London Trip: How I Felt

Because London is a metro city and because I have been in love with it since forever, the whole experience was magical. I'm one of those people who like a lot of things, and have a generally good view of most things, things that other people look upon with an unamused face, such as airline food. I do enjoy airline food and traveling, especially the on air entertainment. While on the way to London, I spent the time in the plane watching old Hindi songs, and listening to Adele and sleeping while coming back. I also had the window seat and therefore saw the beautiful views during both the Dubai landing and the London landing.

 

London is a beautiful city with its good infrastructure really old buildings and nice people. The roads are HUGE and very clean. There are bins everywhere and I even loved the cold. In fact, apart from having a bad reaction to the cold (especially my lips) I was all OK. Because we lived in-front of a beautiful park where daffodils grew and the view was fantastic, I got up every morning and spent around 10 minutes looking at the view, memorizing every little detail from the building next to us with its marble floor to the big green dome of the British Museum that we could see far away. Everything about it was magical. I felt exactly how I felt while I was at Taj Mahal a few years back, at the second floor looking down the rivers Ganga and Yamna and wanting to freeze time cos that moment was perfect. That was my happy place. Now, I have two happy places that I go to whenever I feel down, and that feels good.

I loved how everything was so fast, yet so slow. The people were always at a rush, a different kind of rush than in Maldives but because the place was old, you could feel that time was going slow, that you were a part of this big historical event. Maybe all this might seem a little dramatic to you, but it all brings such good feelings, like that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you touch a cashmere sweater or feel the wind in your hair. London brought with it a new inspiration by just being there. 

There is so much to do and it's beyond crazy. Maybe its because we come from this tiny country where if you have two places to go at the same day, you feel like life is so amazing, but when you've been to a place that is just so happening, coming back here feels so dull. It's like there's almost no life here. People walk so slow in broad daylight as if they were strolling down a park, which makes me very irritated. Maybe because I've been so accustomed to the London walk. My friends joke about this all the time.

 

This all brings me to a question I've been asked several times, most recently during a conversation I had with Nawaf on whether I'd go live in a place like London forever. I love London and everything about it but somehow forever seems to scare me. I love Maldives, even with its staring people, its congested roads, its unfairness to people and all the crap about politics and power. For me, this is always home and always will be. I might go live somewhere for a year or two or even ten, but I'll always come back home, because no matter what, I'm a Maldivian girl at heart.

PS, I have left the posts about places and London life which I hope to do sometime later, since you are probably going to be bored hearing about London all the time. :P