Hi, stranger. It's nice that you've found some time and decided to read my blog. I'm just starting (both my MBA and my blog) and hope that my thoughts will be either useful or entertaining for you - or even both. I'm first year MBA student of the London Business School, I came from a very big and very cold country and so far was enjoying nice weather, till I've seen first yellow leaves today - the autumn finally caught me.
I decided to start with the things that amazed me most in London. 1) How small and expensive the apartments are. I came one week before the start of the program, because I couldn't leave my job earlier and started to look for an apartment. My experience shows that 2 days can be enough to find the flat, but you need to be flexible in your requirements. And you need to be ready to share your apartment with somebody. Otherwise you'll find yourself in the tiniest studio, where you will need to push your bed outside of the apartment in order to use ironing-board (which has happened to me once). When first time I went to see the apartment with the agent - he proudly showed me small shabby flat, the same size as my wardrobe in Moscow, with a great view on train station and the price was unbelievable. But the flat was just across the school, which didn't help because the house represents a maze and I lost my way on my first attempt to leave the flat on my own. So, I decided that I can’t ask a porter to accompany me each time I'm going in or out and didn't rent the flat. Which was good, because if you're ready to walk for 15 minutes (which in normal life people don't mind, but here everybody is obsessed with the idea of living near the school. I think price of education makes people really understand the expression "value of the time"), you can find something bigger and cheaper.
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) How changeable the weather is in the UK. You know, in my country, when it's cold people wear boots, when it's hot people wear flip flops. Here, in 5 minutes, I met a girl in boots and a girl in flip flops, which is of cause partially explained by English weather. It changes 10 times a day and I think at some point all UK citizens understood that they can't make weather forecast for more then an hour and decided to disregard the weather at all. So, they just wear what they want - you're in the autumn mood today - fine, wear a coat; and your boyfriend feels like it's summer - OK, let him wear shorts. You can be sure that at least for half an hour each season will take place during the same day.
3) How different the people are in the UK. I don't like to be alone in the apartment during the dark time of the day, so in order not to be scared I turn on TV, and normally with this type of behavior you're forced to listen to some news from time to time. In Russia news usually start with major war conflicts or economic changes or political events - pretty boring stuff. But here nobody cares about elections of the prime-minister if Jude Law has cheated on Sienna Miller - this becomes the main news and the whole nation debates whether they should support poor Sienna (women) or defend Jude (men). Completely unknown people go to reality shows, such as "Big brother", perform highly intellectual tasks such as to stand on one leg during the day and in 3 months they become stars. They hit 1 mln pounds deals for their life stories, which mysteriously are of interest to many people, who had no idea about these stars' existence 4 months ago, but now feel deeply attached to them. There's a common prejudice, that British people are dry and boring - you see it's a big mistake.
What do you think happens when 60 girls meet altogether in the small bar in Soho? I was very suspicious of the result, when I was walking to the girls' night out tonight. But mysteriously I had a lot of fun and we even have not discussed boys (well almost). 4 very active and brave ladies decided that we don't see each other often and organized our meeting, which was great, because I met some girls for the first time.
