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The Most Expensive City Ever

656867-1134665-thumbnail.jpgWe’ve been in a lot of places that are traditionally considered expensive: Tokyo, Sydney, Paris.. But nothing had prepared us for how astronomically out of whack prices in London have become. The main thing fueling this is the strength of the Pound, which it now costs $2.08 to buy. The problem is that everything is priced as if it were in dollars. So our simple Thai lunch special for 8.95 – exactly what it would cost in dollars in San Francisco, itself a tremendously expensive city – is in reality more than double that at almost $20. This applies to EVERYTHING – take what something normally costs and more than double it.

656867-1134676-thumbnail.jpgEven a one way ticket on the Underground costs 4 Pounds – that’s over 8 bucks per person just to go a few stops down the street. I guess it all becomes what you’re used to. When we were in Vietnam we would yell and scream at the little old lady selling water that she wasn’t going to rip us off an extra 3 cents for her overpriced 10 cent water. We know a liter of water is supposed to cost 7 cents lady, and we’re not paying a penny more. Here we pay six dollars for half a liter and all seems right with the world.

But if you happen to be making pounds as your salary, life is grand. People here have more money than they know what to do with. Every single car is either a Mercedes, BMW, Rolls Royce, or Bentley. It’s like the luxury car industry farted out a huge cloud of its finest works and they all settled squarely over London. And the snotty British accent only adds to the effect. A trip to Southeast Asia would basically cost nothing. The finest hotels in Laos are no more than $100/night. Here, there is no hotel that would be decent enough to call home for a few days for under $400/night. And that’s for the basics. There were many rooms in the $5,000 range when we were looking to book our place here.

656867-1134686-thumbnail.jpgThe one upside is that this is a great place to come back home from. We kept saying while in Cambodia that we could never imagine going back to San Francisco and paying the sorts of prices that we’re used to. That once you pay $3 for an amazing dinner you’ll never be able to pay SF prices again. But coming back from London, I feel like our lives are going to be a bargain. Heck, it’s practically free compared to here.

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