Still tired from the early get up at 3 a.m. I was happy to finally arrive at London. The differences between Berlin and London became more and more visible the more we moved to the centre. Not only the left - handed traffic, which starts at the traffic lanes and goes on at the subway escalators, was significant but also the atmosphere of a big urban city. This atmosphere surrounded us all the time and was first of all created by a multicultural community that consists mainly of people with British origin, of black and Asian people from all over the world and of many people from Arabic countries such as Iran, Afghanistan and others. Partly even street signs were written in Arabic letters for them, much less stores and restaurants which provided an international flair throughout the whole city.
Surprising for me was the tolerance towards religion in combination with the peoples’ job. For example once, I saw a bus driver wearing a turban, which would be impossible in Germany, for the reason that we strictly differ entiate between job and private life.
Although I live in Germany’s biggest city and should be used to crowed public transports and a high noise level, Berlin seemed to be a village compared to London.
Suited bankers en masse, lots of high bureau buildings with glass facades and extreme expensive cars on every street corner proofed how much money is circulating there in London. These impressions combined with those of the loud and small underground wagons, that had almost no windows to open, the steep escalators and the crowds of people, gave me the feeling that London is more than one level above Berlin, in all respects.
All these “new” things made me forget the hurting of my feet that came in the late afternoon until the next day, so I was looking forward to the boat trip on the Thames. It was as nice as expected for the reason that many of the famous sights are built near the Thames.
It was clear to me that places like Greenwich are tourist attractions, alone that people just go to the 0 meridian to be there, indicates my suggestion. Nevertheless I liked the “real” Greenwich part and the University of Greenwich although it had not the special green British grass I expected.
Unfortunately we had not that many opportunities to speak English with native speakers, but when such situations came, for example at Tesco market, cashiers were unexpectedly hard to understand. Even if they just asked me whether I wanted to take things in a bag or the like, they had to say it twice. Much the same when we visited the play at Globe theatre, I only knew what they were talking about when I was extremely focused.
All in all there was only one real negative point of London, which was, that almost every store, takeaway or supermarket closed latest at 10 p.m. I just cannot understand how a global city like London has such shop opening hours. First I thought it was prohibited by the government but as I learned from the internet there are no official shop opening hours in England. So I do not know what they were thinking.

For conclusion you could say London really exceeded all expectations I had hence I have the feeling I will be there a couple of times more, just to escape from the calm country life here in Berlin.