10 Things for London

It has come to my attention of late, that I have been thinking about Asia a lot. Maybe a little too much considering I currently reside in London. Europe and Great Britain, among other continents are at my feet. And so its really not very fair to be flying away to far of places, rather then appreciating and experiencing the new ones that I am in, now is it?

Therefore, I have decided to write a list (cause I really do love lists) of ten things I love, so far, about England as a little introduction to writing, loving and being here, in London.

1)    Firstly, she’s an oldie, but a goodie; the travel. How easy and cheap it is. I have just finished three months around Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and already I have firm plans in place for Wales in November and Morocco for New Years, as well as weekend trips around UK. Not bad.

2)    Followed by a simpler pleasure: flowers. London seems to have a lot of flowers around, peoples rose gardens for example. Plus there is literally corner or just street side pop up stalls with people selling beautiful fresh flowers every day, and for a great price. Hell in a few weeks I am going to a flower market in east London, how blissfully dreamy does that sound

3)    The various conferences and festivals. So far on my calendar is a talk about creating a minimalistic lifestyle and its benefits, and an annual ‘vegefest’ festival with nutritionists, chefs, naturopaths and doctors on vegan and vegetarian living. Ermmm drool!

4)    Transport. Now let me clarify this one. Albeit I understand that the bus systems and underground is somewhat amazing. That it is in fact bloody handy to be able to casually travel an hour to go out for dinner or to visit a friend. Back home you would never drive from Auckland to Hamilton for a lovely dinner out. Here the trip is really quite reasonable. But I still can’t say I love it. What I do love is that you tend to walk a lot. You can walk to most things you need, and even still there’s walking to the tube stations or bus stops and around your destination. Back home there’s a very drive-down-the-road mentality which I’ve never liked. If I can walk to it, I’ll usually opt for that.

5)    Shopping. Oh I hate that this has made it to my list, but it really is painfully amazing.

6)    The Marc Darcy’s and hipsters. You know the honest to god lovely, down to earth, lover boy Marc Darcy type. They really do exist and I just want to give them a big hug and plant one on their cheek. And then there’s the juxtaposition of the hipsters, who I can’t deny to love too. Their funk, style, attitude problems, tattoos, creativity and the fact their normally down for a vegan burger. Sold!

7)    The bookstores. Oh me oh my! The bookstores! Back home we seem to be lacking severely in this department, and I really can, and often do, spend absolute hours pacing the shelves, oooh-ing over the covers, stroking the spines, reading every cover and blurb and taking notes on my phone. Sitting in a silent corner and breathing it all in. Plus 12 pound for a book!? Don’t mind if it do.

8)    The parks. We have parks in New Zealand and I’m sure they are very nice. I just can’t say I’ve been to many of them. And I think if you ask most Kiwis you will find they say the same. The beauty of that is, that we don’t really need them. We all have a big back yard with a deck and barbeque, its common culture to have one of these at the beach too for those blissful summers. Oh that’s the other thing, the beaches. They are also everywhere with wide open public spaces. But, here, you do need a park, and they are quite lovely. A lot of people head there, even when the weathers not so flash, and there’s something magical to be said about having a picnic in the park or even just going out, to go to a park and wander around with all the other fresh air seekers.

9)    Bike culture. I have wanted an adorable old school Rayleigh bike for longer then I can remember, but in a country, who drives everywhere (see no. 4) there’s not a lot of point to spending absurd amounts of coin on a classic bike that are bloody hard to come by. But by week two in London I picked up a sweet new second hand ride and today I picked up a sweet cane basket to add to it. In the weekend my partner and I went for a cute wee bike date and it was actually a lot of fun and made getting from A to B in London seem a lot easier. We have both decided to bike to work too, transport can be very time consuming and expensive and there’s not a lot of time either side of work for exercise. Lets hope the summer warmth sticks around for a little while longer yet.

10)  And finally, getting to spend every night in bed snuggled up with James. This is the first time we have lived together, and its pretty dam special to have that guy around all the time.