There’s a lot to love about London. It’s a buzzing hub of activity, with something new and exciting happening every other day. From new cuisines to sample, parks to wander through, shops to explore and people to meet, there's never a dull day in the capital.
Since moving here from New Zealand in March, I have fallen head over heels with a lot of aspects of London. I love the hustle and bustle and the variation, but there is one thing I enjoy that puts me at odds with other Londoners.
I absolutely love the underground.
I’ll admit it’s not without its foibles - it’s loud, can be cramped and yeah it’s not always the cleanest - but it’s also an absolute miracle. I can get anywhere I want in this massive city, and all I have to do is pop down to the station, wave myself through on my phone and then sit pretty until I am transported to where I want to go.
It’s also so reliable. Occasionally there might be a hold up or a cancellation but in seven months I’ve never waited more than 10 minutes for a train to arrive, which is unheard of where I’m from. In my hometown, if you miss the bus then it’s a 50/50 chance another will turn up at all, and it’s almost always a 15-minute wait. It often ends up being easier and faster to just walk to wherever I was going. I didn’t live in the back of beyond either - both cities I lived in were major metropolitan areas and yet I could fly between them faster than it took me to take a bus to my university campus.
Coming from New Zealand - where if you don’t have a car, you’re essentially trapped in your suburb - the underground is a marvel. I love my home country for a lot of reasons but its public transport network is not one of them. New Zealand’s buses are unreliable at best and invisible at their worst, and cross-country rail services are all but non-existent, so to be able to jump on a train and go anywhere is like a miracle.
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I love the tube for more than its efficiency though. I love its history, and my favourite thing in the world is when I’m sitting on board and cast my eyes to the advertisements to see one of the poems of the underground opposite me.
This awesome series began in January 1986 as an experiment between three writers Judith Chernaik, Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson. These artists persuaded the London Underground to post poems on its train and the programme has been supported ever since. I love these little touches of personality on the trains, and with no signal on the majority of my journeys they offer a wonderful reading opportunity.
The lack of phone connectivity is my other favourite thing about the tube. In a world where I am almost always glued to at least one of my two phones (work and personal) it’s a welcome interruption from the expectation to be constantly reachable. It reignited my passion for reading; I have finished at least 10 books since I moved here, and the majority of that has been done on my various commutes.
All in all, there is a lot to love about London but there’s nothing I love more than the underground.
