'Can you make that coffee to stay please...'

London



Pro’s – Vibrant, cosmopolitan, loads going on, diverse, historic, the capital, cultural.
Con’s – Expensive, anonymous, lonely, EXPENSIVE, crowded, overwhelming.

There were two experiences I feel that really summed up my week down in London, one I liked a lot and one that made me think I didn’t like it all so much. The experience I liked: I went out for a few drinks with a work collegue and his friends. Sitting at the table were four of us, making up four different nationalities. Later in the week we went for a night out and there were seven of us, making up five different nationalities. This made me realise that London really is a place where so many different people of all different cultures come together, and that I really liked. Just travelling to work on the tube in the day, or getting around on the bus, I heard people talking in Spanish, French, Chinese, Urdu, Arabic and a whole host of other languages, almost as much as a heard people speaking English! This I really liked.

The experience that sticks in my mind as one I didn’t like so much in London was this: on my way to work in the morning, I had a bit of spare time so I stopped in Starbucks for a coffee and to read the paper. After ordering my drink I went to collect it, and without even asking it was automatically given in a ‘to go’ cup. This made me think…is it that absurd a notion that in London in the morning somebody might actually want to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee before going somewhere? It sounds like only a small thing but this experience actually really disturbed me! I looked around and realised that I was pretty much the only one that was actually sitting down and having a coffee. People would come in wearing their suits, go to the counter, get their coffee to go and walk out of the door, almost in one swift motion. This is a place where people know where they want to go, stick their head down and do things as fast as possible (“time is money! Time is money!”) and that is a mentality I don’t know if I could live with on a daily basis!

Anyway, back to the reason I was spending a week in London in the first place! Some of you may or may not know, for many years I have known that I want to pursue a career in newspaper journalism. Having spoken to numerous people, the best way to get ahead in such a competitive industry is really to spend as much time as possible working for free until one day where you may luckily find yourself in a job from where you can start climbing the ladder. Some how (as a result of persistance and applying over six months in advance!) I managed to get myself a work experience placement down at The Independent, and thus acted as a precurser to spending a week down in the capital.

My place of residence was the ‘International Student House’, which has a great location at the top of Great Portland Street, right in the West End. Not exactly the most lively place to stay for people looking for wild nights out, nor the cheapest either (£18 p/n for a four person dorm), but when booking a place to stay I was very concious of the fact I was going to London to work and therefore would like decent nights sleep! It is worth noting that the hostel doesn’t have a kitchen either which means breakfast, lunch and dinner must be purchased. All in all though, it was a very clean, cosy and friendly place to stay. It was pretty quiet, the first few nights I shared my dorm with only one other person, who’s name escapes me, that didn’t speak English.
I don’t think I’ll bore you with the day-to-day goings on of my work placement at the Independent, but it was a great experience and well worthwile (Simon Kelner, the editor, drinks tea out of a china cup and tea pot in the morning!). Obviously with me only being a first year undergraduate student I didn’t do a lot in terms of work for the paper, mostly researching things, however just being there and seeing how a national daily newspaper works on a day-to-day basis made the whole thing worthwile. It was great meeting all the people there as well, and seeing how they got to where they are. I spent most of my time hanging out with other people on work experience as well, mostly MA Journalism students from City University.

Just to point out…I got the bus down to London on the National Express shuttle from Birmingham. No stops the whole way and the trip took just under 3 hours. The return ticket cost just £4 :-) !

London is a fantastic place. I hadn’t spent any time down there for absolutely ages, and this was the first time I really got to experience spending any period of time longer than a day or two there for a very long time. There always seems to be so much going on, everywhere you look, and this makes it a really exciting place to be, even if you just wander round like I did and take it in. Although most of my time was spent around Canary Wharf and the Docklands, which is probably one of the areas I like least around London, all it took was a quick hop on the tube and I was in Angel, or Covent Garden, or Parliament Square.

I think I am going to have to start making more regular trips down to London. For £4 return and hostels from about £12 a night it really is the place to be, where things happen, and I think this is why I have decided I like it so much.