Hi - anyone move from London to Toronto? How did you find the transition, what were the biggest shockers, how has your experience been? It would be interesting to hear other's experiences!

Do you mean London, Ontario or London England ?

Do you mean Ontario, Canada or Ontario, California?

The biggest shockers:

The cost of Retail
The lack of choice in Retail
The institutional Racism
The cold and the volume of grit that ends up on your car when it snows
Sweet Potato Fries
Table services and the amount of beautiful girls who bring you beer
Empty streets as a pedestrian
Less and slower transit available to get around the city

That's probably everything you need to know.

*with fruit.

The fact that if you want a weekly TTC metropass, they run Mon to Sun, you can't buy one starting on a Thursday, well you can, but you'll only get 4 days out of it. I once queried this with a staff member and a very nice lady behind me in the queue shook her head and said in a Euro-Med accent, 'I'm afraid you'll have to leave your European expectations of high functioning subway systems at home. I roll my eyes at their incompetance.' OK she didn't say the last bit, but we were both thinking it!

but rather fine thigh boots.

Yes.
I found the transition to be 8 hours.
Public transport costs less but it's 20 years behind in terms of infrastructure.
What JamesM says about lovely girls bringing you drinks is true.

I couldn't get over that. I had to ask the fella in the booth to confirm this ridiculous system - he just shrugged.

If you're a Londoner, you'll have no problem moving to it. Its much smaller.

London may have a huge transport system but it really is creaking under the strain at the moment. Not a weekend goes by in SW London that buses dont replace the trains because of the works that are desperately needed, its so frustrating. Also, the overcrowding is truly awful.

^^^^^^THIS!!!!!!!!!

The TTC is only 3 Lines or something so, a breeze to learn how to use.The London underground system is much more complex. The overcrowding is seriously too much to handle some days.

Oh and a side note: Institutional racism? What about the BNP??? :P

Please look up the meaning of 'institutional racism'. The BNP are a brutal but fairly minor right wing party (unfortunately gaining in popularity in some areas), but are not for the most part institutional, either in the way the country or society work as a whole. They are also one of the smaller right wing influences in Europe.

Some might see the public transport system in the UK as better value. Despite the delays and other problems on it, it is much more extensive than Toronto's and will take you a lot further, and to more places. I think a lot of transit systems are struggling to keep up with demand as populations grow and infrastructure ages.

You will likely to find Toronto a lot cleaner than London, but you'll also find it has a lot less to do too, and much less culture and history, which here is not freely available. I mean that in the way that many museums, art galleries and historical monuments are by voluntary donation in the UK.

I was just pointing out that racism exists here as well and having a racist political party you can actually vote for was shocking to me

I don't think I mentioned anything about how awesome Torontos public transportation is. I did say however, that there are only 3 lines in comparison to like 13 in London. I agree it will take you further ect, London is also a much much bigger city and dense in population and infrastructure so requires this.

I actually found Toronto to be dirtier than london in certain ways. They don't have enough bins out on the street to get rid of the garbage, and people just chuck things on the floor without a thought there. London has more culture and history, I mean, Canada is ONLY like 140ish years old. You can't really compare there. Yes, you can visit museums freely, although, some are no longer free. I think there are lots of things to do in both places, just that they differ.

I know you've been out of Canada a while but there's this fellow, Jason Kenney, people vote for him.

But is he really a racist or is it just that he holds the Immigration portfolio and that some of his comments and policies as the Minister could be construed as racist.
One could say Ruby Dhalla the ex Liberal MP was not a racist but some of the comments she made were more in favour to her voter base as opposed to mainstream Canadians.
I know I wouldnt want to be a politician and hold the Immigration portfolio as you know that everything you say would be under the microscope.
As a matter of interest were you in favour of Ms Dhallas stance on amending the Old Age Security in her private members bill C-428 ?