Written by Penna a Spillo
✍️ Category: Blogger’s Diary
🇬🇧 First days as a local in London: my SoulMap™ diary
This is the story of my first real encounter with London, the moment when I stopped looking at it as a tourist and started living it as a local.
It is part of my London diary, a personal stop along my SoulMap™.
🧠 How I feel: processing the move and “Take Your Time”
It feels like having jet lag that lasts for a week.
You don’t quite understand why: you organise everything, plan every detail, put things in order for months, and then, despite the joy and euphoria of something new, and the excitement of being in a city like London, your body puts up a certain resistance and makes you feel exhausted for several days.
Almost as if to remind you that yes, it’s all wonderful, but you need time to get used to the idea of living somewhere else, in another country, where people speak a different language and have different habits and rules from yours.
At the beginning, you also have to say goodbye to all your automatisms, at least until you manage to get things working again (phone, wi-fi, bank account, groceries, car, school, just to name a few).
So basically, in the first few days, you find yourself caught in an organisational whirlwind, where every day the tasks to deal with are about a million, and your energy level is that of an amoeba.
But there is a phrase people say here that struck me immediately and that I loved straight away, maybe because it perfectly fits my post-move psycho-physical state, and that I immediately made my own:
“Take your time.”
In Italian there isn’t really a literal translation, and above all, you don’t hear it said very often.
Here, instead, they repeat it to you constantly, as if they were fully aware of the effort you’re making just to get things to work.
So, with this new mantra of mine, I try to find my way through all the new things coming my way, and I begin to process a few thoughts, in no particular order.
👁️ What I see: living by the Thames and exploring the city
I see the Thames from my window.
It’s beautiful: it flows calmly and quietly under a blazing sun, which I believe is rather unusual.
Professional rowers practising, houseboats moored along the opposite bank, runners jogging along the path along the river, and even a little boat leaving from the pier just below my house and heading to Westminster, like the vaporetto in Venice.
I discovered that during September, from the 1st to the 30th, London hosts the Totally Thames Festival, with installations, initiatives, and 150 artistic, cultural, musical and sporting events concentrated along the banks of the Thames in various parts of the city; the full programme can be found here: www.totallythames.org.
Oh, and I almost forgot: many riverside restaurants offer special fixed-price menus created specifically for the occasion.
🏡 London’s leafy neighbourhoods: Richmond, Chiswick & Kew
Then, in these first days, I see London’s neighbourhoods, starting with the ones close to my home: Richmond, Chiswick, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Barnes.
They are neighbourhoods not far from the centre, but at the same time quiet and tucked away, like small villages in their own right, with their own centre, schools, parks, flower markets and independent cafés with tables outside.
Neighbourhood life is fascinating: it introduces you to the local deli (Italian, with Parma ham), the pub where fans of the local team gather, the small supermarket and the huge one, the little bookshop and the hairdresser.
It lets you observe people’s habits and customs; for instance, there are lots of lively elderly ladies going shopping in the morning and happily stop to chat.
🎡 From Oxford Street frenzy to serene Royal Parks
And then I see the heart of London, when with just a few underground stops I reach the city centre.
Now, this is something that drives me completely mad (in a good way): in twenty-five minutes in London you can casually move from the frenzy of Oxford Street to a rarefied, almost nineteenth-century novel-like atmosphere, with grand houses set in greenery and everything else.
The city is frenetic, energetic, full of life, yet just a few bus stops from Piccadilly there are parks inhabited by foxes and deer, complete with wide palmate antlers (see Richmond Park).
Finally, I see London traffic: impossible to describe in all its chaotic glory.
The first time I ventured to IKEA, which is five miles from my house, it took me almost two hours to get back home, between traffic jams, diversions, roadworks, roads that suddenly turn into motorways without you even realising it, and so on.
📚 What I read: 3 essential books for moving to London
I can’t imagine any trip without a book that speaks to me about the place I’m going, and moving to London without a certain number of books on the subject.
And so, on the bookshelf of my London home, the following appear, in this order:
Enrico Franceschini – Londra Italia, Laterza, 2016.
A book made of stories: the stories of Italians who have chosen to live here, with the most diverse experiences and professions.
But also the story of how London has influenced their lives, inspired them, shaped and changed their way of being.
Simple and less simple stories, adventurous, funny, sometimes tragic, but always and in any case expressions of courage and initiative and therefore a great source of inspiration.
In one word: encouraging.
Caterina Soffici – Italia Yes, Italia No, Feltrinelli, 2016.
Written by a journalist, with a simple and flowing style, it explains why, despite the many things one might miss, thousands of Italians want to come and live in London.
Very sharp, it essentially analyses the great differences in mindset across various areas of life (many of which I have already experienced myself), moving from politics to education, habits, civic sense, and so on.
These differences are not theorised, but told through amusing anecdotes that make everything immediately clear and extremely entertaining.
In one word: instructive.
And finally, last but not least:
I reread the book — a milestone for surviving in London — by Beppe Severgnini: Inglesi.
Written years ago (and later updated), and still full of completely relevant observations, it is the book that best manages to analyse and highlight the vices and virtues of this people, so peculiar and unique as to seem almost unfathomable, yet so magnetic that it continues to attract people from all over the world.
In one word: comprehensive.
✨ Falling in love with London: a new chapter begins
It will take time to understand things, to organise everything (or almost everything) and to truly start living as a Londoner, but from these very first days, I can clearly feel that I could fall in love with this city, which perfectly fits a definition I once read somewhere and immediately made my own.
London is magical.
🧭 Discover more London stories & updates
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