Sunday was planned to get a lot of sleep before the busy week ahead, chat with friends and family in Skype, go check the district where I planned to move later and meet a girl from the Estonian embassy in London.
I started with buying a travel card.
London Transport
London is not actually expensive in everything. Groceries and necessities are pretty cheap here, but property and transport are so provokingly expensive, that they make London one of the most expensive cities in the world. There are 3 main public transport kinds in London: the Tube (metro), buses and trams. You can buy single tickets at the Ticket Stations and in the automatic tickets' machines in the underground, or you can buy an electronic Oyster card and load money there. Every time you go in and out the Tube you swipe the card, the system fixes the beginning and the end of the journey, calculates the fare and deducts it from the card balance. Topping up the balance is easy and can be done everywhere, even online.
London is divided into 6 transport zones, which start from central London (zone 1) and then surround the center with wide belts (zones 2 to 6). The fare depends on how many zones you cross. There are different fares for peak and off-peak times, the minimum fare for one trip is £2.20, if you do not use monthly or annual "subscriptions" on the card. Now you see, London transport is expensive.
Buses and trams are cheaper and it doesn't matter how far you go (but one line doesn't go very far either). You pay when you enter the bus, so the more you change buses, the more expensive it becomes. One trip is £1.45.
Buses are still two-level omnibuses, the latest models look absolutely futuristic. This year is declared the year of the bus in London, and from 6th of July, buses are cash-free, it means you cannot pay for the ticket on the bus with cash, you must go and get yourself either a single paper ticket or an Oyster card.
Barnet
So, I went to Barnet. It is the farthest northern district of London, and is considered a good, pretty wealthy one. There are chinese, pakistani, russian, lithianian, indian districts and many more. People pick where to live also based on national preferences, and group together. According to internet sources Barnet is a jewish-british-japanese district. Although, wandering down the streets in Barnet I noticed lots of other nationalities on the street as well, the majority of people indeed looked european.
If I am to give a word to Barnet, it is "a village". If I am allowed a bit more words, it would be "a quiet victorian village". Some streets are much older than the others - you can say that by the aging asphalt on the roads, others are pretty new, with new housing developments going on, but they are mostly victorian style two-storey houses with a bunch of greenery and flowers in the front garden.
Having walked two underground stations I took a train from West Finchley and went back to central London.
Showers
In the evening with met with Merje, who have been working in Estonian embassy in London for two years already. We met at Marble Arch, and planned to walk in the parks, but didn't get anywhere as it started raining. I would even say pouring, and Merje said it was very unusual for London to have strong showers. So we chatted standing with coffee cups in Pret-a-Manger filled with people hiding from the rain. In an hour it was sunny again and we could go home. Tomorrow would be my first working day.
I started with buying a travel card.
London Transport
London is not actually expensive in everything. Groceries and necessities are pretty cheap here, but property and transport are so provokingly expensive, that they make London one of the most expensive cities in the world. There are 3 main public transport kinds in London: the Tube (metro), buses and trams. You can buy single tickets at the Ticket Stations and in the automatic tickets' machines in the underground, or you can buy an electronic Oyster card and load money there. Every time you go in and out the Tube you swipe the card, the system fixes the beginning and the end of the journey, calculates the fare and deducts it from the card balance. Topping up the balance is easy and can be done everywhere, even online.
London is divided into 6 transport zones, which start from central London (zone 1) and then surround the center with wide belts (zones 2 to 6). The fare depends on how many zones you cross. There are different fares for peak and off-peak times, the minimum fare for one trip is £2.20, if you do not use monthly or annual "subscriptions" on the card. Now you see, London transport is expensive.
Buses and trams are cheaper and it doesn't matter how far you go (but one line doesn't go very far either). You pay when you enter the bus, so the more you change buses, the more expensive it becomes. One trip is £1.45.
Buses are still two-level omnibuses, the latest models look absolutely futuristic. This year is declared the year of the bus in London, and from 6th of July, buses are cash-free, it means you cannot pay for the ticket on the bus with cash, you must go and get yourself either a single paper ticket or an Oyster card.
Barnet
So, I went to Barnet. It is the farthest northern district of London, and is considered a good, pretty wealthy one. There are chinese, pakistani, russian, lithianian, indian districts and many more. People pick where to live also based on national preferences, and group together. According to internet sources Barnet is a jewish-british-japanese district. Although, wandering down the streets in Barnet I noticed lots of other nationalities on the street as well, the majority of people indeed looked european.
If I am to give a word to Barnet, it is "a village". If I am allowed a bit more words, it would be "a quiet victorian village". Some streets are much older than the others - you can say that by the aging asphalt on the roads, others are pretty new, with new housing developments going on, but they are mostly victorian style two-storey houses with a bunch of greenery and flowers in the front garden.
Having walked two underground stations I took a train from West Finchley and went back to central London.
Showers
In the evening with met with Merje, who have been working in Estonian embassy in London for two years already. We met at Marble Arch, and planned to walk in the parks, but didn't get anywhere as it started raining. I would even say pouring, and Merje said it was very unusual for London to have strong showers. So we chatted standing with coffee cups in Pret-a-Manger filled with people hiding from the rain. In an hour it was sunny again and we could go home. Tomorrow would be my first working day.
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