My first week in London

I often run into people who dunk on London (& the UK/Europe generally) a lot.

One of my first convos upon moving here, from California, in 2017, with a barista caught me off guard when he said he owned a home. I’d friends in tech in the Bay who were struggling to rent on their own.

At the time, I didn’t believe in home ownership or material possessions for myself. Looking back, I think I’d just spent too long in California and had started to believe I was a minimalist by choice.

But this conversation made me wonder if it was just the nature of things in CA. I still have friends back in LA and across NorCal- some working in the arts, others working in coffee shops or NGOs/nonprofits. Nearly a decade since I left, not one is close to financial stability.

And they grew up there.

While I’m partisan to the idea of raising the ceiling instead of lowering the floor, it’s important to have a floor to stand on to begin with. And I think seeing this London barista making it in this absurdly expensive city gave me hope, right away.

Now it’s completely possible this barista (of Romanian origin) was an outlier I met in my first week in London. But, to this day, I wonder why I never met a similar outlier in California in 8 years. I hope that changes. But I also hope ppl get to see this side of London.