First Impressions

It's been nearly one year since I embarked upon the adventure of my life.

It was around this time last year that my bank account was starting to flex it's potential, daily to-do lists were being scribbled as I commuted to and from works and the excitment begun to loom.

I remember walking through the red carpeted lined international gate and turning to wave one final goodbye at my parents and friends. Filled with happiness and uncertainty, I clung onto my passport and stumbled through security before walking through the duty free hall, completley in awe of the volume of goods stocked upon the rows of shiny white shelves and cabinets.

The nervousness I felt minutes before I boarded CX 104 Hong Kong was intense. I was out on my own, ready for an epic 10 weeks of euro exploration!

Upon arrival at Heathrow Airport, I walked off the plane with relief. 24 hours in transit had played havoc with my body and mind. I felt a slight cold sweat and had an intense urge to brush my teeth to rid of the horrible aftertaste of the poor plane food. I headed straight to the bathroom and slapped intensive moisturiser upon my face, having endured the dry cabin.

After hauling my backpack from the carosuel I wobbled my self and my new turtlesque baggage to the tube station - The oyster card confused me at first, but this was my first exchange of words with a true Londoner. I sat inside the red, white and blue carraige and rode the train to Kings Cross St. Pancras.

8am on a relatively warm thursday morning, I observed the office workers standing gleefully infront of me. Reading papers, ipods pumping music and white shirts crisply ironed as the train raced past lines and lines of streets with connected townhouses - chimnies and tv aerials highlighting the tiled roofs.

Walking off the train, the colours of the tube signs above excited me - grey for Jubilee line, pink for Hammersmith, Black for Northern, brown for Bakerloo, blue for Piccadilly, Yellow for circle, Green for District, baby blue for Waterloo and City and red for Central lines. The Tube map initself is a british icon...!

I walked up the stairs of the station, jetlagged and weary, and was greeted with hustling Euston Road. Men in suits scurrying past with breifcases, tradies (both of young and fit and old and plump physiques) in orange overalls working the road sides like a good chap, and newspaper vendors flogging the day's tabloids.

Euston Road was, too, in a state of communal chaos:  red double decker buses raced with cars and black cabs, as pedestrians strutted over the faded road crossing instructions painted beneath their clob stomping heels.

A first impression I will never forget; London, how I miss you so...