Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lived one year in london and one year in DC and agree on some similarities. I personally love London, it’s a bigger world than DC and I love that. But in my experience the biggest difference is not at the city level but between countries: free healthcare in the UK is a dealbreaker!

You could have gone private just like here, the difference being gorgeous facilities, cappuccinos on tap brought by the nurses, and doctors taking the time; none of which is the case in the US, no matter what

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about having lived in both London and DC. You can't really meaningfully compare your experience vacationing in a place with living there. If you haven't had to work in a place, pay taxes there, hire a plumber, or try to find a decent school for your kid, you dont really know it.

Most Americans would be horrified at the condition of rental apartments in the UK (run-down, no clothes dryers, no garbage disposals), much in the same way that Londoners would be horrified to discover the number of important US cities that are wholly inaccessible by public transit.

Most Americans would also be frustrated by the need to be on hold for 40 minutes starting at 8 am to get one of the NHS appointment slots available that day at your local surgery, with its 10000 person patient docket. They would also be shocked to hear the NHS mammogram lady say, "See you in 4 years." On the flip side, Americans would also be pleasantly surprised when their NHS mammogram, scheduled for 10:30, actually takes place at 10:30, something that you could be sure wouldnt happen in the US.

All European cities have small apartments with few amenities - it comes with being old and crowded... why pick on London?

London is much bigger and more crowded than most European cities. And even more expensive.

For people who have known London for a long time, what's changed in recent decades is significant population growth, in part driven by mass migration, which has added enormous pressures to the housing market and making everything much more expensive. The transit links are overburdened because there's more and more people crowded on the busses and trains. Even the NHS crisis is in part driven by the explosion in demand for NHS services by a growing population that is driven by migration. [b]People are actually now finally allowed to state what was the obvious for a long time without being judged/shamed as racist or bigoted, but the tension remains there. The average house size for new builds in Britain has shrunk noticeably in the last 20 years in response to this so most of the new flats in London are tiny, as well as in the rest of the country. The list of complaints goes on.

If you are well off or have privileged access to embassy resources, you are immune from much of this. I do still think London is a fantastic city but my tolerance for its quirks isn't what it was 20 years ago when it was a fairly different place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lived one year in london and one year in DC and agree on some similarities. I personally love London, it’s a bigger world than DC and I love that. But in my experience the biggest difference is not at the city level but between countries: free healthcare in the UK is a dealbreaker!

You could have gone private just like here, the difference being gorgeous facilities, cappuccinos on tap brought by the nurses, and doctors taking the time; none of which is the case in the US, no matter what

Anonymous wrote:I recently went back for private care and paid about $400 for a full physical with the head of department in a 4m tall walk room with windows and a coffee machine. The MD did the ultrasound and EKG etc herself. No insurance. England is or at least was awesome if you aren’t an ass

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about having lived in both London and DC. You can't really meaningfully compare your experience vacationing in a place with living there. If you haven't had to work in a place, pay taxes there, hire a plumber, or try to find a decent school for your kid, you dont really know it.

Most Americans would be horrified at the condition of rental apartments in the UK (run-down, no clothes dryers, no garbage disposals), much in the same way that Londoners would be horrified to discover the number of important US cities that are wholly inaccessible by public transit.

Most Americans would also be frustrated by the need to be on hold for 40 minutes starting at 8 am to get one of the NHS appointment slots available that day at your local surgery, with its 10000 person patient docket. They would also be shocked to hear the NHS mammogram lady say, "See you in 4 years." On the flip side, Americans would also be pleasantly surprised when their NHS mammogram, scheduled for 10:30, actually takes place at 10:30, something that you could be sure wouldnt happen in the US.

All European cities have small apartments with few amenities - it comes with being old and crowded... why pick on London?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m sort of enjoying the dopes who are so insecure they’ve been mesmerized by London and assume it’s intrinsically superior. The accents!!

Probably the only time you ever left the US.

The food is objectively trash. Yes, there are a handful of good restaurants; no sh&t, it’s a global financial center with 10 million people. But many, many “nice” restaurants serve bland, boiled produce. Beans (plain) are a breakfast staple. The leading condiment by a good margin is mayonnaise. Get the hell out of here with London being a food Mecca.

NHS is trash. Granted I’m rich, but US health care and even godawful US medical insurance are models of innovation and efficiency by comparison.

Immigration has gotten to a level that is gross and dangerous. (We’re catching up on this one, admittedly.)

The tube is OK as far as public transportation goes—it’s insanely crowded and hot as hell, but you can get anywhere. But here’s the rub: I don’t want to take public transportation. And driving (or being driven) is an absolute nightmare.

Buildings and hotel rooms and offices and restrooms have all manner of outdated (but affixed!) gadgetry, plugs that don’t work, visible piping, doors and lifts and carpets that haven’t been replaced in decades, the paint on buildings is cracked, garden walls and sidewalks in varying stages of disrepair. You’ll just be walking down the street and here’s a defunct valve sticking out of the wall with signage from pre-WW2. Ho-hum.

Guess that’s “chic”?

Forget London
Bradford and Derby will win you over.

Anonymous wrote:I recently went back for private care and paid about $400 for a full physical with the head of department in a 4m tall walk room with windows and a coffee machine. The MD did the ultrasound and EKG etc herself. No insurance. England is or at least was awesome if you aren’t an ass

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m sort of enjoying the dopes who are so insecure they’ve been mesmerized by London and assume it’s intrinsically superior. The accents!!

Probably the only time you ever left the US.

The food is objectively trash. Yes, there are a handful of good restaurants; no sh&t, it’s a global financial center with 10 million people. But many, many “nice” restaurants serve bland, boiled produce. Beans (plain) are a breakfast staple. The leading condiment by a good margin is mayonnaise. Get the hell out of here with London being a food Mecca.

NHS is trash. Granted I’m rich, but US health care and even godawful US medical insurance are models of innovation and efficiency by comparison.

Immigration has gotten to a level that is gross and dangerous. (We’re catching up on this one, admittedly.)

The tube is OK as far as public transportation goes—it’s insanely crowded and hot as hell, but you can get anywhere. But here’s the rub: I don’t want to take public transportation. And driving (or being driven) is an absolute nightmare.

Buildings and hotel rooms and offices and restrooms have all manner of outdated (but affixed!) gadgetry, plugs that don’t work, visible piping, doors and lifts and carpets that haven’t been replaced in decades, the paint on buildings is cracked, garden walls and sidewalks in varying stages of disrepair. You’ll just be walking down the street and here’s a defunct valve sticking out of the wall with signage from pre-WW2. Ho-hum.

Guess that’s “chic”?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about having lived in both London and DC. You can't really meaningfully compare your experience vacationing in a place with living there. If you haven't had to work in a place, pay taxes there, hire a plumber, or try to find a decent school for your kid, you dont really know it.

Most Americans would be horrified at the condition of rental apartments in the UK (run-down, no clothes dryers, no garbage disposals), much in the same way that Londoners would be horrified to discover the number of important US cities that are wholly inaccessible by public transit.

Most Americans would also be frustrated by the need to be on hold for 40 minutes starting at 8 am to get one of the NHS appointment slots available that day at your local surgery, with its 10000 person patient docket. They would also be shocked to hear the NHS mammogram lady say, "See you in 4 years." On the flip side, Americans would also be pleasantly surprised when their NHS mammogram, scheduled for 10:30, actually takes place at 10:30, something that you could be sure wouldnt happen in the US.

Whatever. Very easily overcome. We bought our own dryer. We rented a place we loved. The Embassy has a lot of private doctors you can see who are word class (literally a cappuccino in a palace plus heads of departments level
care) and cost less than most co-pays.

You can bhhhtch all you want but it’s this attitude that will make you miserable and uninvited everywhere. It’s so so sad. It sounds like you identify as South Asian but you telegraph Karen.

There’s nothing at all horrific about London unless you are a miser

I'm not the OP, and I'm a WASP, for what it is worth. I enjoyed my time in London, but it came with tradeoffs. I'm just pointing out that you don't know what those tradeoffs are, if the time you have spent in a place is a week in a Crowne Plaza.

(I could never have afforded private British health care on my British salary, not even with my US insurance.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Major world cities such as NYC, Tokyo, Seoul, London, Paris, Madrid, etc ALL suck. They appeal to too many hollow soulless jerks who think they just HAVE to live in a famous city or else they will be worthless.

This is not true. Some cities are wonderful. Have been to Paris? Barcelona? Amsterdam? These cities are stunningly beautiful, manage to feel green and natural despite being dense and urban, and offer extraordinary food, art, and architecture it is genuinely hard to find outside of a major city. I would live in any of those cities in a heartbeat even though I also like suburban and rural settings, and love nature, specifically because I find those cities balance nature and city life incredibly well.

I would never live in NYC or London, but when I visit, the museums are so special. I do envy people who can go to the Tate or MoMa on a random afternoon (and the museums in DC are a major thing I love about living here and something I struggle with giving up if we move).

Cities often have a "vibe" that just feels good to me. I can also get a good vibe from small towns or suburbs, but I can get it from cities too. Paris for sure has this, just this good feeling I get when I'm there because I can feel that I love a lot of things that other people who live their love -- fresh vegetables and quality clothing and classic architecture and very beautiful music and art. It feels good to be in a place where people love what you love, where many of them are engaged in making the things you love or sharing them.

The idea that people only live in cities because they have some weird obsession with being a city person or think living in a suburb or small town or even just a smaller city would make them worthless is so weird to me. I think it says more about you than about people who live in cities. And I say that as someone who loooooves suburbs and small towns, and has experienced the desire to move to places like Knoxville or Albuquerque after visiting them, so not exactly hot urban meccas.

Amsterdam is the worst