Markets, mulled wine and muggles
Posted by Laura Gaweda | Graduate blog on Thursday 15 December 2011, 3:47PM Share
'Tis the season to be jolly, so for my first blog I'm going to be shamelessly cheery and give you a taste of the upsides of working in the City.
Any regular viewer of The Apprentice would be forgiven for thinking that the Square Mile is full of competitive maniacs with dark suits and even darker intentions.
Granted, there are some gloomy faces among the swarm across London Bridge every morning, but I've found plenty to smile about. Here are my top three reasons why there’s nowhere in London with a patch on the City:
1) The food - there are so many lovely lunch places around here that you'd have to start eating five meals a day to even make a dent in them (a pretty tempting prospect, but then I would actually have to use my gym membership. And if I did that, I'd be stuck for a New Year's resolution). Sushi, burritos and a sandwich that one of my fellow grads spent a good three weeks talking about are just a few of the treats that have me thinking about lunch before 9am.
2) The markets - Borough and Spitalfields are close by, and Leadenhall is just around the corner. Leadenhall is perfect for a spot of shopping or a post-work mulled wine, it currently has a huge Christmas tree, and there were even a couple of owls there the other day (with a bird handler promoting a sanctuary, not just going about their daily business).
Not to mention the fact that it was a Harry Potter filming location. Admittedly, the real-life entrance to the Leaky Cauldron is actually a distinctly unmagical optician's store, but still - how many people can say they work near Diagon Alley? Exactly.
3) The weird and wonderful mix of new and old – I love the way that examples of crazy modern architecture like the Gherkin and our very own building (which just reached its 25th anniversary) are dotted among beautiful historical buildings such as the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. A very apt setting for Lloyd's considering our own philosophy of combining traditional values with modern innovations.
So there you have it. Proof that the Wharf and the West End have got nothing on us...
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