London's a real city with real crime. Not that you should get hysterical about walking on the street or taking the subway, but be aware. Maintain a state of vigilance (but not hyper-vigilance because that's too tiring). In this one ten month period of living here the following has happened:

• friends in Islington had their flat broken into and things stollen, including a laptop (but it was insured, yay!)
• someone in my residence hall had their laptop stollen, through a second floor window! by someone who propped a ladder up against the building. The windows only open about 6 inches, so this was quite a feat.
• someone got onto a 2nd-floor balcony in my building and entered someone's flat that way.
• A guy in one of my classes was mugged in an alley at night near school.

My own true London crime story goes like this: I was sitting in a coffee shop and for some stupid, stupid, mindless reason I decided to hang my bag (with wallet, keys, mobile phone, etc in it) over the back of my chair. I was writing some notes and had some articles I out that I was going to try to read.

Something caught my attention. I don't know what, someone standing a little to close to me I think. I'm paranoid like that. And it's a good thing because I turned my head and a middle-aged man in a puffy coat HAD MY BAG IN HIS HAND AND WAS REACHING OUT TO OPEN THE DOOR. I didn't think at all, but immediately grabbed it out of his hands. He looked at me, mumbled something and quietly walked out the door. People sitting nearby stared at me with shocked faces, but didn't really say anything, cause, you know, they're British and reserved and don't talk to strangers.

So, my stupidity was counteracted by my impulsive quick-thinking and it all turned out okay.

As a final note I've realized that the area near Euston station where I now live has loads of crack addicts and dealers. First, I saw two intimidating men on the street, one was yelling at a woman who was crying. Another woman was trying to comfort her. It seemed odd. Then I saw groups of people limping or walking strangely and a number of prematurely aging women. I couple of times I've felt uncomfortable enough to detour down a side street to avoid them. There's even a local website dedicted to the issue: Crack Cocaine in Camden.

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