Introspection. Inspecting London

Hello all!

Before listing London’s attractions and doing a presentation about places worth visiting, I think it’s useful to speak in general about this city. So, here are some background infos about traveling, food, citizens and others. Traveling through London by means of public transportation is extremely expensive. I’m the luckiest person thanks to my brother, who works at the underground company of London, thus having a huge discount on tickets and passes. In London I’ve experienced traveling by metro, double-deckers and express trains. Metros usually connect to each other dfferent zones of the city. Express trains are more frequent at the peripheria of London. It’s interesting that some express trains are on automatic-drive mode, there’s no one in the chauffeur cabin. I was at the beginning a bit frightened of the idea of traveling without a human driver, but actually the system worked very good.

My brother lives in Wembley (4thzone) just a few minute walk from Wembley Stadium where lot of sport events and live concerts take place. Football matches are held and iconic artists like Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Madonna performed there. Wembley region is a safe and homey area of London. The street-image consists of green places, parks and little family-houses. There are supermarkets where locals do the shopping. In general prices at the supermarkets vary in a wide range. Good-quality food costs a huge amount of money, but the almost-expired, undervalued products are definitely cheaper. You just have to take a look carefully, and surely You’ll find cheaper products too.

With clothing and accesorries the same. Generally You’ll face enormously high prices in the shops or plazas, but if You’re searching indefatigably, You’ll reach cheaper opportunities as well. There’s Primark for example, a famous shop where cheap clothes, shoes and bags can be found. It’s important to mention, that Primark represents high-quality; moreover it’s a basic shop in London, meaning that it’s not difficult to find this shop. It gives one almost at every corner.

In the 5 days spent at London, food was not a priority. The chapter of eating didn’t keep me excited, because 1) food is expensive, 2) English cuisine is not so famous and attractive as the gastronomy of other European cultures. Nevertheless, I want to highlight two facts among food. I’ve tasted the traditional fish and chips menu of the English. It was simple fried and crunchy fish with salted French fries and barbeque and mayo sauce. Nothing special about it, but about the atmosphere. This dish was consumed in a pub. London is full of pubs. It’s quite common that pubs do not only offer beverages, but fish and chips as well. It’s like a snack which can be eaten anytime, anywhere, regardless weather, time, mood, circumstances or activity. It’s combinable with anything. Near fish and chips irish and english beers show a wide spectrum. Dark beers are definitely the leading stars. Another interesting aspect about pubs is that in the evening, after work, crowds of people go for drinking a beer. Or more. Pubs are full of people, even the sidewalk is full with tables and benches where dozen of young people sit, drink and talk about life. Not only at weekends. English nation loves to drink, pubs are opened till midnight, and it’s even hard to close the bars then and send the cheering guests home.

In rest, like other big metropolitans, London has a lot of fast-food opportunities (Subway, KFC, Mc Donald’s, Burger King, Pizzerias) and unfortunately fewer restaurants and cantines offering traditional warm food. There are Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Greek, Balkanian, Asian restaurants though. During my stay at London I could not experience any authentic English dish, but I’ve tried some of my favorit culture’s (Indian) gastronomy. Tikka Masala, Curry chicken, Kurkuma are my favorit spices from Indian cuisine. I have eaten sandwiches, traditional pita breads, and warm Indian food as well. All of them made with the spices listed above. I was absolutely satisfied. There’s a little Chinatown inside London, where You can buy both raw and cooked Chinese food, Chinese ingredients, vegetables and fruits, fish and noodles. Furthermore, Chinese decoration objects, books and traditional customes are offered too. That region gives home to lot of Chinese inhabitants.

In conclusion food is not England’s forte point. Citizens usually just grab a sandwich or a salad during the day, and maybe some fast-food in the evening. Cooking doesn’t seem like being a priority, something in which English people invest money and energy, but of course I can be wrong, and there might be cool dishes I just haven’t seen or tried.

I almost forgot to mention that as anywhere else in the World, there are Hungarian and Romanian speciality stores and restaurants in London as well. I always discover these shops Worldwide and can honestly say, that we are everywhere. In a country where Hungarians or Romanians work and live, there surely will be delicatesse stores offering authentic delicatesses. There is a Hungarian restaurant called: 'The gay hussar' and its pork chop stew is very tasty.

Another interesting fact is about chocolates and desserts. There are pastry-shops, good bakeries, teas, cakes, cookies, but what had the most interesting impact on me was the chocolates of Cadbury chocolate factory’s sweets. Cadbury is a 200 year old chocolate factory, and its principal advantage hides in salt. Every chocolate, biscuit, cookie contains some grams of salt. With salt the chocolates gain more character and taste much better. I am sweet-toothed, and I tried a lot of varieties of desserts in my life, but the best sweets I’ve eaten were at London. Salt is responsible for this. I would recommend putting a pinch of salt in every dessert. And to just give a general overview on Cadbury products, well there are wafers, chocolate bars, shortcakes, eclairs, chocolate chips, hot chocolate powder and fruity jellys. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and lactose-free versions as well. My favorite chocolates were in orange, jelly popping candy (it explodes in the mouth), mint, caramel, rose and biscuit flavors. I promise that I’ll stop it now, because otherwise my saliva is going to drip down on my key-board.

About people and cultures in London. I'm just writin what I experienced when I was in London, and what I know from aquintances living there, but I'm not judging anybody. First, there live the British. Then come the Indians, people from Far-East like Sri-Lanka, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hindi people. And next, of course the Eastern-European and Balkan population. British people are actually having a comfortable and safe life in London, they are materially great, they keep and take care of their tradition and culture, live a comfortable life and are on top of hierarchies. (At least from the outside seems like this). Often the chiefs/bosses at companies are British, and not any other nationality. Also at a job-interview British are treated more advantageous, they receive more respect, they can take more opportunities and have more options to choose from. People originating from Asia (dominantly came to England decades ago, generations ago) come from British colonies. They speak English with dialect though, but behave like they were natives in England. They keep traditions, wear traditional clothes on the street, have their own district. For example, there's an Indian district close to Wembley Park where every shop is Indian, every woman wears sari, there are hindi temples and every inscription is written in Hindi. Consequently, they partly succeeded to interate and assimilate to London's system, but they are not so often put on the top of hierarchy to lead something. Anyway there are exceptions, and Asian people hold sometimes the responsibility in their hands. Last, but not least the turn of Eastern-Europeans. Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Serbian, Slovakian and other 'migrants'. A numerous group of people headed to London at the early beginning of '2000 hoping a better life, better salaries, higher quality of life. Hundreads of people leave their post-communist under-developed countries nowadays too, so this flow is continueing. (Let's see what happens with this fluctuation after Brexit). Sad, but true, if You just go for work to London (and had studied in Your home-country), You won't ever be as reconized and appreciated there as locals. A British university diploma values ten times more then a diploma from Czech Republic for example. And if someone doesn't even own a degree certification, that it's almost 100% than he or she could find employment only in the physical work domain: factory, production, transportation or catering industry. Sad, but true, in the U. K. the pyramid of hierarchy is quite sharp and a bit 'cruel', but well-built and logical as well. Everyone has to struggle and try its best to be accepted, given a chance and appreciated. It's not a piece of cake...

P. s. : Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I'm not a professional photographer.

Thanks for reading, Dora

(If You're interested about reading more writings of mine, click on the following link: http://erasmusu.com/en/dora-csatari-560876/erasmus-blog)

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