London
 

wife and i are thinking of moving to London, as a designer and a sysadmin. Any comments/suggestions? Places to look to live?

go to scotland instead :thumbsup

I hate London :ak47:

Not suggesting anything, of course :) I just find the place very depressing.

my brother lives there, and is moving to france in the next year...

why?

I think London is cool.

I was there twice, and I just felt depressed for the entire trip. The only reason I came back there was that I just had to do something there. I don't know why I felt this way, but I sure did. I'm sure it's just me, as everyone I know likes it there. :) Have you ever been there before?

Nope :) I like the idea though, and san diego is getting old. its nice and all, but...well, live here long enough and your soul starts to disappear...

Stoke Newington is the place to be........ its in central London and has a real sort of "village in the city" atmoshere.

Very cosmopolitan with lots of Cypriots, Jews, Africans etc. The best restuarants in the city are here as well, esp if you like turkish and Thai food.

It has buses every 30-60 secs into the west end at peak times and a train to Liverpool St that takes about 7 mins to "The City" which is the financial center.

Grat pubs also. You will find me in the Rochester Castle most nights! :)

Good luck

u will have to learn english again :)

:) lol

Plan to double or even tripple your cost of living from US prices. And the exchange rate is getting worst, so if you're paid in US dollars, your money will buy less as time goes on.

Why go to that dreary weathered place mate? Come to aus!

I was actually looking at AUS.. i've had enough of london, moving to Suffolk for a year then gonna take it from there, had a few family members move already, what are the prices like out there?

found it a place that you love one minute hate the next..

also found the winters pretty depressing.

St John's Wood is a nice area or somewhere near Hampstead.

cup o tea, mary poppins, bad food worse weather
london.

Ok, in summary:

Central London: Very expensive
East London: Shithole
South London: Mega shithole
North London: Better
West London: Better

Naturally there are pockets of good and bad (except South which is a shithole).

Plan on cutting your living space in half if you want to pay what you are paying now.. everything else is exactly double the cost here..

I definitely wish I was back over there.. loved it.. every minute! personally if you have no kids or anything.. live in the city.. either north or northwest (if you have money hit up chelsea)

good luck!

I love London as a city, but economically, it doesn't seem to make sense. The pound is a real killer.

A situation likely to get worse.

if relocating, i recommend warm and sunny puerto rico.:winkwink:

London is great, house prices here arent.

London is very beautiful and great city for trips and vacation, but I wouldn't go live there......

I usted to live there for 9 months and it was enough, no more...:)

I love London. No matter what your interests and hobbies you'll find something to do, day or night. And culturally it's up there in the top few cities in the world.

But it is expensive and house prices are ridiculous at the moment. :2 cents:

Move to Dublin, Ireland instead.

Too expensive!

Expensive. :warning

I loved London when I was there. But I was only there for 4 days. I think the weather would depress me. Other than that it was a great city!

seems to be a recurring theme in this thread. I should point out that I currently live in San Diego. Not cheap here either. Though the dollar<->pound rate sucks.

I lived there for a year and a half.

The plus side:
1) It's really cool and exotic the first couple weeks
2) The women love American guys
3) The Chinese food and popcorn is awesome
4) The Judo is good over there (go to the Budokwai)
5) It's fun yelling at people to drive on the correct side of the road

The negative:
1) The weather sucks...except for about 2 weeks out of the year, it's always cold and wet
2) The food sucks really bad (except for the Chinese food and popcorn, as noted above)
3) It's expensive
4) It's very easy to get ripped off
5) There's a tax on TV

ahaha ive only ever lived in leyton and elephant and castle :) london has nice parts? :P

I dunno about the Judo but I'd say the rest of this is spot on. I usually hang with friends in Stoke Newington or Tottenham when I'm in London so I definitely give them the thumbs up.

People say New York is too expensive but in all honesty NYC is nothing when you look at the cost of living in London. They charge like $4 PER LITER of gasoline! Not gallon but PER LITER! That place is insane. A Big Mac value meal will run you $8 or more after exchange rates are factored in.

um, 1 gallon is 3.8 liters...


edited because some fucker can't code correctly, and "equals equals" isn't legal.

Thats the second vote for Stoke Newington :thumbsup

Ever get into the Rochester Castle PornWolf?

its the dope, honest

/hangs head

The best city on earth for my tastes but you need money if you are going to even think of buying a place and rent isn't exactly low either.

That said, if London is the type of place that gets under your skin you will have little choice but to stay here becaue there isn't another place exactly like it.

:1orglaugh And you need to fix your teeth......

No, it's 4.54 over here. And it's not $4 per litre - we spell it differently too - but about $1.60. Soon be $4 though, given the way the $'s going down the pan.

And for whoever suggested that you'd need to learn English again if you came over here, we'd obviously argue that the word "again" was superfluous..

--Dave

its expensive and crowded

yeah it rocks

I can help you out with a short term place to stay whilst you find a longer term flat. I specialise in providing quality short term accommodation at discounted prices to adult webmasters :)

Email me funkmachine ^at^ gmail <dot> com.

IMHO the coolest place to live long term is south Notting Hill close to Portobello Road. Especially if you're a Septic Tank.

Although Stoke Newington is nice in the village bit, the rest of it sucks, there is no transport unless you want to get on a bus with all the mentally ill out patients and although not common knowledge, Stoke Newington has the highest concentration of lesbians in the world. And they are not the lipstick variety either. They all look like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.

So there you go :)

london is a great place, but expensive as fuck

1) You were unlucky with the weather then. For the most part London has fairly decent weather - it's further North where it tends to rain every day :(
2) Only if you can't afford to eat at decent places. There's a shit load of VERY good restaurants if you like eating out covering every style you can think of. That really is a daft comment.
3) Yes
4) yes but so is it in any major city - that's the price you pay for living in one.
5) Not quite. There's a yearly license fee you pay for some advert free TV and radio channels that even occassionally produce world class content (less so these days than in the past though). People debate it's value all the time but personally I', happy enough to pay less than £2 a week to escape all the ads now and again.

Main point though is the cost living really is too expensive. London's a fun place but not THAT fun to justify the cost.

You mean the weather up north is even worse :).

I have enjoyed nice summers in London, but the rest of the year the weather sucked.

true but every day fruit and vegetables are never as fresh and you can taste it. It's something I really noticed coming from New Zealand.

Sure you could eat at Gordon Ramsay's restuarant every night but sometimes you just want some nice fruit and veges.

There are many great things about London, but it's not the weather or food (restaurants excluded).

LOL you totally agree then :1orglaugh

Yes there are some nice parts, but in the end I moved away.

cool, nice place to move!

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Having lived in central London for my whole 56 years on this planet... The first 50 in the centre of town in the equivalent to NY's 5th Ave and now I'm in the Chelsea/Fulham area...

The most important point I have to make is... It isn't cheap... Compare London to New York and what ever you pay in $$$ there you pay in ££££ here. in fact London is the second or third most expensive city in the world according to most reports... That's the biggest downer but...

All of London is cosmopolitan... It is almost a twin to N.Y except we still have all the homeless begging ouside ATM's which has been cleaned up over there. Night life is great if you're a clubber and bar tramp.

Living south of the Thames is a pain if you don't have your own transport as public transport isn't as good as north of the river. If you're planning to rent a property in central London then be prepared to pay from £750-1000 a month as a minimum for a decent 1 bedroom flat... You will then have what is known as council tax to pay and this varies from borough to borough. I pay almost as much for a 1 bedroom loft apartment worth £400k in mine as a friend who lives in a 4 floor, 4 bedroom house worth £1.5 million in the borough next to mine.. Expect you tax to be from £60-170 per person per month !!

I've quoted you in UK£'s so you can work out for yourself in US$ what it costs...

I really don't think it's a daft comment at all. Being as I can't cook, I ate out all the time during that year and a half, so I samples tons of different restaurants. They do have good Chinese food, which is WAY better than we have in the States, and there are some good restaurants, but in general the food is not near as good as in the States. You can't judge an area by the exceptions...you have to take into account what the norm is. And the norm isn't on par with the average places I've eaten at in other countries. But hey...that's my opinion.

Nope, I haven't made it 'round. What part of town is that in?