It's not just London I don't want to live in, please understand. That is an umbrella statement in which 'city' can be substituted for 'London'. Having said that, I've always wanted to live in New York, which is probably worse than London, as far as cities go. But I'll deal with that when I'm older, and actually want to get some real estate of my own.
This came about because I've recently properly visited my fine capital city for the first time. At first I just thought it was like Liverpool (closest city to me), only a bit bigger and busier. It's really not. It was a day trip I was on for school, so we got a train - three hours, through generally uninteresting countryside, as they don't like to put the railway track anywhere too nice. People complain. But I had my big thick book, so I wasn't too bad and the train was astonishingly comfortable and not at all as bad as Virgin trains are supposed to be.
The first clue I had that I wasn't really going to like London was Euston station. It had a lot of escalators, which I don't like on the principle that getting on you could fall, get dragged into the mechanism and die horribly. And all the advertisements are straight, which messes up your head because it feels like they should be on the same angle as the escalator is.
Then I was properly introduced to the joys of the tube, which is famed, as are its brothers the metro and the subway. They're all just other names for 'underground train system' and I don't know quite who thought that up. Yes, it gets you everywhere without having to cover any spare inch of land with train track, but it's so stifling in those things! I get hot really easily, and God, I went three stations and thought I was going to die, not to mention the unattractive red, puffing lump I become in such situations. I found the ticket system to be a large stress-creator - the mere thought of losing my ticket and having to just stand there before trying to jump the barrier and probably getting arrested was terrifying. Though I did manage to hang onto my ticket, and I liked the machines. Don't ask me why.
Short walk to the National Gallery, our destination; the roads were awful, very busy, but the road outside my school is pretty bad, so I was fearless there. I hung onto my bag grimly, unable to trust city people, who I naturally assumed were all out to steal all my money and, more importantly, lunch. On the way, I saw Trafalger Square, and that was really lovely (wow, positivity!). The fountains looked really clean, like swimming pools, which I wasn't expecting; I thought they'd be filthy, but was pleasantly surprised. If there's one thing London - and England in general - has above a lot of other places, it's a surfeit of great history, and with all the old buildings and statues, that was really obvious.
I spent practically all of the day in the National Gallery, writing notes for poetry, which I'll just skip over - it's not a feature of why I wouldn't choose to live in London, because I liked it in there, even if the majority of the paintings seemed to be about saints or God, which I'm not overly keen on. But I digress.
We took the scenic route back to the tube station - saw the London Eye, a big ferris wheel you wouldn't get me on, the Themes (I wasn't terribly impressed. Where I live we have the Mersey and the Dee), Downing Street, even if it was blocked off, and the Houses of Parliament. I also saw the guards at Buckingham Palace, or some kind of palace, or somewhere with guards - the ones with slightly odd uniforms. You know what I mean. I actually felt sorry for them; they were on horses, and all these Japanese tourists kept going up and getting their photos taken, and the guards obviously weren't supposed to react to that, but wanted to.
My real reason for not wanting to live in London was due to coming back - the train was slightly delayed, and Euston station was just packed. I don't know how people put up with it. The queues would drive me crazy. On the train back, there was this man standing by the door, and I was having a quiet panic because from where I was sitting it looked like he was going to throw himself off, but then I realised he'd just been standing there. I just didn't think people would stand for long distance journeys. I get annoyed if I have to stand to go three miles on the bus.
I had a great time on the trip. But London just reminded me of that saying, 'the thing about winning the rat race is, you're still a rat'. Or something like that anyway.