London
7 Weeks have flown by, hardly noticed at all. You can order groceries online and have them delivered to your doorstep. You can buy a monthly student travel pass, and take the bus or tube anywhere, except for when drivers go on strike, or when tube-works are in progress, which always falls on the weekend. You can walk. This is the weather for walking; not sweltering, like Singapore, which I miss a little, especially when I remember my car, tuning in to Chinese Pop at 93.3FM on the way to work, or on late night drives. Everyone here is polite. Sorry, thank you, have a good day. I appreciate that. They don't have to be genuinely interested in you, God forbid, but please, just have some manners. I've made some friends, been to a few pubs and swanky places, been on the London Eye (it was disappointing - I can't imagine what ours is like), watched some fantastic musicals, saw my patients, did my reading, cooked curry, cod-risotto, noodles, sandwiches, sandwiches sandwiches. I am astounded that the neighborhood library has books on Chinese, and foreign films on DVD. The aromatic duck still tastes great. The berries are delicious. I put on layers of clothes, going to school in a blazer over a jumper over a shirt over a t-shirt. No-one thinks you are sad when you read standing on the tube, because everyone does it. Its getting dark at 5pm, and the clock jumped back an hour to save daylight, but everyone thought nothing about this wrinkle in time. I'm learning Aikido from an English lady who is at least 60, and the irony is not lost that I came all the way around the world to buy a white cotton gi and shout moves in Japanese. Now, the window is open, and the house is warm and heated, and I try to take pictures of the freezing night air, and the rarified flakes that drift through it, but they only come out as an inky smudges of darkness. 3 years will pass in no time, and I wonder how much of this life I will miss when I leave it behind to return to the sweltering island I love. First things first then. I'll terribly miss the snow.