schneefink | Vacation part II: Oxford & London

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Vacation part II: Oxford & London

After leaving Dublin – thankfully I had no problems at the airport, unlike several other people – I flew to England and stayed with

frith_in_thorns and her wife Ellie for two nights, which was wonderful. They have the fluffiest bunny, and very impressive full bookshelves, and great stuffed toys :)

The first evening Frith and I caught me up on The Untamed episodes I hadn't seen yet and on the second evening the next two, and because my flatmate DD wanted to see my reactions to certain revelations she watched with us via Skype (modern technology, so convenient.) Then there were only two to go and English subtitles were already available, but for some odd reason Frith decided she didn't want to watch subtitles where a sword's name is translated as "Dustproof"… xD ("Golden Unicorn Tower" for Jinlintai and "Brilliance Overgrowth Lord" for Zewu Jun were also certainly… choices.)

On Wednesday Frith and Ellie showed me around Oxford! They're both alumni, so not only was it easier to get into colleges, they also know all the best stories. For example I now know that there are underground waterways in Oxford that nobody really knows the extent or exact location of, that there is a traditional tortoise race (though some colleges' tortoises died and now as a substitute there are people in tortoise costumes but they have to eat an entire head of salad at the beginning of the race to prove that they really are a tortoise), that Magdalen (pronounced: maudlin, for some reason) college has deer, and that in the 60s students at Merton invented a tradition to save the space-time-continuum which involves all students in full academic dress walking backwards around the square lawn drinking port in the "lost" hour of time changes. (I didn't look any of this up, so if it's wrong I blame them.) (I did see the deer, that one's definitely true. There's a deer park, with a fence that made me immediately go "how often have drunk students climbed across"; the answer is apparently "every now and then," which is not very precise.)
Speaking of square lawns, they're pretty much everywhere, and you're not allowed to step on them, until, in some cases, when you're a professor. Because clearly when you're a professor that has to come with privileges.

We also went punting! Which is shoving a boat along a shallow river with a long metal pole. Frith is very good at it, and I – well, we didn't hit the banks? But we were moving in a distinctly slalom pattern, and I did almost decapitate her. No actual injuries though! Apparently there's a student challenge where people jump from a punt up to a bridge, climb over the bridge, and then into the punt again, that sounds like fun but we didn't try that. Unlike all the tourists, who went downriver and kept crashing into the bridge and each other, we went upriver and there was almost nobody else, it was very nice.

On Thursday I left for London and met

cesy there :) We walked around in the Victoria&Albert museum for a bit and especially admired the embroidery on the Chinese imperial robes, wow. European courts had more tapestries than embroidery, at least the exhibitions; there was one very impressive embroidered torah cover, and one waistcoat (but it wasn't as pretty imo.) Then we had waffles, always good, and got to the Serpentine Galleries & Hyde Park via bike taxi, that was fun.

Cesy went to Cambridge, so I got more fun stories. I now know that there's an Assassin's Guild in Cambridge, where you have to "kill" your targets using things like pens that have "knife" written on them, and about the "secret" gay society "the Adonians" (and I haven't been in SGA fandom for years but we immediately started sketching out an SGA AU.)

Then we had excellent typically British food for dinner (pie&mash), and afterwards I felt so heavy that I decided to walk toward the hostel for a few stations. London does have very impressive buildings, and a lot of them. Walking around central London at night, I can almost understand how people who spent most of their time here could get a skewed view about the UK's importance etc.

IF you have a lot of money. I was also told some shocking information about the British rental market, and later did some quick research: "About 80% of tenancies in England and Wales are set at six months or 12 months", and "46% of 25-34-year-olds now live in private rentals" (source: The Guardian, July 2018), and there are short-notice no-fault evictions – apparently the government planned to finally change that a few months ago, but now who knows. (source: The Guardian, April 2019.) 6-12 months! How are you supposed to get a sense of home and security with such short contracts? Austria has a minimum of 3 years and I never properly appreciated that before.
(I also found an 840-page-report on tenant rights in Europe, which sounds fascinating but I don't have the time to read it rn.)

On my last day I went to the Tate Modern gallery, which I'm glad I saw but modern art is hit or miss for me and what I saw didn't really "speak" to me much. Then I walked along the south bank of the Thames for a while, spent some more time in the Museum of Natural History and in the V&A, and then in the evening I went to see a musical!

I saw Wicked, and it was a lot of fun. The costumes were great, and the music, and overall the atmosphere… I haven't read the books (and only very vaguely remember what happens in "The Wizard of Oz"), but I'd heard two of the songs before and was spoiled for the "epilogue" somehow. In the first half I had a seat near the front but at the side, so I couldn't see some parts of the stage, but in the second half I switched to a previously empty seat more in the middle and had a great view. My favorite song was "What is this feeling," followed by "Defying Gravity," and my favorite costume was Elphaba's in the second half. I liked the story too.

And then early the next morning I left for the airport :) With one short anxious moment when the train ticket machine didn't want to take my money, but fortunately there were other travellers there who bought a ticket for me and took Euro, and the rest of the trip had no problems. It was a great vacation and I enjoyed all of it, but I was also very glad to be home again. DD had prepared lunch, then we watched the final episodes of "The Untamed", and then I finally participated in the next session of our D&D campaign. (I found a good solution for "oh no what do I do now that I've become head of a pirate goblin tribe"!, and it felt good to kill monsters with my greatsword again.)

I'm very behind on reading fic and commenting. And there are so many books I want to read… Maybe I can finally take this opportunity to whittle down my many many AO3 subscriptions? (Doubtful tbh.)

In conclusion, vacations are wonderful, conventions are great, meeting friends is fantastic, and I'm a very lucky person.

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How are you supposed to get a sense of home and security with such short contracts? Austria has a minimum of 3 years and I never properly appreciated that before.

Wow. This is so weird to me, as an American--multi-year contracts are not only basically unheard of here, but are generally looked on with suspicion as being to the advantage of the landlord. The ideal for most tenants I know is month to month, and it's landlords who push for one year for the sake of the security of their income stream.

Wait, what? How is it ideal for a tenant to have a month to month rental contract? So you're constantly one month away from possibly having to move without having any control over it? How do you live like that?
(At least this kinda explains the greater focus on buying your own house in the US...)

Here, the minimum contract length is 3 years, and the landlord can only break it earlier under extraordinary circumstances, while the tenant can break it for no reason at any point (1 month in advance iirc) after one year. There are also unlimited rental contracts. (We were offered one, but it would have been more expensive, and we're very happy with our current 10-year-contract.)

Because here, neither party can generally break a rental contract unilaterally (precise law varies from city to city and state to state). Sign a three-year contract and then have your job move you to a different city? Congratulations, you are now liable for two years and eleven months of rent for your old apartment in addition to whatever rent you're paying in your new city of residence.

Now, most landlords are not complete assholes and will come to some arrangement with you. But that arrangement is still probably going to involve you paying a significant sum of money for the privilege of them agreeing to end your lease.

(Thinking further, I wonder if some of this comes down to a difference in expected job stability? I work for the government, where holding a position for decades is not uncommon, but in private industry in the US it's common to change jobs every few years, at least until you reach the top of your career ladder. And even if those changes don't involve moving to a different city, they may involve a commute that's suddenly three hours away from your current place of residence.)

(Even further thoughts: I remember being super surprised when you talked about making kitchen renovations, because in the US it is rare for tenants to be permitted to even paint the walls of their apartment--any other change would be completely beyond the pale. And most landlords prefer to renovate only between tenants, unless something is broken to the point of being non-functional and needs to be replaced to keep the place habitable. So if you want new wall-to-wall carpeting or a nicer oven or a newer dishwasher . . . well, you move.)

Edited 2019-08-27 19:18 (UTC)

Ok, yeah, not being able to unilaterally break a rent contract (!!) explains wanting shorter contracts. Month-to-month still seems unthinkable to me, but I could see 6-months-contracts being preferable.

And yeah, I'm sure it has something to do with expected job stability, and also with country size. My impression is that in the US, people change state/city for new jobs much more often than here. Okay I live in the capital city, probably not the best example, but our towns are much closer together too, and public transport is better.

Not even new appliances?? Also, I imagine if you have such short contracts, you have no leverage whatsoever when you demand that the landlord fulfills their maintenance responsibilities, if you insist they just won't renew the contract.

Also, I imagine if you have such short contracts, you have no leverage whatsoever when you demand that the landlord fulfills their maintenance responsibilities, if you insist they just won't renew the contract.

This is the part where our paradigm is so different that I struggle to wrap my head around it! From my perspective, signing a long-term contract means a tenant has no leverage, because it means they can’t threaten to leave—and threatening to leave/not renew a lease is the main piece of leverage I expect a tenant to have. I expect the cost of moving (for the tenant) to be lower than the cost of leaving the unit occupied for a month to the landlord, which is always a risk when a tenant leaves. So it’s the landlord who wants to renew a contract whenever possible. This is why landlords in the US will often offer rent discounts if you’re willing to sign an 18 or 24 month lease—and why it’s hard to get tenants to take those offers. They perceive it as in their best interest to hold onto their leverage of leaving after the year, even if it costs them hundreds of extra dollars per month.

Wow. Cultural differences... If I have a long contract here and the landlord doesn't fulfill their responsibilities, I can (threaten to) sue them (admittedly not sure about the entry barriers, depends on how much money is involved), or simply unilaterally break the contract, depending on the contract usually with 1- to 3-months notice. Also I guess if you're moving more often, then moving is seen as something more normal and not that difficult, while here I wouldn't first think of the financial cost of moving and more of all the time and effort it costs to find a new place, pack and transport and unpack everything etc., not to mention losing your neighboring community.

I should caveat that everything I’m talking about is in the context of urban housing for people not in poverty; rural rental markets and housing for the poor look very different. (If you want a depressing read, check out Desmond’s Evicted—basically, once you’ve been evicted due to nonpayment no reasonable and honest landlord wants to rent to you again, which leaves you with increasingly terrible choices.)

But yeah, I think of moving as something fairly normal—annoying, sure, and something you might complain to your friends about, but then, so is dental work.

Well, yes, moving is normal, but still something you try to avoid if possible and not have to do very often.

Thanks for the rec! (though idk if I'll get around to it, I'm rarely in the mood for depressing reads.)

Ooh, that all sounds very cool!

"About 80% of tenancies in England and Wales are set at six months or 12 months"
AFAIK other capitals have similar problems – acquaintances living in Amsterdam report spending half a year or more hopping from a one-month-rental to another, and apparently student rentals have a 12-month-cap. It all sounds insanely stressful! (Finland doesn't have a minimum contract length, IIRC, but landlords need to give the tenants a 6-month notice for eviction, and it's still possible to own a house, especially outside Helsinki.)

In conclusion, vacations are wonderful, conventions are great, meeting friends is fantastic, and I'm a very lucky person.
Truer words have never been spoken. <3

Uuuugh, I don't even want to imagine having to move every month! And maximum contract lengths? Weeeird.
6-month notices seems like an acceptable compromise for not having a minimum contract length imo, at least you have some security that you'll have time to find something new.

Big cities: not worth it!

Finland has two types of contract: set-length and "for now" contracts. Set length ones are for, well, a set period of time (frex a student in a city for a summer job or something), and the "for now" ones work like I described. (Tenants only need to give a 1-month notice for their leaving.)

I'm not even sure how hard it is to buy an apartment in Vienna - nobody I know in my age group has even attempted it. (Though I suppose some of them may have contracts like my parents did, where you have an option to buy after a certain amount of years of renting.)

Comparing legal systems is fascinating :)

I'm currently considering buying an apartment in my current city! I'd even have the funds for it, assuming I could get a loan. (Probably could, as I am stably employed etc with no credit issues and housing loans are easy enough to get.) (Please note that I probably couldn't do this in Helsinki – one-room apartments there seem to go for money that could buy one a two-storey house with a nice garden pretty much anywhere outside the region.)

Ooh, good luck with that!

That sounds like a fantastic holiday!

And yeah, tenant's rights in the UK suck. Fun fact: not only are leases very short, but if you're renting through a letting agency (which is very common - they charge both the landlord and the tenant and are generally considered bloodsucking scum) they can charge you a fee for renewing the lease each year. Want to stay where you are? Pay £100 upfront and also accept this rent increase.

It was :)

Wow, that is extra annoying. (Also seems like a strange construct, why would landlords use them if the agency takes money from them too, especially nowadays where directly finding and contacting tenants is much easier?)

It's pretty bad here in Canada too, rental-wise. We have month-to-month leases here too after 1 year. i.e. You sign for 1 year, then you pay month to month after that.

Also: [In 2018, the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) published a report showing that more than 50 per cent of people in Ontario aged 25 to 34 rent their homes.(Source)]

Mostly because nobody can afford to buy homes :(

Okay, at least one year, but month to month still sounds terrible to me. Only one month to find a new place and move? I get stressed just thinking about it...

I'm always grimly amused when people from other parts of the world realise how bad tenants' rights are here in the UK. We've been renting the same place since 2012, and until this year, we had to sign a new lease every six months, once a year the rent would be increased, and every new lease also required the payment of an 'administrative' fee of £50. (As far as I can tell, the only 'administration' taking place was changing the dates on the document of the lease and reprinting it.)

The law has changed recently, meaning we've been changed onto a rolling contract - same conditions, but no end-date, no admin fees, and no rent increase - which is, at least, an improvement.

It's worse in big cities, no matter where you live. My sister, who lives in Melbourne in Australia, said that the only way you could secure a lease there was to basically show up at the open house with a wallet full of cash and offer to pay the deposit, first month's rent, and more money than the advertised rate, then and there. I get the impression that it's the same in London, Dublin, and other places like that.

Ugh :(
The rolling contract at least sounds ok? Does "no end-date" mean you don't have to sign a new lease every six months, or just that there used to be a maximum total length before?

I think we're very lucky in Vienna when it comes to housing, I've heard scary stories from other big cities.

Yes, the 'no end-date' means that we don't have to sign a new lease again EVER, unless they decide they want to change a condition or increase the rent. It means we continue to have the right to live in the house unless either they or we give notice.

Previously we had to sign a new lease every six months, with the end date being the date six months into the future.

The subtitles on Viki seem mostly reasonable to me, but I am really facepalming at their decision to translate the characters' personal titles, like Zewu-jun as "Brilliance Overgrowth Lord" (and Jin Guangyao just got the title Lianfang-zun in the last episode I watched -- I think it was "Secret Fragrance Master"?) Argh. I'm still watching The Untamed slowly -- I'm up to episode 20-something.

Echoing what other people have said about rental contracts, I live in the US and I strongly dislike being locked into a 1-year contract. I used to have a month-to-month rental and I liked that much better, because then I had the flexibility to move at any time during the year and not only once a year at the end of August when pretty much everyone in the entire metropolitan area is trying to move (and if I miss that window, it gets much much harder). But the rental market is really tight around here.

Secret Fragrance Master xD What are some of the other titles?

I understand preferring short contracts much better when there is no option to unilaterally terminate them (though one month still seems very short.)

Those are the worst/silliest ones. They've been translating Hanguang-jun as "Light-Bearing Lord" which is at least reasonably dignified, and Chifeng-zun as "Crimson Peak Master". And this version doesn't translate Bichen as Dustproof or gongzi (young master) as Childe (why??).

*nod* I've never actually had a landlord/rental company tell me to leave in a month when I was renting month to month. It's more like, they'll give one month's notice of raising the rent, and if I can't find a new place within a month I just have to pay the higher rent for a month while I keep looking, and that's not so bad (as opposed to paying higher rent for an entire year).

It was great to see you!

I'm very glad we could arrange a meet-up, I had a great time :)

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Vacation part II: Oxford & London

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