Always, always, always, when one is a teeny person and carrying a heavy load, everyone expects you to move out of the way for them. It seems, sadly, to be the way of the world.

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Though of course I am a *giant* person carrying a heavy load, which makes it perhaps more understandable. I just don't think it would happen in polite, considerate Seattle.

There is a sequel to this post in which I reveal that, while impeccably mannered, Seattlites are quite ridiculously aloof; they'll treat a stranger immaculately but never invite them around to tea. The upside of London's belligerent rudeness is that everybody gets it full in the face and has their day ruined by it on a regular basis, so it's easier to bond over it in the pub later. Paradoxically, it may be easier for truly friendly behaviour to shine forth in an awe-inspiringly unfriendly city...

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Gosh, so many complaints! You must be a true Londoner... However, I would say (and really, no offence intended) we tend to get a little defensive and tetchy when you spend so much verbiage decrying a place.

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First impressions upon return merely, but it is necessary for journalistic integrity to relate them honestly! I wouldn't have come back at all if I hadn't thought there was plenty to love about London too. Not too much of that is on the surface, is all ;)

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Sounds like a healthy dose of culture shock to me.

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Watch it, you're starting to sound like imomus...

No city is that welcoming when one is journey-worn, sleep-deprived and out of synch with its genius loci.

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imomus is a scholar and a gentleman! There is no LJer I'd rather bear comparison with.

London became more welcoming with the arrival of mono_bertie amd later miss_newham on the scene. London may be a harsh and thin-lipped mistress, but that's not to say she doesn't bring out the best in her many orphan charges.

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Get out of my friends page! I'm a busy journaller!! Don't have TIME! Mind the GAP!!

See you after Glasto :)

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I thought the reason you had moved to the US in the first place is tyou wanted to change the world.

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I wanted to change myself. And I think I have.

It's the only possible first step if you want to change your world. Stop blaming it for your problems and start looking at how you fit into it; or let yourself be fit into it without a fight.

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Welcome back! I demand to meet you.

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I'm sure it can be arranged! Not that we did a great job of organising ourselves in the months before I left ;)

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Welcome back. You should have eyeballed the prim briefcase-carrying gentleman. It would've been a rest from walking for a bit, and a larf too.

-x-

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Americans don't run over people in their cars because it gets very lawsuity very quickly.

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I'm not quite sure of the letter of the UK road laws, but what the Americans do seems eminently sensible: give pedestrians the absolute right of way, but fine them if they arse about in the road instead of using provided crosswalks. Good for everyone!

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It's good to have you back.

With your return, the average IQ of people in London has now zoomed up to a mighty 87.9 :)

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From, what, about 10? ;)

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Outside, crossing the road, I was shocked and surprised when a car failed to decelerate on seeing me but whizzed past at speed, six inches from my feet at most...Four months was all it took me to forget that it's nearly the mathematical inverse of this that holds true in the UK

*cough* Los Angeles *cough*

Seriously - more hit and runs in the area where I live here that I've ever heard of in a comparable time frame in London.

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Well, if you must choose the heat-addled south for your American adventures...

I think it's fortunate that the British are a nation of good drivers and cautious pedestrians, because there's a lot more improvisation that goes on on both sides here that's got to be accidents waiting to happen.

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God, those keep lefters are vey adamant, aren't they?! I had a formidable old lady chastise me about that when I was in London. Everybody behind her just rolled their eyes/glared at me.

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There's a myth that British people find queueing much less objectionable than members of other races. In fact, that's not true at all: the British *loathe* queueing. But they tolerate it for the occasional opportunity it affords to tear strips off the hapless person who joins the line at the wrong end, or otherwise breaks the formal laws of the occasion. Nothing's more fun than self-righteous tutting and moaning, it seems.

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Your experience of returning to London reminds me of exactly why I left.

To be fair though, London is never more vile that when you're several hundred feet under it, and in the height of summer.

It's good to have you back, though!

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I'd move to lovely Bedfordshire like a shot if I thought there was a niche for me there, and visit my London friends at weekends! Alas, I suspect it's easier for native sons of the area...

It's good to be back. Being able to post at a time when 90% of my flist isn't asleep is truly a thing beyond price.

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Special mention to the prim briefcase-carrying gentleman who, finding someone tottering under an evidently barely manageable weight of bags in this path, refused to step to one side but stopped dead in his tracks inches in front of my face forcing me to heave my burden around him, presumably because walking on the left side he knew his was the technical right of way

I've found myself in this situation before, especially on a Friday morning. Me and some fellow tube commuter find our respective ways blocked by the other and just stand there for an age, until one of us (finally!) realises "maybe he's as hungover as I am and just assuming, like me, that this problem will solve itself if he stands immobile for long enough". Then, of course, nothing further happens as one of us works out that the response to this thought is to move ourselves but fails to achieve this elementary feat. The diorama usually ends with one of us sort of sliding past the other against whichever wall we both turn out to be leaning on.

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As much as I love Seattle, I'd give anything to be in London for a while... for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. London challenges a person... forces you to work for the rewards of living there. Makes me feel alive just thinking about it.
Even so, Seattle misses you. Justin and I saw the verlaine-a-like at Cafe Vita yesterday and it just wasnt the same.

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I think you've hit the nail on the head. The fact that it's going to be more of a challenge to make things work here is *why* I've come back in many ways. Am I going to spend my entire life avoiding facing hard things and problems? I am not, madam - I'm going to take them on and beat them senseless ;)

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To be fair there are a LOT more pedestrians in Britain than in the States. If drivers stopped for everyone trying to cross the road, they'd never get anywhere.

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And, also to be fair, I got repeatedly pissed off by the crosswalks of, e.g., the outlying district of Bellevue, which could take up to what seemed about 5 minutes to change the lights to allow a poor pedestrian to dash through a lull in the roaring traffic. I don't see why UK folk feel the *need* to jaywalk when the traffic lights are so much more sympathetic to their needs!

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And yet I'm moving to London anyways. Sometimes I forget why (oh, I have an SO, that's right). It's so much trouble packing all my belongings up, and I'm spending more weeks about it than you are. I will especially miss the green of Toronto. The neighborhood I live in is intensely gardened by retired Portugese gentlemen who devote their entire lives to a square of grass or dirt. Lovely green tranquility.

I hope that London will have more good sides after sleep.

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I assure you Senor verlaine, London has its beautiful sides. Sometimes it's just very very very very difficult to see it amidst all the shit. Setttle down, get accustomed to the place again, go for a wander. It's an enchanting whore of a city, a bitch goddess if you will.

And cheers for the myxrayeyes plug. It's been a bit quiet there recently. It needs a kick up the backside.

xx

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Hmmm...perhaps you should have been in NYC. The shock of going back might be less severe; nobody seems to accuse NYC of being too polite. I still kind of prefer it to my home town...

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NYC next time I get a yearning for life across the oceans, perhaps. It *is* where I was born.

Then again, I've left some significant pieces of my heart on the West Coast now, and maybe I'll have no choice but to go back form them.

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I liked Seattle too. I hope we get to hang out on a tube walk again soon and if London gets you down I'd be very willing to drag you round Brighton for a day.

I'm glad you got back safely. (Hug)

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Trips to Brighton in the summertime are always a good idea. And I will of course be on every single tubewalk that I'm in the same country as!

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I actually get miffed when Seattle drivers stop for me as a jaywalker. They're messing up my timing, damnit! Then I have to stand there in front of their car, waiting for the other lane(s) to clear. Which, of course, they didn't think about--they were to busy being self-righteously polite! Idiots. I usually just wave them on.

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Yes indeed, I hate when drivers make way for me. So much so that when I'm intending to cross a street, I always pretend I'm not so that nobody will slow down. I'm not in a hurry, there's plenty of time for me to cross between vehicles, I don't see why people should waste their time and fuel bringing a huge mass of metal to a stop and back up to speed again just for me.

I kind of which people would *never* slow down for a person crossing in front of them (except when there's crossing lights or what-have-you), since there's generally plenty of time to cross in a gap even in heavy traffic, a-la frogger, but I can never actually *do* that because it would make people slam on their brakes and cause accidents. So I'm forced to wait for no real reason. Bah.

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Welcome back. My experience suggests that keeping to the right of the footpath is the generally received norm. Exceptions tend to be where the path is not quite wide enough to allow two people to pass in opposite directions (safety dictates keeping left); and when one is a slow-moving pedestrian (keep to the side furthest away from the traffic.)

Now get some sleep, get out there, and change the world like you know you want to.

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Try reading myxrayeyes all at once instead of piecemeal: how long before it ceases to seem like hilarious japes and just starts getting you down?

At first, it got me down. Then I found this, and started longing for my very own wall and cultured vandal...

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I liked that one.

It's not London, but I loved this:

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If Seattle charged London prices for public transport, nobody would use it. Supply and demand > municipal planning.

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welcome to hell. simulaneously more and less fun than you imagine.

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Very nicely put!

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