The Regal Rules for Girls (5 page)

If you’re not going to come to the UK on a student visa, chances are that you will live in London. Without a shadow of a doubt, London is the most magical, the most beguiling, and the most charming city on the planet.

Whereas New York has the thrill of world finance and groundbreaking theater, Los Angeles boasts timeless Hollywood glamour, and Washington, DC, brings the buzz of power and politics—London has
all
of these things in one place.
Nowhere
else can you find economic, political, and artistic epicenters of such intense, global caliber rolled together into a single cosmopolitan capital.

Many compare London to Manhattan, but the truth is that London is far more elegant, the architecture is more beautiful, the streets are much cleaner, and the people are much calmer. I tend to get claustrophobic in New York, as you can walk for blocks among the towering scrapers without ever glimpsing the horizon. This is
not the case in London. For almost 250 years, it was against the law to construct anything taller than St. Paul’s Cathedral (365 feet high) so you can walk for miles without ever feeling trapped or overpowered by the city.

While New York is a true American melting pot, London is a collection of dozens upon dozens of distinct little villages. Every tube stop leads you to a new and extremely unique part of the capital, and there are so many secret alleyways and hidden courtyards, it’s a city you can make your own like nowhere else. (A great way to get to know the city when you first arrive is to go on the Circle Line train and have a drink at every stop!)

On top of this, more than 30 percent of London is made up of sprawling parkland and manicured gardens—most of these were originally owned by the British royal family and used as their private hunting grounds before they were turned into public parks. With more than 5,550 acres of parks, ponds, forests, and flowers, London boasts more green space that any other major city in the world.

When I first arrived in London, I began walking everywhere, park after park, bridge after bridge, hardly knowing where I was going or where I had been. And hardly caring, because every single step seemed to feed my very soul.

On the second or third day, sometime in the early evening, I walked from the splashing fountains and giant lions of Trafalgar Square, past the famous door of 10 Downing Street, and then, suddenly, when I turned the corner, I was face-to-face with Big Ben. I found myself just standing there, gazing up into the rare blue sky at this magnificent clock tower that gleamed in the sunlight. I couldn’t look away. Because all at once everything in my crazy heart and mind seemed to fall into place. Right in front of me was
all the glory and sparkle that I knew my London life was going to be once I figured out how to grab on to it. After all those years of trying to escape everything around me, I suddenly felt something I’d never felt before: the desire to stay in one place forever.

So you have your visa in your hands, you’ve said your good-byes to large American appliances, hot summers, and good water pressure, and you’re ready to move to the city of your dreams.

Unless you’re a secret billionaire, it’s doubtful you will be able to afford to live somewhere in London on your own. Which means you must seek out a
flatshare
, which is an apartment shared by two to six people.

I know sharing houses with strangers is not commonly done in the US unless you’re a starving student, but in London it’s a pretty ordinary occurrence, even for well-bred, twenty-something professionals. Sharing is the best way to get a large, good-quality flat at an affordable price, and I promise you’ll get over the weirdness of sharing a bathroom with people you don’t know pretty quickly.

There are many ways to approach flat hunting. Finding a room through a friend of a friend of a friend is by far the best option, so start by asking people you know if they happen to know anyone with a room for rent and to spread the word that you are looking. Post your request on Facebook and send a mass email to everyone you can think of who might know somebody in London. Again, if applicable, contact your college and sorority alumni networks.

If you already have a British friend (or handful of friends) that you want to live with, it costs you nothing to go through a Realtor
(aka an
estate agent
) to help you find a furnished flat. (
Rightmove.co.uk
is a good place to start.) But if you know no one, then grab a notebook, grab your phone, and log onto all of the following:

All of these websites are filled with flatshares seeking flatmates, and most are categorized by price and location. (PS: Don’t start searching more than one month ahead of when you’d like to move, as turnaround in London is quick.)

When I finished my master’s degree, moved out of my awful British dorm, and began to embark upon my first London flat search, my specifications were simple: I was looking for a friendly, English household full of young, non-married nobility begging to adopt an American. But as time wore on and my search continued, I was shocked to discover that even though London is the capital of England, the city seemed to contain very few actual English people. (And as for well-bred, English twenty-somethings desperate to take in a homeless American? Again, I blame my fantasies on Hugh Grant movies.)

Something like a third of Londoners (and if you’re there right now—this includes you) were not even born in the UK, and many London-based universities (especially the London School of Economics) are nothing more than hubs for wealthy foreign students, because most English students tend to go to college outside of the capital.

I’m not going to lie—meeting English people in London can be difficult. And because of this, it’s all too easy to fall back on what you know. It’s all too easy to start hanging out with other Americans and to start passing the time by drinking American beer in American-themed sports bars.

I don’t know about you, but I was determined to do nothing of the sort. If I was going to be spending all my time with other Americans, I figured that I might as well give up on my English dream, go back to America, be near my American friends, get a nice American job, meet a nice American guy, and save myself and everyone else the transatlantic hassle.

As far as I’m concerned, coming to England and not mixing with English people is as pointless as a foreigner visiting America and not meeting any Americans. But if you choose wisely, your flatmates (even more than your workmates) will become some of your best friends in London, as well as introduce you to English social circles that an American would not otherwise encounter. So when it comes to selecting your accommodation—please believe me that your location (and hence your postcode) is absolutely crucial.

British postcodes are like US zip codes, except they also contain letters. London postcodes begin with N (for north), S (south), SW (southwest), and so on.

Among the London elite, it was once vehemently believed that the only truly suitable residential areas were located north of the
River Thames and south of Hyde Park—meaning that only a few neighborhoods (primarily SW1, SW3, SW7, and SW10) were deemed acceptable living quarters. Yet in the last few years, all these gorgeously grand town houses in Kensington, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge have been snapped up by Russian oligarchs and American bankers. (Some of these places go for as much as $10,000 per square foot!) So even though these historical dwellings are absolutely beautiful, today they are rarely owned or inhabited by English people.

This said, I suggest focusing on prospective flatshares in locations that are now quietly known as the
new
socially acceptable areas (meaning these are the natural stomping grounds for those upper middle-class Brits that speak in that sexy, expensively educated drawl that American girls like us find so irresistible):

If you can afford Notting Hill and Kensington (W11 and W8)—go for it! Prime Minister David Cameron’s family resides there, and Freddie and Ella Windsor live there whenever they’re in London, so you’d be in good company. (For those that don’t know, Lord Fredrick Windsor is thirty-eighth in the line of succession for the British throne and a major pal of Prince William’s. Lady Gabrielle Windsor is Freddie’s sister and she is thirty-ninth in line.)

PLACES TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS MAINLY BECAUSE THEY CAN BE UGLY AND/OR UNSAFE:

The East End is considered edgy and trendy in a Guy Ritchie, modern gangster sort of way (and it does contain the fabulous Shoreditch House), but it’s just too far away from the traditional comforts of West London to be taken seriously by the “posh” English set.

As for North London (please note that the word “north” is usually said with a mix of fear and bewilderment), there is nothing wrong with it—in fact, it’s perfectly pleasant, and many Americans choose to live there because it looks so neat and tidy. However, North London is mainly full of other Americans, and is wholly avoided by traditional, tweed-wearing Englishmen with ancestral homes. There are a few exceptions to this: London Mayor Boris Johnson lives in Islington and Peter Phillips (the Queen’s oldest grandson) once lived in Belsize Park. But as one floppy-haired British boy once told me, “North London is a place one knows
of
,
but not a place one ever visits or fully comprehends.” So I suggest you heed his advice.

Log onto flat search sites as early as you can in the morning (I’m talking inhumanly early—like 6 a.m.) and start calling asap. The demand for quality flats with normal flatmates is so high, many of the best ones are taken by 9 a.m. the same day.

When you find flatshares in the right areas within your budget (and it can happen!), you need to call them and make a viewing appointment. This is a chance for you to the view the flat and for the other flatmates to view you. As we used to say in my sorority rush days, it’s a “mutual selection process.” While on the phone, try to get as much information as possible about who lives there (guys? girls? nationalities? professions?), as you may decide it’s not worth your time to go there in person. Due to the doors that can open in your London social life, I must stress that the quality of the people in a flatshare is even more important than the quality of the flat itself.

When out viewing flatshares, bring your
A–Z
with you. Many London streets have the same name (Kensington Place, Kensington Mews, Kensington Crescent, Kensington Gardens, Kensington Park Gardens), and it’s easy to get lost if you don’t have a map pinpointing the exact location.

Keep in mind that you will need to lower your expectations. Big-time. You’re categorically not going to find American living standards at American prices, so push any thoughts along those lines out of your mind.

Before you open the door to a potential flat, expect the worst. Envision seventeenth-century plumbing and eighteenth-century electricity. Picture a bedroom three times smaller than your college dorm room but with ten times less storage space. Any London flat that exceeds this expectation even slightly is worth considering.

If your only problem with the flat is that the washing machine is in the kitchen, that the fridge is smaller than the TV, that there is no dryer for your clothes, that there is moldy carpet in the bathroom, that the bathtub has no shower attachment, or that the sinks have separate hot and cold water taps
⁵
—then put down an offer immediately. If the flat’s inhabitants also happen to be polite, charming, and English—offer to pay double.