Category: Living

Things I never did

Royal Wedding Flag on my Rucksack — Photo by René Ehrhardt

London is a beautiful and exciting city.

Earlier on this blog I mentioned how one of the best things about London is knowing you can do all these wonderful things, if you want to, while most of the evenings are spent indoors and most of the weekends are spent close to home.

I feel I need to get to know London better, to enjoy it a little bit more. From today on I will attempt at doing as many new things as possible. Life has the habit of getting in the way, so I won’t commit to a specific number or a specific frequency. Keeping this challenge until December is as much a commitment as I am willing to make.

Suggestions are welcome. It can be something from going to the end of the Piccadilly line to visiting Buckingham Palace, anything can count as new.

Living Streets

Crouch End

I moved again, in the beginning of December. I narrowed my search for a new place to live to Balham and Crouch End: both seemed like village-type areas, where you could spend a quiet weekend without having to go into town.

Crouch End won merely because the first suitable place I found was there.

And I’m delighted that it happened like that…

It’s so easy to fall in love with this part of London. It is indeed a village inside the city, close, but far enough from all the buzz. It has all the kind of stores you need. All the types of food you’ll ever desire. Pubs and coffee shops. Florists. Parks. A farmers’ market that sells Portuguese delicacies. What else do I need?

I’m still, slowly, discovering all the interesting spots in Crouch End, but I’m really glad I ended up here. I wonder for how long I’ll stay.

Living Miscellaneous

2012

Post author By yaili
Post date 13 October, 2010
7 Comments on 2012

The original plan was to try London for one year.
Six months later, it was clear that year was going to be at least two.

Initially I never thought I’d be in town for 2012—or even to see through the end of my (first) 18-month O2 contract—, but, as weeks go by in the glimpse of an eye, it’s looking more and more likely.

Living

Looking for a home

I’ve been looking for a new place to live for the last couple of weeks. I like the prospect of a new adventure somewhere new, but the actual process of looking comprises so many things that I tend to avoid… it’s nerve-wrecking.

It’s time-consuming, you have to be prepared to be rejected and to say no, you have to make uninformed choices based on the first impressions, you have to budget and think about money. Afterward, you have to adapt to a new setting, you have to change your habits, you have to get used to new people.

It’s stressful, at least for me. Evenings lost on Gumtree, scrutinising every ad, and then, going around London hoping to find the perfect place.

I have picked my favourite. They haven’t picked me yet though. We’ll see what happens.