As mentioned before, English people are friendly and helpful, but at the same time they can be very corrupt in order to survive in this country with, to what I find, difficult living conditions.
Life in London is not very easy since it is very expensive. People on benefits have a better life than the people that are doing normal labour. What many people told me is that they cannot afford their own place to have a family. The reason for that is because they will not receive any benefits from the government when they have a job. The biggest concern is the housing benefit. The government in the UK pays the rent for people who are on this benefit. If you have a job, you will simply lose this benefit. To rent a house that is big enough for a small family, you will need to pay at least 1000 pounds to get it. And since many people only earn Like 1100 pounds a month, this is very unreasonable for them. Thus they decide to stay at home and not to work or either do illegal acts by renting the place to people without letting the government know.
People here have a hard life when it comes to that. But they enjoy life as well. They do this by drinking, drinking and drinking. What I noticed here is that they get drunk very early and not only in the weekends, but also during normal working days. I do find it funny sometimes but also disturbing since it can become very dangerous. English people are also very open and are easy to approach. They will have a nice chat with you and will talk about anything. Men are also very involved into football. And since London has many football clubs, talk about football is very common amongst the fans. You hear them talk about it on the streets and on work.
People here also read very mucj. I have seen more people read in public transport than in the Netherlands. Literature is used very much here, but I think that is also because the people have to travel much and they read to kill some time (I might be wrong though).
What I also noticed is that they spend more time on Christmas than the people in Holland. The streets are more fabulously decorated and there are many charities on the streets etc. Even though I am not involved into Christmas, I will try to get to know more about this.
