i wouldn't recommend travelling to other european countries by eurorail...easyJet airlines is a lot cheaper...
The food is awful? Jeez, where are you guys going to eat? There are loads of excellent restaurants in London. It's important to remember that if you do the touristy things (like the Sports Cafe), it will suck, and you'll get ripped off. I mean, the best food in London is there? Come on! London is big. I mean in area. Most of the people commenting here probably didn't even go south of the river (not that that's a criticism, it's just that not many visitors do). You could easily live in London, and have an hour's commute to work/school on public transport. Kim, pippendagimp and SJC pretty much hit the nail on the head with their descriptions. I'd say London is a city that you definitely need to know where to go. Londoners steer clear of the tourist areas, and I have seen as many attractive women in London as I have in Paris and Barcelona (but then I knew where to go! ).
i love london, if you go there you have to go to a musical. The food is good. It is very expensive, but if you look hard enough there are also a bit cheaper restaurants. It really depents on were you are. never eat in a restaurant next to a big street. those are very expensive. The underground is very good, but in rush hour there are alot of people there. If you are tall you might not be able to stand straight in the underground. if you want to go to other european countrys you should look at easy jet. The train is pretty expensive in europe, especially if your trip is long(like to Spain). I think to paris a train is ok, but i'm not sure.I'm not sure about eurorail. i think it is not as easy as it was 10 years ago. ok the weather is bad. it is even worse then in holland. It rains there alot. like kim said the cliffs of dover are beautifull.
When are you going? Let me tell you - winter in London is not much fun, particularly if you are used to Houston winters, but it is spectacular on a nice summers day. When people talk about a cultural melting pot, they are thinking of London. It is truly awesome. You will have no trouble fitting in, no matter what your heritage. It is extremely expensive - housing is a shocker, and you don't really get much for your money. Eating and drinking out is also expensive, and al pubs close at 11pm. THere are nightclubs around, but they generally require membership, and are even more expensive than pubs. That said, the whole "Local pub" scene is fantastic in London. There is literally a bar on every corner, and most of them are nice. I always found the staff in bars to be really friendly, and they usually have a great atmosphere. There are also heaps of nightlife "hubs" with popular, trendy, packed pubs as well - Fulham and Clapham are good starts, and the West End is a sure thing. And then comes everything else to do in London. There is so much to see I can't even begin to describe it. You could fill every weekend for 6 months doing cool stuff. Not to mention you are on Europes doorstep, and short flight to anywhere. Try and get a house/apartment close to the underground/sybway. Makes a big difference. Despite the expense, I can't think of many places better than London for a short term stay! You will have an awesome time.
Good call on Fulham and Clapham, but as an aside, there are plenty of clubs that don't need membership, and lots of pubs and bars that are open beyond 11pm these days...
Get an apartment in South Kensington. You will think the rent is expensive, until you realize that the rent is per WEEK, not per MONTH. Then you will just think it's crazy...
That's just strange...and I'm pretty sure that detecting someone RECEIVING a TV signal is a scientific impossibility. I understand on a cable because of loss of signal strength, etc, but over the air?
Damn! You guys rock. Thats a lot of great info. I'll be in Paris for two weeks in February and i'll go to London to check it out for a few days. I don't think it'd be necessary to have a car there, and i'll be doing work at the London Business School and i'd like to stay close to there. Any of you guys know where that is, and what kind of area its in?
This is from here: http://www.le.ac.uk/welfare/wstv.html "Enquiry Officers work seven days a week using a sophisticated database of 26 million addresses, detector vans and state of the art hand-held scanners which can detect whether or not a television is being used in a block of flats or student halls of residence. Each enquiry officer on average catches a licence fee evader every working hour." And this is the government's website: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ Our detection equipment will track down your TV "The fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection. How our detector vans can catch out licence evaders We can detect a TV in use, in any area. That's because every TV contains a component called the 'local oscillator', which emits a signal when the television is switched on. It's this signal that the equipment on our vans picks up. But, what if you live in a block of flats or a house without road access? Well if this is the case our enquiry officer can simply use one of our hand-held scanners. Measuring both direction and strength of signal, they make it easy for us to locate television sets in hard to reach places."
