Welcome to London

I'm writing this post as sitting in Heathrow's sparkling Terminal 5, leaving London via the same port where three weeks earlier I arrived here to (re)start my life as a management consultant. I started that job two weeks ago, returning to my firm after a two year absence for my MBA, and tonight I fly to Tel Aviv to start work in earnest, beginning my first full project, this time for an Israeli software company. I'm excited about the new gig, but feel that I should take a moment to reflect upon my first few weeks in the city which is to be my ostensible home for the next two years.

About a year ago, my firm contacted me and asked me where I wanted to go. Having the good graces of many of my higher-ups, I could have effectively picked any city in the world to go to. I chose London. At the time it didn't seem like that difficult a decision. I wanted to work internationally, and London seemed to be one of the most "international" of cities. Work here would give me access to a dazzling array of opportunities, and aquaint me with a truly global class of professionals. In that sense, London did not disappoint. It's interesting to note that among the associates starting at my firm this month NOT ONE is British. The single exception is my purely technical status as a Royal subject, conferred by the accident of my birth in the odd choice of Dundee.

In other manners, London has proven to be something of a difficult place to move to. Firstly, it is mind-blowingly expensive. Everything is literally twice the price as California. Secondly, it is very hard to get around. The city is amazingly spread out, in stark contrast to my previous city-home of New York.

This horizontal quality bestoes London with a dazzling number of neighborhoods, all with their own characters, transport difficulties, and poor housing stock. In New York, one must choose between a handful of neighborhoods. If I were returning to NYC, I would live in either the East Vilage, or the West Village. I might try Brooklyn Heights. In London, I spent a week looking for apartments, and seriously considered not fewer than a dozen areas. From Islington to Chiswick, from Fulham to Marlybone, I crossed and re-crossed the capital in the somewhat less than pleasant company of dozens of "estate agents", competing for the commission that would come from flogging me one of their exclusive stock of listed rental homes.

I saw no fewer than 50 "flats", and then still not quite satisfied the selection, just chose the best I had seen out of sheer exasperation. On the multiple dimensions I was considering (size, quality, furnishings, location, convenience, and price) I ended up giving up only location. My flat is in Earls Court, probably one of the last ungentrified neighborhoods in London's "Zone One" inner core. It appears to be the last refuge of denim-jacketed smokers and loquatious semi-homeless. It also houses most of what are left of London's backpacker hostels. It's not unpleasant, and doesn't feel unsafe, it's just not as charming as some of the other areas I saw. The upside is that the flat itself is beautiful, the top floor of a Victorian building, with extensive built-in bookshelves, a spacious outdoor garden, and beautiful modern furnishings. It's owned by a women being transfered by her employer to Australia for two years, who intends to leave everything intact. It's also extremely convenient both to the airports (trains to both Heathrow and Gatwick depart from my doorstep) and 50 yards from Underground lines serving both of my employer's offices.

Writing about the flat now, I feel much better about my choice, though I must confess that most of this week I was wracked with FOBO (that's fear of a better option, for those of you who didn't spend the last two years in an MBA program). There are so many areas in London that are sooo cute that I would love to live in. But the reality is that I could not afford a liveable place in those areas. It's strange, since my flat is by no means cheap. It makes me wonder who these people are who can afford one-bedroom apartments at rates three times what they might go for in Manhattan.