Whole Lot Of Leavin’

When I came to London in May 2007, it was because of the great opportunity Yahoo! provided me. I got the chance of working with Europe’s finest Web Developers, gaining a lot of knowledge and experience. Furthermore, working in London, a great and big city I have only been to as a tourist. An adventure, an exciting one, so I thought at that time. And it was.

Living in London

When I arrived, I moved into a pretty small studio flat in Camden, but relatively close to work, so easily reachable by bus, tube or even by foot. On the other hand, Camden is a pretty busy, lively and noisy area. All the places I have lived before that, I was never used to be exposed to traffic noise or music from nearby pubs. Or hearing drunk people yelling on the street at 2am in the morning, for that matter.

And London itself is a pretty condensed city. I get the impression that it was originally planned for 1–2 million people at max, but effectively 7 million live here, many of which use the tube every day. And much like the main streets, the tube seems to burst at the seams during rush hour. Fun is certainly something else.

What I probably miss the most here is nature and not being able to escape the city life easily. You can’t do that by staying in the city, cause if the weather is nice (and that doesn’t happen often) literally millions of Londoners make their way to the parks. So you could go somewhere out, which is possible, don’t get me wrong, but it just takes a while (maybe with some strikes or line closures along the way) and you won’t be the only one having that idea, especially on weekends.

I used to bike to work at other places I have lived. Even though I see co-workers doing that, it just looks pretty dangerous to me. Some people are talking about having a little “accident” with a bus or a cab from time to time and considering the fumes…I’d rather not do that. Well, I did not even have to think about it, cause I didn’t even have the space in my flat to put a bike somewhere

Which leads me to money. My opinion is: You get paid more here in London, but you also spend more than almost anywhere else. Except maybe other expensive cities like Moscow or Oslo. But the quality of life that one would expect by paying almost 1000 British Pounds per month for a flat is just not there. No way. In the end it comes down to a simple question: For the money I am spending, am I getting back what I would expect? The answer for me here in London is: No.

Don’t get me wrong, London has a lot to offer. There is always something going on, which makes it pretty lively and interesting, especially for tourists and visitors in general. At the same time, there are so many history-rich sites and buildings. You can do something different every day, every weekend and not get bored. In fact, you would not be able to keep up with all the things happening. Which is great, don’t get me wrong. I really liked to explore new parts of the city and seeing new places.

But in the end, I believe those things were less important to me. Apart from my 6 months internship in New York City in 2005, I have always lived in pretty quiet, residential areas, with lots of green spaces around, easy access to nature and mountains. My parents’ place in Vienna for example is a house with a nice garden and within minutes from the Donauinsel where you feel miles away from the city life, even though you are still pretty close to the center. Dornbirn, where I studied, has 50,000 inhabitants, is close to Lake Constance, and has forests and mountains all around. I used to do mountain biking there a lot and I could have happened easily to not meet a single person for 3 hours whilst cycling up one of the mountains. I really loved that. And I did miss that a lot here.

Working at Yahoo! in London

Work is a bit of a different story. First of all, I got the chance to work with the finest guild you might find all over Europe when it comes to Front-End Web Development. I have no doubt about that. And that alone was worth accepting the offer back in 2007 and coming to London.

On the first project that I was working on, I got the chance to work with Drew, which was really cool and I met Simon, with whom I did a private project later on. And, of course, Jimmy, who I would say became my closest friend here in London, who gave me guitar lessons and helped me to keep my head above the water when things weren’t going so great.

Like the other two, Jimmy moved on to greener pastures as well. To Chile, in his case. In general, many of the people that where working for Yahoo! when I started have left the company in the meantime, which certainly did not help either.

Leaving and moving…again

I bet it’s warm in California,
I think it’s time to hit the road

Whole Lot Of Leavin by Bon Jovi

When I decided to undertake the adventure of moving to London, I thought that I will give it some time and see how it goes. If I like it, I can stay here for quite a while. If I don’t like it, I can move on. And that is what I will do in the end.

Around May this year I made the decision that London is not the city for me. It just did not work between us. Once you have figured that out, there is not much sense in arguing with yourself about it. It is time to move on. At that time I started to make contact with some people in the Yahoo! Headquarter in Sunnyvale and finally, a couple of weeks ago, we reached an agreement. So if everything goes to plan, I will have my first day at Yahoo! in California on November 17.

If I could turn back time, would I do it again? Would I go to London? Yes, absolutely. Cause the things I have learned, the things I have experienced during my time here in London were great. Some things were just incredibly awesome, some things were painful. But that’s life I guess. I think that I was able to improve myself as a person, which, for me, is already a big achievement.

I still have a couple of weeks here in London and I am planning to get the most out of my time left here. But come end of October, I will need to pack my bags and move on. To greener pastures, as well, or so I hope. California Dreamin’.