Life in Leyton

When you live in London your location is as much determined by what line of the underground you live by as the area in general. Jess and I are living about two minute walk away from Leyton station, east on the central line about a twenty minute ride into the centre of London.

Jess and I are sharing a room in a large seven bedroom house, living together we figured was going to be the only somewhat affordable way to live in London. Over time we met our housemates, all male and from all over the world. One Italian, one Irish, one New Zealander, one French and another Aussie.

The house isn’t exactly new and it wasn’t exactly clean when we moved in. Prior to Christmas there had apparently been over 15 people living in the seven rooms. Jess and I spent a while cleaning the house and making it more liveable.

I spent the first few days exploring the local area and soon discovered Leyton is a close neighbour to Stratford. Stratford, I learnt, will be home of many events during the 2012 London Olympic Games. Therefore everywhere you look in Leyton and Stratford there is building and construction. Currently being built in Stratford is the Olympic Stadium, Aquatic Centre and London velopark as well as the Olympic Village. Apparently the cost of London hosting the games and building all the new venues will be over £9 billion. On the couple of visits I have made to Stratford I have found it to be extremely busy therefore it will be interesting to see how they cope with the influx of tourists during the Olympics.

Leyton is a very multicultural area and just a few minutes walk away from our house is a huge ASDA store. ASDA is the English version of Wal-Mart and the equivalent of a Big W and Safeway together. It is the busiest store I have ever seen. Every time I have been there it seems there are thousands of customers. It is handy for us because it is open 24 hours and it is cheap.

Leyton is also the home of Leyton Orient football club who play in league one of the football league. On days were the team play at home the streets become packed with fans and police.

After moving into our new place I went out and caught up with a university mate of mine Campbell Wedell who was in London for the night after studying in Sweden for six months. It was alot of fun to catch up with a good mate I had not seen for almost a year.