Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand six-hundred minutes, five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand pints of beer! Oh, wait, that's not how it goes, is it? This is how you can tell it's a show about life in New York and not in London. You can't survive Manhattan without at least a pint of vodka flowing through your veins at all times. In London, unless you fancy $18 cosmos as standard, you drink beer. Lots and lots of beer. Fortunately they embrace white beer here. Try it immediately.
Here I sit, on the afternoon of the eve of my one-year anniversary in London; Todd from New York is in town, I've had two pints at lunch, carefully selected friends have been invited to Thai tomorrow, and an even more select few are coming; the weekend holds promise, and the searing heat has given over to grey, cool, sweater weather.
So what do I think of my circumstance? Of London, the year that's past, Natasha, all those and what I've left behind? Well, lately, quite a lot. I suppose the coming of this anniversary has naturally bent me towards introspection, and I've come to decisively cloudy indecision.
Natasha has been amazing. I expected a roommate, but I got a partner in the truest sense. Not just the friend she's become, but the person who's lived this experience with me and understands. I remember how hard it was moving to New York, not knowing anyone in the flesh, and what a different move this was. London feels diminished when she's not here.
I miss my New York friends immensely. I have friends here, some of whom I've grown closer to than I'd expected, others I've rarely, or never, seen. But the depth within the breadth I'd grown to have in New York is lacking, and it can feel emotionally naked. Of course I can't have the type of friends I built up over seven years in just one, but that doesn't make me miss them any less.
I love writing sterling cheques. I love when the phone is engaged, looking right then left to cross a street, snogging & pulling, taking the rough with the smooth, taking the piss, putting asides in brackets and brilliant or lovely things. I love living and working abroad, amongst people who've grown up in a different culture than I. It's so much fun learning the little ways their lives are different from mine: the different perspectives, the different collective memories & experiences. I love living "so close to" Europe.
"London's prohibitively expensive" someone told me just before I moved here. As a Manhattanite, I shrugged her words off and laughed inside. Wow, a slap in the face can hurt sometimes. I was out Wednesday not having drinks with someone, and he got a vanilla milk shake. For $7.50. On top of this I've had some lingering financial worries hanging over me from New York that've made most every week a nervous, wrenching uncertainty. It's been hard. But it's also given me the momentum to take the plunge into school full-time, move forward and get on top of this situation.
With enough planning I can get anywhere in Western Europe, and much of the East, for $100 or less. But it's costing me $1,200 to see friends and family this December.
Every morning and evening when I walk over the Blackfriars Bridge and can look from the Houses of Parliament and London Eye on one side, to St. Paul's, the Gherkin, Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf on the other, I often feel stunned, but always feel lucky. This city is amazing; amazing in a way you can never grow tired of. And I live here.
I find London's Los Angeles-like sprawl frustrating. I know some of you made fun of me for it, but I loved living in my tiny bubble in New York. Everything and most everyone I wanted was near - what's so bad about that?
I relish getting to be a kid in a candy store again. London's still so new; there's still so much to see and find. I have areas I love, but there are so many I haven't even seen yet, and ones I like but rarely get to. This fades after enough time in any city, but London will allow this to go on much longer than most. What's that saying about a man who grows tired of London...?
So what do I think? Did I make the right choice? Am I still glad to be here? Absolutely. Am I ready to leave? Definitely not. But in the same breath, I feel more like a New Yorker than ever.
I miss you all. Come visit soon.
Cheers,
Shaun
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