City Adaptation

Summary: The city is great.

Word of the day: pudding
This means dessert.

What I learned today: Grocery store 101
Everone else here has a chip in their credit card that makes them not have to sign receipts, so now everyone will KNOW I’m American in line at the grocery store. Oh, and they don’t have Lean Cuisines here so I have to learn how to microwave something else!

***

It’s fun to find the common thread among things you fall in love with, and I just discovered that the city is one of mine. Even the first person I fell in love with at age 18 was really just the manifestation of my love for Las Vegas. While Columbus is tiny compared to London, I loved it because I worked in the city. It could easily have been a borough in a bigger city, and that’s why I liked it. I’m all about urban life—walking instead of driving, pubs next door, the idea that an important person could be just around the next corner. Maybe this sounds silly because everyone feels this way, but, then again, I don’t think they do.

I am loving the independence over here, although I’m lonely without my usual overabundant supply of friends and only a video cam to keep me in touch with my boyfriend. But no one ever feels lonely in the city, as Carrie once cheesily stated on an episode of Sex and the City. It’s wonderful to both work and live in the city—something I’ve never experienced together.

Let me reiterate: I’m so happy to be out of suburban Ohio. I’ve now lived in both northern Cincinnati and Columbus, and I felt myself suffocating in both places. I can’t live in suburbs so far from the city ever again—and as I say that I see my life flashing forward to a boring suburb! Make it stop!

The area I live in (the Docklands) actually reminds me of Chicago, because it is where most of the London high-rises are and is right on the water. I took a ferry across the river today to do grocery shopping at Canary Wharf. It’s lovely and modern there, which is different than the rest of London, but it still has that iron-gated charm you don’t find in America. But it was definitely the most American-like part of London so far. Especially the mall. Except, the grocery store was in the mall and in the middle of the grocery store was a fancy display of home appliances like in a department store, which was strange; yet everything strange here seems to make sense when you think about it.

So grocery shopping definitely made me feel like this is “home,” but tomorrow will really be a part of the city. There’s nothing like being a part of the workforce--my travel guide to London says. I’ll be going into work at a financial magazine, swiping my Oyster card (a monthly travel card to use the bus and tube) and probably getting coffee somewhere local (for $10, haha).

I promise to have more entries actually about journalism (which is why I’m here) and more city exploration. I remind myself of this columnist at Columbus Alive who rambles and thinks she makes great revelations about life by saying things like “The city is great.”

What I’m listening to: Nothing, my iPod needs charging and my computer needs a converter to charge (I'm bumming my flatmate's), so music is temporarily out of order:(