Fact: I do and perhaps always will miss London. Like it or not, it's the place I felt most at home. And today, while reading The National (one of 2 or 3 major UAE papers), I found a new connection: Edgware Road.
I remember Edgware Road - it was a place I felt like an outsider, and no surprise. It is, according to Omid Djalili, after Damascus, Mecca and Medina, the most Islamic place on the planet. (What about Dearborn, Michigan?) Hoping that next year this time I'll be completing my second or third month of a 2-year stint in Abu Dhabi, I now look back with fondness on Edgware Road.
Okay, let's be honest. I look back with fondness on any - even the slightest - connection with my favorite (favourite!) city on the planet.
But the next time I'm in London, Edgware Road might be the place I feel more at home than before, when I lived in trendy West Hampstead (though not in the trendy part of West Hampstead) and worked in rough and tumble South London (Bermondsey). Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to communicate in the local language of Edgware Road!
Is it wrong that I'm already planning my holidays for a job I don't actually have yet? Well, tough. I have friends who are almost family in London, fond memories of living and working in London, and an unending love for that city, even though it didn't work out for me to live there in 2009.
Anyway. This article makes me smile. And hope. And want to practice my Arabic anew!
I remember Edgware Road - it was a place I felt like an outsider, and no surprise. It is, according to Omid Djalili, after Damascus, Mecca and Medina, the most Islamic place on the planet. (What about Dearborn, Michigan?) Hoping that next year this time I'll be completing my second or third month of a 2-year stint in Abu Dhabi, I now look back with fondness on Edgware Road.
Okay, let's be honest. I look back with fondness on any - even the slightest - connection with my favorite (favourite!) city on the planet.
But the next time I'm in London, Edgware Road might be the place I feel more at home than before, when I lived in trendy West Hampstead (though not in the trendy part of West Hampstead) and worked in rough and tumble South London (Bermondsey). Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to communicate in the local language of Edgware Road!
Is it wrong that I'm already planning my holidays for a job I don't actually have yet? Well, tough. I have friends who are almost family in London, fond memories of living and working in London, and an unending love for that city, even though it didn't work out for me to live there in 2009.
Anyway. This article makes me smile. And hope. And want to practice my Arabic anew!
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