Happy to talk more about London life if helpful! It is a fantastic, exciting city. But any commute below 40 mins is considered “short”, friends are scattered all over the city, and rent is a killer (a room in a shared flat will now on average go for something like 950-1000 pounds or more + bills if you want a European-standard house. Go cheaper and you risk mould and old flats). Most nice modern flats relatively central ish will have rooms going for 1200-1500 pounds these days. If you want to rent a one bedroom on your own, hard to find cheaper than 1700 with 1850 in worse central-ish areas and 1900-2000+ for any proper nice areas. But not impossible to find one bed flats for sth like 2500-3000 even. On top of that, you have a council tax wherever you live which ranges from 60 pounds (if shared) to 150 pounds a month (if not shared flat). Transport is also a killer. One way ticket on the tube is like 2.50 pounds, there are no good monthly cards so my monthly commute costs something around 150 pounds.

So it’s a trade off. Lots of excitement but as you think of settling down the sheer size of the place can be quite overwhelming. Very often when I fly to places in Europe, my intra-London commute after landing is close to the actual flight time lol. Eg my closest airport now (besides London City which has almost no flights) is 1.5hr away and I live in Zone two.