Tale of Two Cities (Nay, 3 Cities)

yeah reached london last week, after 5 weeks in New York, and damn the stark difference absolutely hit me on my face.

first was the issue of finding food at 11 PM in the night, and damn London especially in the sort of commercial area where i live absolutely sucks.

But the pavements of london are not stained with the marks of Dog Piss.
Like in Mumbai there are notices of please dont spit on the walls, (the crazy betel pan chewing habit which is not only disgusting, but leaves its art work on all walls and lamposts in the city) In new York there are similar notices about PLEASE RESTRAIN YOUR DOGS

More over, the New York subways are ugly, though air conditioned, but the stations look like the set of a climax of hindi movie, where the villain has tied the heros mother and girl friend,
just before the final fight sequence.

More over back to seeing shorter buildings, cars being driven on the left of the road (contrary to americans who believe they always have to be "right")

Here i am back to following sports which i do understand, (well baseball and american football i didnt find particularly interesting and back to cricket and soccer. )

As regards with the people on the streets, though both London and NY are both extreemely diverse, in NY people all become homogenous New Yorkers and in london (due to its proximity to europe) people retain their identities, and speak more often in their mother tongue, and are recognised as polish, or french or german or indian for that matter.
There is also some form of Xeno phobia in London through out. (Same in the US as well)
now that bulgaria and romania are joining the EU, its been a lot about migrant workers coming and stealing their jobs.

Here i too am a migrant worker, and i do feel, well in the 17th and 18th century when these guys went and exploited the others, who was stopping them? when they had factories post industrial revolution which kept people poor in the third world countries.
US does take it to other extremes, by having quotas for h1B visas. Who is the champion of fair trade?
Why now it isnt survival of the fittest?
same thing is when Shiv sena and the marathis cry that all jobs are taken by the UP Bihar people, and nothing remains for ethnic population of bombay.
This is the part which is common every where.
people who are born in a location, feel its their privilege to be there, and other guys coming in and lowering the wages is incorrect.
(though i still believe and say i am not a low wage option :P, but a person chosen on merit, and deserve to be in the position, irrespective of my nationality)

yeah this form of xenophobia is atleast portrayed in the Newspapers in all three cities.

Give and take, the human nature is the same across continents.

Arent we all the same animal?