Living in London (this is what they don’t tell you)

ah London the city of a thousand cities cultural Melting Pot of the world the home of Austin and wolf and wild and for almost 10 years now the home of me what do you think a decade in can I be deemed a true Londoner by now I say yes and as the first order of business as a Londoner I'm doing a gentle little roast because coming here as an immigrant you definitely have to be prepared to take the good with the bad and the very bad I think one of the first things that most people think of when picturing a life in London is the pricee tag yes London is incredibly expensive even for me coming from Sweden another incredibly expensive place but just how expensive is it and where have I noticed it the most let's get down to the nitty-gritty when David and I lived in Berlin we stayed in quite a few different Flats but our final Berlin apartment that we stayed in for 2 years was comparable in size and location to the flat that we rented when we first moved back to London in 2019 this place we actually bought so I don't really know what we would have been paying a rent for this place but our last flat that we rented was almost exactly twice as expensive as our Berlin flat can you imagine that paying the double in rent for a very similar apartment I would say it's the same with food shopping and restaurants and more or less every type of expenses okay it's not usually d double the price but I would say probably around 50% more expensive compared to Berlin when we live there although I have heard that Berlin has got crazy expensive too now if we have any berliners watching please do tell so London to be completely honest it's just not a city made for normal people and especially not for like entrylevel wage immigrants without any savings brutal the prices of this place and it was one of the reasons we left London the first time around and went to Berlin because we we felt like with the money that we were making life just wasn't nice and after four years of money struggles we weren't like enjoying the city anymore so why then why did we come back to this money pit of a metropolis because it's worth it we missed it we love it here and after 3 years in Berlin we had built up our business enough to feel that maybe if we're careful we can afford to enjoy the city that we so fiercely love and so far so good but like knock on wood because I mean we're two self-employed creatives who knows what's around the corner am I right so what about that other myth about the horrendous London Flats is it true are the landlords really as atrocious as you hear well I have lived in four London Flats varying in price quite a bit and I can say that yes the myth is true of course the more you pay in rent the better the standard will be but if I'm completely honest with you I've never once met a landlord or a land lady who cared one iota about the well-being of their tenants and I just don't mean like the mental well-being of living in a comfortable space I mean also actually the physical well-being of your home being you know safe and not harmful we've had dangerous mold cockroaches mice rats we've had water leaks and flimsy apartment doors it don't look properly we've had our mail stolen by one of our landlords and neighbors crawling in through our windows again I'm comparing to Sweden here with like the coest Flats on the planet and a drastic and complete absence of cockroaches the worst thing as a young tenant here is probably that you have to deal with flap mates and that my friends is a thing that I simply can't do David doesn't count he's a lovely flatmate a little bit messier than me but then again he does all the laundry and all the washing up and all the other chores as well really so a little bit of tithing from my side is a small price to pay if you are thinking of coming to London and you're not Filthy Rich already please don't picture like Hugh GR in nting hill or like brid Jones level of Bohemian coess you won't be Central you won't have your own space you won't have you know Charming window cells in an open fireplace you might have cockroaches or rats but actually the rats they're not so bad it's the roaches that I can't deal with thank you so much to song mon for sponsoring the video This Week song want is a gorgeous bag brand celebrating Timeless Beauty and you know I'm all about investing in fewer but better Timeless pieces for our wardrobe choosing the signs that are versatile and durable and practical enough for us to wear for many years to come as you might remember I received two beautiful Luna bags from their Eco vegan collection a couple of months ago and I just love them such great quality and so easy to style and this time they have kindly sent me two of their beautiful medium song bags also these are from their Eco vegan collection and guess what these bags are made out of ocean plastic and waste materials which you could never guess when using these little fellows they're so soft and the quality is just Mah so I got them in the cloud color and the taupe color with gold plated details and I just love them both and you'd be surprised how much you can fit in one of these bags they're the perfect size for days when you're not bringing like your laptop and I can wear them like two ways either as a handbag using the handles or I can attach this long strap and wear it cross body or off the shoulder brilliant you can also click them together to make the outer shape smaller for whenever you want to wear it as an evening bag for example I just love this type type of fashion classic Timeless designs that you can wear several different ways these are the types of investment pieces that are worth our cash so go take a look at the Luna bag and the song bag and song Mon's other Eco vegan bags for yourself just click the link below and use my promo code jendy master 12 for 12% off that's a nice deal again thank you so much songm and let's get back to the video you know that saying if you're Bor with London you're bored with life is that true yes so true London is like the least boring place in the entire world for multiple reasons first it's massive there are so many streets too many bars so many festivals and theaters and Galleries and little lovely hole inth wall eies that like however long you might live and I plan to live a goddamn long time there's no way to see all of London living in London is living in a Perpetual state of FAL you will miss so much because there is so much and that is like one exciting way to live don't you think secondly London is always changing People Come and Go Restaurants open and close and move and popups are made and unmade and theaters change their repertoire constantly and there's always a new trend or a new festival or a new weird Fusion Restaurant Brewery coffee place you know and if I go to one area to have like a day off and then return to the same area for the same day off 3 months later the place will look different and thirdly it's so varied every culture every Trend every weird fashion subgroup every single type of person will be represented in London one of my least favorite things about Stockholm as a comparison is that it's so uniform there are so few different cultures compared to London and so few Trends going on simultaneously so walking around London for a day you will get like the full rainbow spectrum of humanity and it gives you like this feeling of you know the world is big and people are just beautiful so that brings me to another thing that I don't think many people realize before living here just how incredibly ridiculously huge London is it's not rare to sit on public transport for over an hour like the city just keeps on going forever this is always one thing that freaks me out whenever I fly into London when I'm returning home from a trip is that you can fly over London for absolute ages like the houses don't stop just continue to the Horizon you can't actually see where the city ends 10 million people the whole of Sweden has 11 so these are the types of things that you can't think about too long because it does your head in doesn't it 10 million people in one city it's kind of like you know the universe expanding or never ending or whatever it is let's not think about this too deeply because I don't want to cause any existential crisis out there another thing the system here is like quite chaotic for example you have to have a utility bill to get a bank account but you have to have a bank account to get a utility bill actually come to think of it I don't even remember how we got ourselves out of this conundrum to begin with I just know that it was a process if you live Central like most often the rubbish collection system will simply be to you know leave your rubbish on the street one morning per week there's not one person number that we have in Sweden instead you have an NHS number a National Insurance number a v number a credit score and for a bunch of other things you don't even have a number at all you just have to like pray and hope that giving your full name and date of birth will be enough to find you in their accounts volatile that's for godamn sure credit scores cockroach black mold and hourong Tube Yar is aside there is one aspect of London which is my absolute least favorite thing about the place the wealth Gap there is such a ridiculous amount of unnecessarily rich people here and then even more ridiculous amount of heartbreakingly broke people struggling to stay in a city that just simply doesn't take care of them seriously walking around in the wealthier areas like the cars you will see and the clothes people are wearing like do we need the Ferraris do we need 550b gym memberships I mean that's it tax to Rich close the wealth Gap take care of the city and its inhabitants we are all londoners and no one deserves black mold and no one deserves a Ferrari there's another thing though another thing that you can't really experience before you've lived here and that's just how gorgeous this city is and how gorgeous you become simply by being a Londoner like the feeling walking on these streets feeling like you belong like you are home and like all the Majestic old buildings are a part of your city it's like nothing else Dave and I say this every single time we have a day off just walking around that we fall in love over and over again with the city it's impossible to put your finger on just what makes it the best city that has ever lived maybe it's the balance of all the new like how the history is so incredibly rich and imp impressive and still so visible everywhere at the same time as it being so youthful and vibrant and trendy and light on its feet like the tradition and history don't weigh down the excitement and newness and like Metropolitan pulse of its people I love the smell I love the feel I love the people and honestly after more than 9 years in this city really there's no other place I'd Rather Be by now it's home and it's more home than any other place I've ever lived messy and chaotic and wealth gappy as it is I am proud to be a Londoner and I will use my voice and you know my vote to hopefully make it a more socialist liberal place to be in the future have you ever been to London maybe you've even lived here what was your impression did you love it or hate it and fellow londoners do you agree with me or is your experience different from mine I can't wait to hear your thoughts thank you so much for watching today and if you do have happen to see me wandering around on a London side street somewhere please come up and say hi I always love it when you do give me a like if you enjoy these type of cultural Quirk videos and don't forget to subscribe if you're new to my channel and yes I will see you very very soon lots of love for now and bye bye-bye [Music]

Channel: Jenny Mustard

Views: 35,087

Keywords: jenny mustard, living in london, london, moving to london, how to move to london, how to move country, move to the UK, Brexit, why I left London, the problem with London, Leaving London, Leaving the UK, Why I left the UK, brexit problem, London, London travel, visit london, move to london, the problem with the UK, british culture, moving abroad, why you should move, best country in the world, worst country in the world, happiest country in the world, best city in the world

Id: zxRUp2okv40

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024