Earlier this month I celebrated my fifth anniversary in the UK by doing two of my favourite things: Going for a walk along the South Bank and treating myself to a new book. I cannot believe it has been five years. In many ways I feel like I arrived here yesterday. But no, it has been five years, two jobs, two homes, two cats, one pandemic, one boyfriend, one cost of living crisis, hundreds of books added to by TBR, and many new friends.
I haven’t regretted moving countries for one second, but of course there are things about Belgium that I miss. Every time I go back there and I see friends and family I get a glimpse of what my life would have looked like if I would have stayed, but I’m always happy to return home.
Still, I think this is the perfect time to look at some of the things I miss in London, as well as my favourite things about living here. Let’s go!
I miss…
having a relaxed dinner
I miss going for lunch or dinner and just sitting there for a couple of hours. Almost every place here has a time limit, usually of around 75 to 90 minutes. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a drink and a sandwich in a cafe in Islington and they told me I could only sit on their patio for 25 minutes max. Are you joking? Well, so much for enjoying my drink and reading my book in peace.
In the five years I’ve been here I’ve had one dinner where I was able to stay for hours and hours, but it was an expensive work thing where the manager kept ordering fancy bottles of wine. Unless you have the means to visit those places, you always feel like the second you’ve swallowed your last bite, you’re expected to leave and you’re taking up other people’s space.
driving
I know it sounds weird to say ‘I want to drive more’, but I genuinely love driving and I barely do it here. Although I do have a car, my driving experience is completely different. I miss living a five-minute drive away from the motorway. Now, it takes me 45 minutes to get out of the city. I miss being able to just drive to another country (The Netherlands, Germany, France) for the weekend like it’s nothing.
Overall I don’t love driving in England, to be honest. Parking is an absolute nightmare, even when you go outside of London. Public car parks (if there even are any) just all look a bit dingy and there aren’t that many. I could also do without the millions of roundabouts and this anxiety-inducing rule that when you approach the roundabout, you already need to know which lane you need to be in to exit. And if you’re wrong because, I don’t know, it’s incredibly confusing and stressful, well, then you better add 10 minutes to your arrival time because British drivers are not exactly the most courteous.
efficiency
Okay, I have to be honest here and say that Belgium is far from a good example of an efficient country, but the UK is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Nothing ever gets fixed and if you call any company or service to help you, 9 out of 10 you will be completely ignored or ghosted. In both flats I’ve lived in I’ve had several urgent issues with broken boilers, leaks, water damage etc, and every single time I’ve had to chase at least six months to get any response, and usually around a year before anything gets fixed.
I have so many examples of myself or friends paying for a service only for someone to come over, have a look and say ‘Yep, that’s broken. But fixing it is too much work, I don’t feel like doing that.’ This, of course, is all happening while you’re paying astronomical amounts of service charge for those exact services, because the one thing they do without mistake every year is increase that. A friend of mine’s ceiling came down one morning. Where all the other points on this list are rather trivial, this is a more serious and concerning matter, because it’s this shocking level of negligence and lack of caring that leads to disasters, like what happened at Grenfell.
reasonable train prices
As someone who is from a country where commuting into work gets paid for by the employer, the fact that so many people spend thousands of pounds on simply travelling to the place they need to get to to make money, will never cease to blow my mind. When I worked a little bit outside of London, driving to work was more than five times cheaper than taking public transport. Recently a friend told me that he pays £610 per month on commuting into work. £610. That’s more than some people’s rent. At my current job I have had several colleagues tell me that they would have to quit if our employer decided we had to be in the office more.
When I need to travel out of London I hardly ever take a train because it’s so much cheaper to drive. And while train prices are extortionate, the quality isn’t any better than what I’m used to in Belgium (which is also shit, but at least it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg).
being close to everyone
Belgian cities are tiny compared to London. In Antwerp I could meet up with friends and no matter where in the city they lived, we could all get to our bar or restaurant of choice within 15 minutes. Here, I consider myself lucky if my journey takes less than an hour. Of course that’s just a London thing, you can live in a smaller UK city that’s more compact. But my experience in the UK has been that none of my friends live close, so meeting up with them is always a bit of a faff. And sometimes I miss knowing that most people I know, as well as all of my favourite spots, are all within a short distance.
I love…
London’s bustling streets and quiet villages
I know I just said I miss the convenience of a smaller city sometimes, but London’s size is also by far my favourite thing about it. I LOVE that there are so many walks, so many nice areas, so many things to go do and see, all without having to leave the city. Every time I decide to spend a day out in London I get to make the incredibly difficult decision which area I want to go to. Do I want to feel the hustle and bustle and visit my favourite shops? Do I want to feel like I’m in a tiny village even though I’m still in the city? Do I want to escape into nature? Do I want to just stroll around and look at gorgeous houses? London has it all.
There are so many great areas that I often spend the day somewhere and tell myself ‘Wow, I need to come here more often!’ and then before I know it a year has passed and when I go there again so much has changed that it feels like the first time.
bookshop (and the prices of books!)
Oh, the bookshops. London is just every book lover’s heaven, isn’t it? There are so many incredible and unique bookshops that I would struggle to pick favourites. In Flanders every city I know has about one or two nice bookshops that I like and the prices are just so much higher. Of course most of the books those shops sell are in Dutch, and those prices are honestly shocking sometimes.
This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I’ve only recently really discovered second-hand bookshops. I was aware of their existence of course, but I assumed they would only have very old books or very typical beach reads on their shelves. Oh how wrong I was! Now I can’t go into an Oxfam bookshop without seeing at least ten books that I have on my wishlist. What a dream!
anonymity
I think I will just always be someone who prefers to live in a big city. I loved my five years in Antwerp, but towards the end I couldn’t leave my house anymore without constantly running into people I knew, and I knew it was time to leave. I enjoy the anonymity that living in a city like London offers. Nobody cares about you in the best possible way.
the travel options
Okay, driving abroad is a bit more of a hassle when you’re on an actual island, but the UK has so many options for holidays or weekend getaways. I have a list of thirty ideas for day trips that are all within a two hour drive from London.
entertainment
If you know anything about me, you know that I’m a homebody. Most days I just stay at home and my weekends don’t get much wilder than spending the day in coffee bars and bookshops. But when I go out, I’m so grateful every time that everything you could possibly wish for entertainment-wise is at my doorstep. An artist goes on tour? They always come here. The biggest plays will at some point appear on the West End. Every interesting exhibition, workshop, you name it, can be found in London.
the stories the city has to tell
My favourite thing about living here, without a doubt. I love walking past old buildings, parks and shopfronts and imagining what these places have seen. How many people have laughed and cried here, loved and lost. People would look at these buildings through their carriage windows and now we take pictures of them with our newest iPhones. That’s mind-boggling to me.
This city has inspired hundreds of writers and artists. Vincent Van Gogh lived a couple of streets away from where I live now and he wrote to friends about going for walks in the area. The same streets that I walk down to go to my local Lidl. I once heard someone say that for many people the reason they want to live in a big old city is superficial: They want to feel like they’re the main character and the city is their backdrop. That’s probably true in my case, but so what? Life is short and if I want to feel like I’m channelling my inner Bridget Jones or Downton Abbey character, who can stop me?
The past five years haven’t always been easy, but I’m convinced that moving when I did was the best decision I could have possibly made for myself. London is my home now, and I think it will be for a long time.
Thank you for reading! Do you live in a big city? Why (not)? Let me know in the comments!