, but they also like their space and want to respect yours. A few years go I was on the tube platform waiting to go to work and I was crying my eyes out because my boyfriend had dumped me the night before. I was crouching on the floor sniffling and a strange woman came up and handed me a packet of tissues without a word. It actually made me feel seen in a subtle way, I felt the kindness meant by her actions without needing an interrogation about what was wrong. Time and time again I’ve seen Londoners stop what they are doing to help people who are pregnant or disabled, moms with prams, and people who are clearly lost. Londoners absolutely care about other people they just also like to respect everyone’s space as well.
100% this! When I lived in London I had an hour long commute, no time to smile and chat, just get from A to B as quickly as possible. The same Londoner who blanks you on the tube will buy you a pint if you meet them in the pub!
@@Antonio-hb8rd As someone from the North , yes we are mean spirted more so than the South If we think you are an idiot we will treat you like one and not be apologetic about it . People from the South are less direct.
@@ffotograffydd As someone from the North of England that annoyed me . I was made to feel Insular and rude for refusing the pint . I also resented being described as a snappy Jack Russel Terrier to people outside the UK . I would not describe a Londoner as a haughty Siamese Cat . Oh and I can afford my own pint 🙃 The English and Britsh are so weird in this regard . So diffrent .
Yes,every time I visit London I see people being friendly and helpful,to me or to other people. Even Paris isn't all rude and nasty like they make out.
I live in Melbourne, and by in large most places of the city I feel incredibly safe, much safer than I did walking some places in my hometown in the Uk. I recently was talking with a group of people explaining this and me and another girl explaining that there are some places in London that we would not feel safe walking alone at night.
The friendly/ not friendly misconception is exaggerated in London, but it’s across most of the South East tbh. But it does just stem from a consideration of personal space due to population density with a bit of convention thrown in. Out walking in any ‘countryside’ in the South East, all strangers will greet each other and be up for a chat - but as soon as you hit pavement… blinkers back on. It’s the unwritten rule. Its all about context, if you're on the tube and everything's going fine, no-one interacts. But if it breaks down in a tunnel, give it 10 minutes and you'll get shared eye-rolls, after 20 minutes banter - at 40 minutes the formulation of an escape committee and / or singing.
I found the South East outside of London to be quiet unfriendly even in the country side But then again a lot of people in the South East see the Scots as unfriendly, whereas as someone from the North of England I found it the opposite . But then again maybe my accent is the reason 🤔 Thats the only explanation I can give Or maybe we have different concepts of what being freindly is
@@hannahdyson7129 Yes I'd agree. The SE suburbs are the most outwardly unfriendly for sure and I grew up there. But the 'countryside' thing is oddly specific - it's basically grass or not grass! If people are out walking dogs in a park or ambling across fields, everyone's "Hello! How are you? Lovely morning!" - but as soon as you hit tarmac again - no one says anything! It is a Southern thing, I expect. First time I went to Manchester I was blown away by how everyone just chatted to you at bus stops and in shops. It was lovely. As to the Scots (my Dad's from Glasgow) it depends on the area too I reckon.
@@louleg23 That seems very bipolar to be honest , you are ethier freindly or you aren't. I think in the North there is very little tolerance for that . As for Scotland being from near Manchetser I have been to the Western/ South West parts and they have just been as freindly if not more than the Manchester region in my opnion . As for the break down on a train people become more insular up here , and would rather interact with their phones than fellow commuters . And singing would get you irrated looks as would escape plans . We would rather role our eyes at such attempts However If a journey is going wrong ( bad traffic ) people start joking to try and take the tension away
I had a disastrous afternoon in July last year. Due to you know what all the tube lines were disrupted,some not running etc and my planned visit turned into a confusing disaster. I did acheive my objective but got really stressed out. Lovely sunny day though. Anyway having had to take a confusing route from one tube station to another one to get on the line I needed I started to panic that I'd got it wrong and would miss my coach home. A couple of other passengers saw my distress and reassured me I was on the right line. One of them was an older bloke,a real Cockney,he was so funny. He was reassuring me but making fun of me as well but in a charming and funny way. He said,"you're from Bristol,aren't you?". Everyone says that and I don't even think I've got a Bristol accent!
On the friendliness thing, I think a lot of people confuse the City/Westminster, i.e. the touristy bits as being "London". Of course people aren't stopping to have a chat they're all busy working and most don't live there. Plenty of suburban areas of London are perfectly friendly and certainly not any less friendly than other cities in the UK. My real bugbear is how Northerners go to London as tourists and then think it applies to The South. I don't go to Manchester and then think some Cumbrian village is the same so don't do it to us down here!
As someone from the North I find that Londoners on the whole are much more freindly than the South of England . The South East outside London and South West are very unfriendly.
I see people commenting that girls feel unsafe walking around in London especially at night. However, after growing up in Iran and living in Malaysia for some years, I can confidently say London is significantly safer.
I think most women have developed skills to cope. When I wander around London late at night, finding odd hotels, or curious routes to eateries, it is pretty easy to end up in places which are relatively quite and empty, and where one could feel vulnerable (if I wasn't 6'3" and 18 stone). If you are sticking to the main streets there are usually people around till quite late and one would rarely feel at significant risk. I've been to London a lot for work, and barely seen any trouble at all. I've visited Paris a handful of times and seen a mugging. I'd rather be in the rougher parts of London than the nicer parts of Paris as far as personal safety is concerned (even if they have better art galleries).
I haven’t been to south London much but I have wandered around west London late at night/very very early morning for work and I felt so safe. But yes I agree I’ve definitely made a tolerance for creepy and dodgy looking places (does that even make sense? Lmao) Also I fully agree with you regarding Paris cause the first time I got on metro, someone tried to knick my dad’s wallet. Yeah I wouldn’t wanna walk around in Paris past 9 alone.
For me growing up in a small town in Germany, our school buses were mostly just regular public buses. Only a few villages had dedicated school buses where there were no real connections to the town our school was in So for friends that lived in a more urban area it was totally normal to take the standard public bus to school
@@lady8jane Yes, in our bit of Kent (SE England) there's a local school for children up to 11 years (no transport provided). Older children go to a variety of schools in all directions. There's a dedicated bus to one, but otherwise children just use the regular service buses or indeed the train.
Additionally, when I was in elementary school, one of my classmates lived in a very small settlement, not village, I won't call it that because it has only 121 inhabitants, which due to its size didn't warrant a whole bus, so the town paid for him to take a taxi to school every day, so even if there isn't a bus, you don't necessarily have to drive your kids to school in Germany.
Im from Manchester originally and have travelled to London numerous times. Yes it isnt as friendly as many other British cities but it is far friendlier than some other European cities I have visited like Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Zurich!
No, as a swede I can tell you the whole of Sweden is less friendly and Stockholm is the least since it is the capital so do the residents not care and the other Swedish tourists don't wanna bother with other people. Gothenburg and Malmö are much friendlier compared to Stockholm but still worse than smaller cities and communes, the smaller the place in Sweden to a certain degree/point it becomes more and more friendly for the single reason you start to know a bigger part of the total population where you live, so even if you do not know a person directly so does the possibility that you know about that one, or in a more fun and comedic and true way, a classmate from 3rd grades cousins uncles grandchild knows about you from an old class photo...
We so easily forget that if something is news-worthy that implies that it is actually rare enough to be worth reporting each one. So, if something like a stabbing is in the news than that really means that stabbings like that DON'T happen every day. Unfortunately, it's human nature to hear about one incident and assume there must me loads more similar events for you to have heard of one. We really are not equipped to consume "news".
"it's human nature to hear about one incident and assume there must me loads more similar events for you to have heard of one." It should be human nature to never take what you hear on the news as gospel. Always do your own research. And if you do your research on the knife crime statistics in London and compare it with other big cities in other countries, the pattern is really clear. Just because you didn't get stabbed doesn't mean that this isn't an issue.
And don't forget that orange chap who used to live in that big house on Pennsylvania Avenue once said something about it commenting about a 'once prestigious' hospital swimming in blood from all the stabbings. That might have coloured some people's impressions.
2 года назад
There are a lot of stabbings you don't hear about. Because even though it bleeds, it doesn't lead. Because they're not dead, or able to spin it as "mistaken innocent boy stabbed in horrific gang related stabbing". The idea that it's rare is why you don't hear about it is off the mark, you don't hear about every single one of them because there are so many "insignificant" stabbings.
Fox News has been reporting about how most of London is a no go zone, it’s part of their campaign against the current Mayor of London… in other words, the standard Fox New racism. Yes there are sadly a fair few of stabbings, mostly gang related, but the average person going about their day is highly unlikely to get stabbed, or even witnesses a stabbing or other violence. I lived in London for over two decades, was often out after dark, and never saw anyone physically attacked in any way. By contrast we went to San Francisco and saw someone being beaten up the first night we were there, and another attack a few days later. And we were staying in the nice part of town!
Also one of least big cities in the world that as very few rain. But when it rains it'd consent and coutine for days! Where as in other countries its pours more in a few hours leading too more flooding. And the uk itself is generally low in times of rain. But it's just consent!
I lived in London for over two decades, I don’t remember ever experiencing rain for days at a time. It may occasionally happen, but even in winter you can have rain and sunshine in the same day.
Whenever I go up to London I am always impressed by how friendly,helpful and cheerful the people are. Londoners which is people born and bred in London and also people from all over the world who choose to live there are nice people. I've never had a bad experience. When I say friendly,helpful etc I'll give two examples. A Spanish guy got on the bus,he knew the name of the place he had to go but not where it was and no kidding,all the passengers got into a confab about which bus stop he should get off at etc. I didn't know the area so I kept out of it. But I was so impressed by how eager to be helpful the people all were. Another time I went in a little general shop near St Paul's Cathedral just to buy a bar of chocolate and a young lady was buying a sandwich for her lunch,she looked like she worked in an office,this was pre-covid. She didn't have the money on her so the shopkeeper,he looked like a Turkish guy,he said,don't worry come back and pay later,I trust you. I thought that was so nice. I've walked through Covent Garden at 5am on a misty autumn morning and it's so quiet it's like you've time travelled back to the 18th century.
When it comes to rain, people have the same misconception about Hamburg - rains constantly here. But Munich has more rain than Hamburg. It’s just grey a lot here, and the rain is often more of a drizzle. Downpours are relatively rare (with the last couple of weeks being a notable exception).
It rains more in Munich?! Since being here I’ve found it far less rainy than where I’m from in the UK (West Country). I feel like it rains maybe once every 4-6 weeks or so, which is considerably less than at home
I just moved to London today and I really enjoy watching your London focussed content. Also, I’m from Hull and I took a public bus to school. There was one school specific bus but it was for children who lived far away from the school and had no other options of getting home.
I think that is a thing all over Europe, we don't have special school busses usually (I've seen it in one private school but other than that no) children just walk too school or take the public transport.
I laughed out loud when you said "I can't imagine the child ever hearing the sound of silence" I grew up in Central London (not quite Oxford Circus), and literally can't even sleep without noise and light. 🤣
Where I live there are some dedicated school coaches but these are usually for specific schools that are a bit outside the area, the grammar schools in particular. Otherwise most people I knew that took the bus did just take public buses
Pretty much everywhere I've lived in the UK most kids who needed a bus to get to school got a dedicated school bus. There were always the odd one or two who got public bus or taxi, but definitely not the norm. When a house is within a school's catchment area, the local education authority usually arranges (or pays for) their transport, and they prefer not to have them on the public buses. In London you would often see kids of primary school age on the Underground, clearly going or returning from school, I wonder if these are mostly private schools (e.g. they have to fund their own transport, and the underground is just easiest). I think I'd be a little wary of allowing small children to use the Underground, as they don't have the skills to spot when someone is on drugs or drunk as well as older kids or adults, but at school times they are usually pretty busy.
I once did a charity walk from York (north of England) to Battle (South of England) dressed as a Saxon. From York to the midlands we got nothing but good will and encouragement. After Nottingham the abuse started getting pretty bad. The outskirts of London we had people shouting throwing stuff at us. Then suddenly in the centre of London it was like we were celebrities. Was really disconcerting. As we headed further south the friendly vibe of the north started to kick in again. And when we reached battle it felt like the entire town had come out to drink with us (though it was probably just 50ish people). There is a definite change of politeness and understanding the closer to London you get, or we might have just got unlucky with the people we met 🤷♂️
You know what, as a black girl who was born in London but who's dad arbitrarily moved us outside the city, I am still very bitter that I didn't get to grow up in London. For me personally, the relative safety of where I grew up does not outweight the difficulty of growing up as the only black girl in school for my entire life. I grew up on the edge of a small city, but the whole experience was very isolating for that and a number of other reasons. And to add to that, it's very hard for my family to move back to London having left 20-odd years ago after I was born because of the expense (not that where I grew up is much cheaper these days...) It's always slightly confused me when people say they wouldn't want to raise a family in London, because despite it not being my decision at all it's one of my biggest regrets
I like to think I'm in a unique position as I'm asian and grew up in a Surrey village but was *very* close to London, and went to primary school there. Basically, I would spend my time from 7am til 6-7pm (depending on when it got dark) in London, every day, for seven years, right up until I was 11 and had to go to secondary school. So I was quite immersed in the London life as on weekends I'd only go to visit my grandparents or with my parents to do a weekly shop. I didn't see much of my local area. Then I went to secondary school and hardly spoke due to how uncomfortable I felt there. For sixth form and uni I've gone back to a london environment and I feel so much better. Some people I know think parts of West London are rough and would never go there, but I've walked down there as a visibly Muslim girl at 11pm when all the druggies are out and never felt unsafe at all. I feel way more at home there an am super grateful for my primary schooling to give me that base
Growing up in & raising children in London are not easy feats. Of course in all things there is dark and light and yes London is diverse with a large black community however don't be fooled into thinking its one big happy family because there is a lot of dysfunction. I grew up in greater London and the best description I have for the experience is that it was a jungle! Youth violence, street crime, petty crime, low standards, negativity. There was an ever-present all encompassing sense of danger between the ages 14-25, I didn't feel safe because anything could happen! In the schools you can end up looking for an identity that doesn't exist & end up in a bad crowd, hanging around with stupid people doing stupid things because there is nothing else better to do & everyone else is also an angsty teenager hiding their anxiety behind facades, masks & hyper masculinity! Post code beef, the high likelyhood of being a young black boy & getting stabbed & regularly stopped by the police. The almost certain reality of friendship groups where people ended up being murdered & all of this by age 18! The sloppy attitudes of young men in regards to women, using women for sex & as trophies whilst slut shaming. Guys who would take advantage of women to run scams & traffic paraphernalia and stolen goods, that ever present criminality that leaked into so many young people's lives that it was very difficult to truly seperate yourself from it. The shitty value system at school; no snitching, venerating violence and criminality whilst aspirations stopped at being a rapper, the negative influence of hip hop music! Growing up in London was traumatic! & so many of us didn't learn to appreciate the city until adulthood! Rasing kids here requires hardwork and a concerted effort to create safe spaces that are supportive, kids here grow up fast and can easily run rings around parents who lack awareness. If you are wealthy, smart and strategic you can navigate & ensure your children are in good schools. Many of the really wealthy send their children far out of the city and some Carribean & African parents send their children back home because of the risks and negative attitudes that pervade in the school system. Be careful when you think you regret something that didn't exist. Those of us who know, know. Raising children involves heavily reminding & pushing them to see that there is a wider world outside of London!
@@Xxx-y9d That's pretty insightful. I grew up a northern city and I am a minority. I found people took you for what you are. I think it was probably more chilled up north. Less stress and pressure for kids growing up. I also went to school in the inner city but also moved out to get schooling in a market town outside the city. Better standards and probably encouraged me to maximise my opportunities and potential. I was given a choice and I will be thankful to my parents to give me that choice.
@@razzle_dazzle yeah basically there was some prejudice and racism. We were just also from completely different worlds. I'm glad I got to experience it so I know how the middle class works but I think I still would have preferred being in London
i've been visiting london since i was 16 (at least once a year) and again and again i'm blown away by how friendly, polite and helpful londoners are. i'm from germany, so maybe my standards are just very low when it comes to friendliness lol
As someone who has moved out London to the countryside for Uni and wants a job in a line of work that means being more rurally located, the main reason why I would consider moving back to London is to raise my kids there. I absolutely loved growing up in the city! I think it is so cool that you inherently get to learn about other cultures and also I think you learn so much more having independence in a city as you would do anywhere else.
I read somewhere that one of the reasons that realestate in London is so expensive comes from millionaires and billionaires from around the world bought up all the expensive flats and houses in London. If memory serves me right it was somewhere around the early 2000's until the financial crisis maybe even after. I don't actually know because I had stopped paying attention at that point. After the financial crisis suddenly air bnb became a thing and a lot of flats were now bought and sold with the intention of them becomming vacation rentals, not actually people living there and having their community around them. Instead it became tourists that occupied those flats and of course had no interest in creating a community. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I'm in Denmark and we're an hour ahead of you guys and I'm very tired.
You're right, the likes of Airbnb exacerbate the property problem. They're rarely 'sharing' accommodation, it's mostly year round lucrative holiday lets. It forces out local working people and reduces cities to theme parks.
We have a LOT of Russian and Arab owned private properties in London which sit empty most of the year and are essentially there as investment and potentially money laundering. I'm hoping that the restrictions coming in now against some of Putin's chums might actually clamp down on a lot of these dodgy property ownerships by oligarchs. Our government has deliberately overlooked it for so long. :(
I always find it interesting to hear other's opinion of London in the context that they came here from somewhere else. I was born and raised in zone 1 so everything you mention like, kids taking normal transport to school, is so normal to me I didn't even question it would be odd to others. The same goes for people thinking we're cold sometimes, I think we just respect each other's space and business but I have seen loads of immense kindness also (don't get me wrong, there's a twat around every corner but that's just because of the law of averages, right?).
Lmfao it’s really funny because when I say “I live in central London/Westminster” everyone thinks it so grand but in reality I live in a tiny, one bed flat :)
@@jackoh991 honestly, I love it, I wouldn’t want to live/grow up anywhere else. I could literally walk a few mins to all the best places in London. School was good too, it’s similar to most other school experiences but tbf I think the education is much better then in others but that’s not necessarily to do with being in zone 1. But yeah, Zone 1 for the win lol
Re: school buses, one school near me (outside London) had specific buses for students, but everyone else got normal public transport or walked/cycled/got a lift. Also the school buses were just standard Stagecoach buses that did the school routes twice a day, they didn't have their own vehicles
The town where I live has a sixth form college, a school for students aged 16 to 18 following academic rather than vocational training. The catchment area covers a lot of places not served by regular bus services and school buses are contracted in morning and afternoon from local bus companies. School buses are usually only found in this sort of context in our part of England, where many pupils can actually walk or cycle to school or use regular service buses as I did.
A lot of Londoners seem to complain about public transport, and I guess it's because they're more likely to be relying on it so they're more likely to notice when it isn't ideal. But in my experience, public transport is something we all complain about whether it's good or bad. It's kind of like complaining about the weather - it just means that nothing else is going horribly wrong at that moment.
As someone with social anxiety, I appreciate people not making eye contact or trying to initiate a conversation. When I have been outside of the city, it always strikes me as intrusive. London born and bred so that may explain it
At last, my area of expertise can finally come in handy. On the subject of school buses, we don't have the dedicated yellow buses that stop outside every schoolkids house (I am basing this assumption on US movies, so correct me if I am wrong). Our school bus routes tend to be more supplementary to busy corridors. As for telling them apart from ordinary service routes, that normally varies by the company that runs them. In London for instance, the routes numbers are 601-699 (with the exception of 607) and typically can only be boarded by schoolkids of the respective schools served on route, and run once in the morning in one direction around 7/8am to school, and once in the evening around 3/4pm in the opposite direction from school. Outside of London, most school routes, again dependant on what company runs them, are usually in the 500, 600, 700, 800 or 900s. Most school buses are normally whatever vehicle they have available.
This is fascinating! I don't know how school buses in the US are these days (I rode one waaaaay back in the 70s/80s), but there were designated stops... not in front of each kid's house. One year the stop was actually in front of my house and that was awesome. But when I was 12/13 I had to walk about 5 blocks to the stop. Not bad, but it sure seemed like it when there was a ton of snow on the ground and you had your book bag and lunch and if you were unfortunate enough to be carrying a musical instrument, too. Good times!
Yeah I'm from Somerset and the way it works here is there are designated school buses which serve a specific route for a specific school with stops in every village on their route (our school has 12 buses running for it) which run to the school in the morning once and then in the opposite direction from the school when the school day finishes. They don't complement normal bus routes as we have barely any public transport in rural Somerset (there's only one bus where I live, it comes every hour and the nearest stop is 2 miles away from me) and are coaches rather than buses, like the kind schools use for school trips
I don't know where in London your from, but its very different from where I live! Here the only dedicated school buses I've seen are either private school buses or buses for kids with disabilities who need more help getting around. Everyone else just uses the usual routes.
On the coffee thing, as a Spainsh person, I have always ended dinner with an espresso, that is just a thing we do. Also we eat dinner late, so like even when I was little it would be common (especially at family gatherings) for every adult to have a shot of espresso with there desert at like 10:00pm. And honestly I never have had a probably with going to sleep like an hour or two later, since you usually drink the espresso right before you leave anyways😅
The bus thing is a whole England thing. Sometimes if the school is isolated in the country, or private schools with a large enrollment radius then they might hire a coach every day to do the rounds , but I've seen that in every city I've been in
My secondary school was on the other side of town so I used to get the train there every day. It was much quicker than the bus which meant I didn't have to get up super early! Most of my friends did the same.
Most schools outside big towns have school bus services but they are just commercial coach companies with a contract to do the rounds. At my secondary school most kids used the mainline train (there was a station in the village about a mile from the school so this involved some patrolling the routes the kids had to walk), some on normal scheduled buses and about a dozen or so special school services which used the oldest, most worn out coaches to do various routes.
School kids getting regular public transport isn't a London thing, generally school buses only exist for SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) schools where often the children come from a much wider geographical area. I think most local authorities pay for the public transport season ticket though if they are under 16.
it is only paid for in certain situations: the school is more than 2 miles away and the child is under 8 the school is more than 3 miles away and the child is 8 or over there’s no safe walking route between their home and school they cannot walk there because of their special educational needs or disabilities or a mobility problem sometimes if you have a low family income.
@@danh4698 some local authorities will pay for the child's transport if they meet certain conditions (which vary local authority by local authority) but they are still usually buying them a season ticket on regular public transport, it's still fairly rare for there to be dedicated school buses in the UK as there are in the US
when i lived in london my rent was double what it is now (in birmingham) but for my job the wage bracket is only about 5-10% higher in london. so i entirely agree it doesn’t balance
Currently living in London with my husband; came here in 2020 just when COVID was starting and got approved for my visa in 2021. So far, I like it here! We live in a studio in Brixton which works for us in the meantime as I get settled living in England. I have no complaints about public transport here. I rely on the bus to get to and from work and so far, I find it quite nice. Better than taking public transport in the States. I also feel generally save when walking around; I find that you just have to keep your wits about you and you just have to be aware. As far as the greenery in London; I would have to agree; at least how there is definitely a lot more greenery than say NYC.
I brought up two sons in Islington, North London and they were really very happy, loads of mates, pretty okay schools and fantastic nightlife once they reached their late teens, would add good job opportunities too but they both joined the RAF, but the choices were def there. Certainly don't regret having my family in that area. PS.. Plaistow is pronounced Plaars toe or Plass toe...sorry Evan lol
I have gotten to know more of my neighbours in London (several neighbourhoods) versus any of the places in the US (northern NJ, Boston area, DC area). I think Londoners can be a very friendly place.
As a woman I've felt safe walking anywhere in the UK at any time of day or night, but cycling often feels way more dangerous. I'm not afraid of any random people stabbing me, but the crazy, selfish, cyclist-hating drivers are on a league of their own. Night is often the best time to be out, as there's almost no one else around.
That is rather bizarre to me, as someone who lives in Greater London and has been harassed from the age of 13- I don't really feel safe anywhere at night. It was during daytime as I walked home from Sainsbury's a drunk man tried to follow me home! It probably doesn't help I have a curvy body type and low confidence, seems to attract all the creeps. One time I was wearing a dress that wasn't in the least bit revealing and an old man still tried to look down it to see my chest (thankfully he couldn't) as he passed by with what looked like his family 🤮
@@beththedarkmage3359 I'm sorry to hear that. To be fair I grew up in Finland and only moved to the UK a few years ago, so I don't know what it's like to grow up here. I was bullied at two different schools though and had a boyfriend who turned out to be a bit of a creep, so I pretty much avoided people for a few years in my teens and early twenties, and then somehow developed a surprisingly high self confidence over the years. When I was still afraid of strangers I developed all sorts of rules for myself, for example if I heard someone following me I forced myself to not look, and instead of speeding up I slowed down a bit. On the first times it was somewhat scary, but it's never lead to anything bad, everyone has either passed or taken a different route at some point. On the other hand I would look up when people approached from the front, and sometimes they'd ask something, mostly just nodded as a greeting and passed, or never even looked up to take notice of me. Sure, some guys have tried chatting me up a bit, but nothing threatening, and they've all left me alone once I've clearly expressed not being interested. I don't know, maybe I've just been super lucky and it's never had anything to do with how I deal with the situations, but the older I get, the less I worry. These days I can walk my dog (not a big or scary one, mind you) in the middle of a dark night with headphones on my head, listening to true crime podcasts, and find that relaxing 🤣 Wouldn't have done that twenty years ago!
@@beththedarkmage3359 I agree with you its clear the op hasn't been to the worst parts of the uk. I remember near where I when to school there was a place the students referred to as stab ally because it was a regular site for muggings I only remember 1 actual fatality so it might not be that bad.
i live in yorkshire - opposite end of uk. when i was younger my parents made out that london is literally run by gangs and mafia. i never believed them but now my sister [30] is super anxious in big cities. theyve not even been to london!
I am completely with you in terms of your feedback! As an American in London for the last 11 years, I have a few things I was surprised by, but it is genuinely a fabulous city to live in once you get used to a few of the quirks and early closing times on a Sunday :D
In London we value space and quiet Buses should be quiet (should be… when there’s school kids then it’s another story) trains are always silent especially in the morning, stay to one side when walking on the stairs and escalators
Honestly it's a UK thing . I live in the North West of England and busses and trains are quiet here too. It's the same in Scotland and elsewhere Sure people may chat in line waiting . But yeah in the thing ? Nah . Personally I found the Southern US states of chatting to people while waiting in a queue really annoying when I visted the US as a toruist . I don't understand why that's necessary. 😕. Let me que in peace .
@@nat3007 Was she talking to a freind though ? You may do that to a freind but it's considered rude to talk loudly , or to force conversation on some poor random sod Unless you are elderly or want to engage with us and we assume you are lonley
I think the thing with raising kids in London just relates to how you were raised a lot of the time. Raising a kid in London seemed weird to me since I was from a pretty rural area and couldn't transpose my childhood experiences to somewhere so urban. However, if that's your normal or you just prefer busier places then it makes sense you're going to love all the opportunities that come with being in the city.
I'd say there are quite a lot of TV shows which involve young people sharing houses or flats, or with their family still. Something I love about British sitcoms is that they often live in more realistic places. 2000s Doctor Who had this too. Rose lives in a flat on a council estate with her mum, which actually looks like a flat on a council estate. Her room looks like it could be the room of a 19 year old working in a shop.
Few years ago I travel with my family to London at Christmas time. Almost every store and restaurant were closed at Christmas Day. Although there were people walking, it was so weird to walk through streets with none stores open. Boxing Day was these opposite for that. :D It was quite the same in Berlin where stores are closed on Sundays. That felt odd because in my home country almost every store stays nowadays open the day-around. I'm from Finland.
So the shopkeepers shouldn't even get one day a week off from working like everybody else? You've got six days in the week to get your shopping organised ; why does everybody have to be buying stuff all the time. And Xmas is sickeningly commercial enough without idiots finding it necessary to run to the shops even on the feast day itself.
Definitely can reiterate the whole 'London is grey not rainy' thing - I'm originally from Melbourne, Australia and I saw a poster by Thames water and it said South East England gets less rainfall than Melbourne... and we're definitely not known for our wet weather.
I am SO grateful that I grew up/am growing up in London. It's not cheap but it's such a privilege to be able to go to the theatre every weekend and take reliable transport around the city and pop into town to see things people travel from all over the world to witness. I'm very very lucky. (ain't no way i'm living with my parents when i'm looking for jobs tho they're downsizing asap hahaha
Hi I love this channel I have been there since Dovan flat and have grown up watching Evan and have loved every second thank you for showing us your life 💗 💖 ❤
Something I actually love about living in Vienna is the Kaffee und Kuchen culture. It’s nice that cafes are open later as they’re one of the only social places where you’re not expected to drink alcohol. Also nah caffeine literally doesn’t affect me energy wise at all, although I’ve heard that’s common for ADHDers.
People think the U.K. it’s more like American culture, 24/7 and people want to go to bed and get up for work and other things. Night time for sleeping.
Living in Gloucester, we used to have a school bus. An old double decker, that took an hour to wind its way all around the city before finally getting to school (2 miles away if it had gone direct). But they ended up discontinuing the service because the pupils were so rowdy; piles-ons and paper pellet fights every journey, massive crushes in the queue to get on, the sixth formers at the back would spray aerosols over themselves and set it on fire, seats would be ripped up, windows knocked out, silly spring sprayed everywhere on the last day of term... I remember once when a window was knocked out of the upper deck (can't remember if it was the time when it nearly hit a cyclist, or the time when it nearly hit an ambulance) the driver drove us all to the depot and refused to let anyone off until the police came. After that was discontinued we were left with parents giving lifts or public transport.
I was living in London a few years ago during the string of stabbings and those moped gangs around my area. It was really scary at the time as my partner and I both worked late nights in hospo and would see them occasionally. Aside from that, I never felt unsafe in London.
Evan about travelling outside London: "Wow, people talk to me, this is so nice." Me 🇫🇮: "Note to self: If ever in the UK, stay in London in order to avoid strangers talking to me."
Yes, outside London we have dedicated school buses on contract, some are yellow as well, London youngsters have concession fares/zip Oyster/free travel, not the case outside London, public transport is so frequent and excellent in Greater London, no point having school bus contracts.
I know in Brisbane, there aren’t designated schools buses, the kids just use the public ones and the public train. As for the safety in cities, I think you need to look at the time of day you’re out and about. Last time I was in Birmingham England, I felt perfectly comfortable walking to the train and then from the train to the bullring during the day but as a small female I wouldn’t do it at night
Kids in Germany take public buses and trains to school, even from the countryside into the city. In 5th grade I took one bus to school, then 2 busses back or 2 busses and a train.
I live in Leeds. One time I got on a tube in London with a guitar on my back and the doors closed trapping the guitar on the outside and me on the inside. There was a carriage full of people and not a single person reacted when I was asking for help, frantically trying to find a button that would make the doors open. I don’t give a crap if they knew that the doors would eventually open again - I didn’t and I was terrified and people just sat there looking at me. That’s a new extreme to ‘mind your own business’ and I bet it wouldn’t have happened up North. Not that I’m biased or anything.
You didn't get help because you didn't need it. There is no button to open the doors in the carriage. The driver has an alert and mirrors to check why the train can't move.
@@MsPeabody1231 ...good comment to support my point. I know there are no buttons. I was scared. I've seen people jump on at the last sec and cause the doors to reopen, but I had never seen them fully close like they did on me... and not open again for a while. A kind person would've taken a second to reassure me that the train wasn't going to drive off with me like that.
The suggestion that there are no-go suburbs about London is laughable. Just ridiculous. There are going to be small pockets that are no-go but that goes for any area. But there isn't a borough, town or district in London that is no-go. The thing about London is that on one side of the street you'll have large scale government housing and on the other side of the street there are large, comfortable, expensive homes.
"wow! These are closing at 11pm??" Me, living in Austria, where grocery shops close at 7-8pm and cafés at 8-10pm. :))) dont get me startet on saturdays and sundays
So on your last misconception, in NYC most kids take public transportation to get to middle school/high school. They only allowed buses for certain situations or private schools. I remember my sister had to commute about an hour and 15 min to get to her junior high by bus.
Same in Philadelphia. Grade 1-6 students who live more than 1.5 miles from school will be bused to school. Grades 7-12 are issued discounted transit passes.
Had to have a little laugh at your pronunciation of Plaistow. Unless you live there or nearby, no-one ever gets it right. Phonetically, it would sound like "Plar-stowe"
Perfect example of Londoners being friendly: the Tube home on Christmas Eve. More than once my mum has been the beneficiary of a packet of biscuits or sweets. I've grown up on the outskirts of East London, and it makes me laugh everytime someone visits London for the first time, they expect everywhere to be bustling, noisy and whatnot, but no. My area is about a generic a semi-detached suburb as you could get, plus the trains lol.
If you talk to a Londoner on the street they will probably be friendly with you. If you are underground then probably not. Maybe its just me as a Londoner but when I'm on the underground I just wanna get out of there asap so I try to move quickly with my head down. But when I'm actually outside I'm always a little more care free
In Italy (at least were I grew up) we have specific buses for school up until middle school, and then you just use regular public buses for high school (14-18 yrs old, roughly).
In Kent children use the normal public transport busses and trains. They divert some routes at school times. To drop off and pick up close to schools. London is a forest. The United Nations definition of a forest is somewhere with 20% tree covered. London is 21% covers in trees.
I'm from New England in the US. I heard about how rainy the UK is and assumed that meant it's like pouring there most days, because that's what a rainy day here is like. We get sunny days, and when it rains, it pours, comparatively speaking. Yearly average rainfall in my hometown, according to wikipedia is 47.84 inches (1,215 mm). London, according to wikipedia, gets 24.21 inches (615.0 mm)! We have twice the amount of rainfall, just less evenly distributed. Idk, this fact just boggles me.
When I was little, 7 or 8 years old, in London, I used to walk to and from school. It was about a mile from home. There was a bus but the fare was 2 old pennies
I was very surprised at the lack of 24 hour stuff when I recently moved to London. I would have thought when you get very central things would be open much later.
9 years here as well 🙌 and also lived in Plaistow! Agree with your view on that one lol. First place I moved into (when I moved to London) was Croydon! My biggest misconception that I had as a tourist vs. actually living here now was that everyone is so nice and helpful and friendly. They're not. or some are but it's very superficial and not genuine. Oh! and that there is another layer of language beyond English here, like what you say vs. what you mean can be 2 veeeeery different things! I have found a 'Very British Problems' Fb channel super helpful at explaining ;-)
Where I grew up in Kent there were one or two 'school busses' that stopped at most of the schools in town, but still most people got normal public busses (or the train) 🤷♀️
Kids all over the U.K. travel on public transport. Completely normal from about 11years old. Has been for a long time. Had to laugh at the no go zones and shariah law, some weirdly hued American leader person declared my whole CITY a no go zone for the same reason. (I think a lot of his followers shared pictures of a Sikh gurdwara as evidence of our no-go-ness!) We had a good laugh about it, as it’s very multicultural and loads of people commute from here to London for work. It’s cheaper here to buy a house that they can actually afford. They travel by public transport too, and keep their cars for leisure. Most of them work any overtime stuff on the train so when they get home their time is completely their own.
Where I live in rural Lincolnshire there is one bus to Lincoln every hour, so if you miss it an hour's wait, always love visiting London and waiting 5 min normally for a train or bus
In London there are some extra buses which are for school journeys (timetabled to match school days/hours) but can be used by anyone. These are the 600 series of routes.
Yeah my American family think it rains all the time, but really it only rains properly like 4-8 times a year, but when it rains ut tends to keep raining for several days at a time.
(11:10) Same in Stockholm, if you live a minimum distance from school, you are given a special ticket that gives you free rides on public transport between like 05-17 on non-holidays. Then there's a plus ticket you can pay for to get access to all other time, making a 12-month ticket, but for a cheaper price.
From my experience of a couple of visits to Adelaide in 2012 and 2014, the city centre there is spotless compared to London, they had street cleaners on device which appeared to be a cross between roombas and segways which the cleaners rode round on cleaning the streets/pedestrian areas all the time.
I too grew up in London - and brought up my family here too. And yes - I commuted to my high school on public transport pretty much every day for seven years.
I think my only two regrets of growing up in London are: 1: when I was a little turd, I thought people who live in the country were dumb racists 2: at 16 I just assumed I would never need to drive a car and now I’m too busy to learn.
I've never been able to put my finger on why but I always find London to be pretty overwhelming. My anxiety and nerves are stretched to their limits in London which, in turn, makes it diificult for me to enjoy the city. There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for it either as I've been to busy cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong with no issue.
If you want more rain, move to Wales 😂 I am Welsh born and raised but I lived in Bromley for 10 years, my daughter now lives in South London. I have been back in Wales for a long time and I have to say I can see benefits to both city living and rural. I live in a small seaside town, the only time my older kids saw the sea was when we visited my family in Wales. On the flip side, their schooling was a better standard, they had a more cultural childhood with so many museums, landmarks etc. in London. I found London too fast paced, they loved coming to Wales to completely chill out but got bored after a week. There are pros and cons wherever you live, it’s where you decide to call ‘home’ that counts x
The buses is standard everywhere, I did find that the schools for younger kids in my area did have private busses but by the time you get to college you must use the public ones
I grew up in a small village in Kent. We walked to primary school then caught a dedicated school bus to the nearby town, as public transport was one bus every 2 hours.
About school buses - I went to sixth form in a small village in the countryside, and there were school buses that brought kids over from the local villages. So yes, but they looked more like boring normal coaches, nothing like the cute yellow things in the US. (Side note: because the village was up a hill, the buses would get cancelled on snowy or icy days because they couldn't get up the hill. This meant that school was much more likely to close in cold weather than my previous school which was in a town and therefore walking distance for most of the kids)
I'm from Portugal and when I moved away from my school zone I chose to stay in the same school and catch two separate buses that had shitty timetables and missed often. So yes other countries kids go to school in regular buses. I know how to navigate by public transport since I was 11. There were younger kids in the bus too. Loud as hell. I just used to live close enough to walk (25min)before then
I grew up in a small town in Shropshire where public transport across the whole county was very poor, a small number of kids would take public buses but most of those outside of walking distance to the school would take coaches that would serve several schools in the area, picking up from various smaller towns and villages that weren't served by public transport (or where the bus times wouldn't coincide with school times- the most frequent bus to my town would be once every half an hour max)
Thanks for your vid. School buses are a foreign concept all over Germany. Everyone takes the normal buses, walks or takes a bike. Yeah, there are a lot of sportive kids who take the bike to school here, especially in the region of Muenster which is close to the Netherlands and is the best place for bike riders in the whole of Germany!
2.5 mil for the paddington house?! it’s seconds from primrose hill and I’m pretty sure you’d have royal family as neighbours - that’s a 4 mil minimum surely
Where I’m from in Sussex, there was a school bus which cost more than the public one, and only ran once and was hence overcrowded to the point where we had to sit in the luggage rack, be stood on the stairs and in front of the doors etc. On the other hand once I started getting the public bus, which got me to just 8 minutes from school (I lived several miles away) it was much cheaper and more flexible. A number of other students did the same, and lots of the college (6th form) students did too. It’s totally normal now to still see lots of students on the public transport
The wages compensate the rent argument will work for CERTAIN industries but not all. I can say explicitly that for what I do that the money will scale up with London costs (though QoL is dependent on what you want from life) and for other such as law or certain professional services it will. I imagine for most jobs it doesn't really work out though.
OMG it's the 1st time I hear anyone say they've lived in Plaistow!! I didn't get any weird vibes I just thought it was the most boring place on earth, but I did get psycho vibes from my flatmate, so he might still be there terrorizing the Plaistow area! And it's true when you go outside of London people are so friendly, especially seniors, they all say a cheerful 'good morning' in the street, while they walk their dogs, and it's just the sweetest thing!
It is a brilliant place to have a child; we stayed here specially for that. There are some many things to do and places to go, a new museum, gallery, famous site etc every week.
