Brilliant

Instant message from D: “And so after one dumb Blair Witch movie, Hollywood decides on making a sequel. How pants is that?!”
Pants = lame
(Also, pants = underwear)

R has told me at least twice already that I am “a legend!” I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m a legend, but I would have to agree that I’m pretty awesome.

It’s great living in a new city where even the most mundane things can be different to what you know from home. There are so many new things for your senses to explore – the first sip of a cup of a coffeeshop latte, the strong gust of wind that seems to come out of nowhere on the subway platform, the placement of a doorknob in the middle of the door instead of the side, the crosswalk on the road that allows for the cars on both sides to stop so close to you that you think they’re going to crash into you, the free daily papers handed out in the street in both a morning edition and an evening edition (crossword puzzles abound), the way the tap water gets scalding hot in less than three seconds, and the way the Doppler effect seems stronger here when the police sirens go past. I find something new or different around each corner.

After visiting New York a few times and getting lost in the “hustle and bustle” of it all, I decided I didn’t want to live in a city that big, that noisy, that impersonal. But being in London for only a week and a half, I am genuinely surprised at how much I love this city. Getting off the Tube at Piccadilly Circus is insane; there’s no better word to describe it. You can’t walk from one corner of the intersection to another without touching someone at all times. It is a sea of people whose waves are ebbing and flowing as everyone makes their way to their destination. (And if you’re not careful, it’s possible to literally be trampled.) Yet even though it’s so easy to get lost and ignored in this madness, the city at least has character. This is not to say that New York doesn’t have character, as any fool knows that; it’s just to say the character here is more…endearing. The neighborhoods of this city are just that, neighborhoods. And the difference between these London and New York neighborhoods, it seems, is that the people of London make you feel at home. When you’re in New York, the natives make sure you know you’re just a visitor in their city. When you’re in London though, the locals are welcoming of everyone and make you feel as though you’ve lived here your whole life. Though it’s just as massive a city as New York, I feel safer in London. Maybe it’s the accents, maybe it’s the upholstered seats on the Tube, maybe it’s the fact that they have about 1% of the amount of guns New York has. Whatever it is, I like it. And now six months doesn’t seem like such a long time.