So I just got back from London. Though it was way too short, I had a real blast. It was my first time travelling alone, and I didn't regret it. The people I met there were awesome. I met people from England, Scotland, Germany and even Slovenia! SLOVENIA! I didn't even know that country existed, I thought it was made up and existed only in fairy tales like neutral Switzerland...

But the trip made me realise a couple of well-known and not so well-known fact about London

1. London is really clean

I mean REAALLY clean. I don't remember seeing litter anyway on the streets. This is something highly uncommon for a Montrealer, cause out here, the sidewalks are like miniature dumpyards. Maybe it was the old-fashionned paved roads that distracted me from seeing garbage... or sorry, rubbish. Apparently, they don't say garbage or litter in the UK, cause all I saw were warning signs against throwing "rubbish" on the ground...

2. London is thin

Again, I'm seeing this from my Canadian point of view. When you're used to seeing fat people overrun the subway system and the sidewalks, it's kind of confusing to see a city when there's barely NO FAT PEOPLE. So I was there for only 6 days and didn't go that far into the city, but everywhere I went, the only fat people I saw where obviously tourists.

3. London as a good subway system, but complicated

In Montreal, we have 4 lines. That's it. 4 lines. In London, I didn't even bother counting how many lines there were, it was too big of a chore. Plus, some lines branch at some points, so you have to be careful cause some trains on the same platform go different ways. So I once lost myself for 40 minutes on the Northern Line and when I finally arrived to destination, I had to go back, cause it was midnight and the lines were closing down. Speaking of which...

4. London closes at midnight

Or earlier for some pubs...
WHAT THE HELL, LONDON?!? You call yourself a metropolis?!?
Fine, there are some clubs closing later and there are night buses, but pubs closing at 11?!? WTF?!?
You better man up next time I'm there!

5. London is expensive

This one is pretty much saying the obvious. But when I heard that the pound was worth about twice as much as our dollar, I thought that things would at least have a lower price to make up for the difference in currency. Nope, I was wrong, it's the same. A 9$ dinner in montreal is a 9 pound dinner in London... I'd love to live in London, since it has the same vibe as Montreal, but the price of life there kind puts a huge dent in my plans :(

6. The british accent is a bitch to understand when English ain't your first language

WHat was that? What? The street? What's with the street? I have a what? SPEAK UP DAMMIT! ARTICULATE!

Basically, I can say that I had a real blast and I will definitely be there next week, whatever the plans are. For those who think NGers are all a bunch of nerdish 15 y.o., you should come at these meet-ups. I know I met enough people to have free hosting on my travels for the next 5 years! I'm such a whore :)

In conclusion, here's my checklist of everything typically british I was able to do :

- Eating Fish and Chips - Check
- Greasy Spoon breakfast - Check
- Visiting Big Ben and the London Bridge - Check
- Checking out the Buckingham palace - Check
- Riding a black cab on the other side of the road - Check
- Checking out musicals (Spamalot and Avenue Q for me) in Leceister Square - Check
- Getting harrassed by two drunk guys from Liverpool in the tube - Check
- Seeing a black guy stab a fat guy that's punching him in the face - Check

Oh wait, that last one is not typically british...
And I'm not being racist, that's what happened. We have no idea who started it, but when we got there, that's what we saw...

So now I'm broke, tired and a bit sad of having to go back to work tomorrow, but damn, was it worth it or what! Thanks NG people and Luis for this cool experience. I would've never visited London if it wasn't for this meet-up! :)