#29: Retrospective: The Year that Changed Me // Love Letter to London

Hello Everyone! Today has been a day of farewells and now the time has come to say goodbye to you guys. This will  be my last post on the blog and a different one for that matter. It’s a more creative piece. It's my reflections on the past year. I hope you enjoy it (: I also hope you don't get bored while reading it, I know it's quite long).

I am sitting in my tiny room three storeys above street level looking down upon random people passing by our house. I absentmindly listen to their conversations as they drift upwards and through my open window. I’ll miss my room. The walls are bare now and the closet is empty; all my belongings jammed into the suitcase outside my door, but it still feels safe.

   After eleven months in London, my stay in this wonderful, vibrant city has come to an end and it is with a heavy that I am saying goodbye. It has truly been an extraordinary year.

It has been a year of letting go and getting lost and finding one’s way back again. When I left Denmark last summer I had no idea that working as an au pair in London would come to make such a great impact on me, however, it certainly has. I have been challenged and inspired, I have grown and matured and I been lucky enough to meet some amazing people along the way. 

When I first arrived, I remember London coming across as a perfectly mad place. The sheer amount of people was overwhelming - the contradiction of being surrounded by thousands and thousands of people yet feeling completely anonymous. The city is pretty brutal in that way; you can stay here for days without anyone talking to you or even acknowledging your existence.

  The challenge of building a social network from scratch has therefore also proved one of the biggest challenges that I have had to face while living here. No one is forcing you to socialize; basically, you rely completely on your own initiative to meet other people, something that I thought was though at times. However, looking back now it also makes me extra proud of what I have achieved on that account; knowing that during this year I have made friendships which will last for a long time.

I chose London because I loved the sound of this colourful place where diversity was celebrated and different cultures and religion existed side by side. At arrival I was not disappointed.
   During my stay in London I’ve met people of more different nationalities than I believe I would have travelling the world in the same amount of time. I’ve met people from all continents, people of different skin-colour and of various religious beliefs. I visited China Town, Korean Town and Bhangla Town all carefully nestled within the boundaries of this modern Western Capital. I seen the contrasts, but also the similarities between cultures. I haven't been outside England once in the past year, yet I feel like my horizon has been broadened enormously.  

When you fall in love with a city, you have to wait for the city to love you back before you will truly feel at home. That's the conclusion I believe. I loved London from the beginning, but it took months of confusion and frustration before I started seeing the patterns behind the immediate chaos. You don’t just become a Londoner over night; it’s more of a subtle process where you slowly become familiar with the city, its unwritten laws and its way of life until, suddenly, you feel like you belong. 

   For me the realization of having become a Londoner came when I started running down the escalators for no specific reason. True Londoners are always in a hurry even though they are really not.

Living in London makes you awfully spoilt, I think. I actually have the feeling that I might need a decompression chamber when I come back to my small hometown in order to prevent myself from turning into a roaring London dickhead. Because what do you mean the shops aren’t open on Sundays? And why aren’t there any Wi-Fi hotspots around here? I have to wait a 15 minutes for the next bus!? Where is Starbucks? Where is Pret? Why won’t Asos deliver the same day? Why won’t the online supermarkets deliver at all? And why is the local radio station obsessively plugging a marmalade festival!?

   I can just picture it. It will be a difficult transition without a doubt.

What I love about London is that there is no judgement here. Posing, preening and thinking you are ‘it’ is acceptable. There is  no right or wrong way. It is a city that cherishes the odd and eccentric and those individuals who dare to stand out. You can be exactly who you want and no one will judge you. It is a liberating experience.
   Though for me it hasn’t been the possibility of running wild and doing what I wanted that made me grow. For me it was the encounter with the huge responsibility of taking care of two young girls that really changed me. Suddenly having someone depending on you, it puts things into perspective. It’s makes you more vulnerable, but at the same time it is also empowering. It makes you realize your own potential.      

London is lovely. Exhilarating. Life-enhancing. Any turn you make will find you a new place to drink, a new place to get up to mischief. Everywhere is crowed; stuff is happing; life is being lived here.  

   Yet, my life is taking a new direction spurring me away from all of this.

   Right now saying goodbye seems like the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I also know that the time has come for me to move on. New adventures lie ahead.
  

Huge thanks to all of you who have taken time out to read the blog and to follow my journey. It means incredibly much to me. To my family and friends, thanks for bearing with me when I have been late answering mails, messages, letters and Skype calls and know that your words always were very important to me.
   Documenting a year of my life has been a very interesting experience; thanks again for making it worthwhile. I’ll let the blog continue to exist as a memento of when I experienced London.

Lots of love,

x Sofie

#28: Watching Sport

Hello Everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying the Summer! For me the last week has really been all about sport. Yes, you heard me right, sport (: as in competitive exercise..) High profile sporting events to be more precise… like A) The Wimbledon Championships !! and B) The Tour De France !!!
   Now you may ask yourself how on earth it happened that within the same week I ended up at A) a posh, high society tennis event and B) a far from sophisticated cycling race that normally takes place in France… when I really wasn't meant to at either... I figured I would share the story.

As for Wimbledon, it is such a popular event over here that you have to book tickets really far in advance to get in (: which I of course hadn't thought about) + the tickets are really rather expensive.. which was also one of the reasons I wasn't planning on going in the first place. But then something unexpected happened! My 'host mum' suddenly had a spare pair of tickets that she wasn't able to make use of herself and so she was so kind as to offer them to me! So I invited Lea (: who luckily was up for it!) and we went the next day!
   The tickets were for Tuesday in the 2nd week of the tournament. At this point they were already over half way through the tournament which luckily for us meant that many of the lesser players had already been eliminated leaving the bigger profiles for us to watch. Among others we saw Petra Kvitova who later became the winner of the Lady's single final in action and stars like Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal we followed on a big screen which was put up in the back of the grounds and that was transmitting directly from the huge Centre Court which requires special tickets (: that we didn''t have) to enter.
   We stayed on the grounds; eating strawberries and enjoying the weather which turned out just magnificent, until the very last match and then we went home quite in ave over what we had experienced. I accepted the tickets just a tint bit prejudiced, but I have to say it was an impressive event. Even though my prejudices about Wimbledon probably being the most posh, polished sport event EVER was very much confirmed, I also saw how much of an English tradition it is and that I thought was quite unique.

Now on to a French tradition; The Tour De France!! Which have been on a three-day stay in England this year; having visited cities like Harrogate, York and Cambridge before it came crashing down on the capital this Monday.
   And if you (: like me) have grown up in a rather bike enthusiastic family you don't want to miss it when the world's largest cycling race pay your city a visit so me and Lea (: who was once again game on one of my spontaneous, crazy ideas - bless her) devoutly spent our Monday afternoon sitting on the Queen Victoria Statue in front in Buckingham Palace waiting for the riders to arrive for the final sprint that was to take place at the Mall. We waited with approx. one billion other people (: so many Danes!! Well done us!!) under a burning sun and through a couple of angry showers, but the atmosphere was great and when the riders finally arrived the crowd just went mad! It was a mental experience, but so much fun seeing the whole set-up at such close range.
   Afterwards, Lea and I went stalking the Danish press and reporters in order to send a message to our families back home, however, we did not succeed…

Not to forget, I also went to see the girls doing sport and other activities at their school's annual Sports Day last week. It was a great day - I'll come to miss the girls so, so much when I leave.

Speaking of which I'll be back in Denmark on Jul 18th. Only 6 days to go... Embrace yourselves.

x Sofie

Sports Day 

Wimbledon

Tour De France 

#27: LYGC on TOUR

Hello Everyone! So, I've got the feeling that this is going to be my most comprehensive post yet (: or at least the one with the most pictures in it!!). This weekend I went to Stratford-upon-Avon  (Shakespeare's Birthplace, wuup!) which is located north-west of London, close to Birmingham. I went there with all the lovely people at LYGC which for those of you who do not know is the awesome gospel choir have been attending for the last the last 6 months ;-)

We left London on Friday afternoon on a crowded rush hour train and went to a sleepy little town called Bedworth where we had a gig on Friday night. The gig was hosted by an organization called In2Cultures (http://www.in2cultures.com) that does an amazing job engendering greater respect and tolerance between people by encouraging people to explore different cultures through the medium of creative art. As a part of the show we did 2 seperate sets; one acapella and one with musical accomoaniment which both went really well and then we were supposed to do a big finally with two soloists + backing choir singing the 2012 olympic anthem Proud which is usually a really good set-up, but then 2 minutes into the song a major power cut happened… Soo we pretty much ended up singing that rest song in complete darkness… our pianist skillfully improvising the music and choir and soloists heroically trying to keep up appearances while people was fleeing the building… Ha ha, quite funny actually and that was only 2 hours after we had lost our keyboard stand on the train to Bedworth leaving people frantically running around the train station holding the train back while it was being relocated.
   So after a bit of a bumpy start we left Bedworth for Stratford-upon-Avon where we stayed the rest of the weekend at a very nice, rather plush Holiday Inn - it had cooked breakfast.. and a pool!! We stayed in rooms of four and just to give an impression of the ethnic diversity in the choir and I thought I'd use my room as an example. We stayed five girls in my room; Rosie who English, Lola who is from Poland, Cara from Northern Ireland, Lois who is also English but has Ghanaian roots and then myself from little Denmark (: the only Scandinavian person in the choir as far as I'm concerned!). Then we also have people from Germany, Italy, France and Hungary among others. Can you say international? I think so.
    On Saturday we didn't do any gigs, but instead we did several über cool workshops. One was about appoaching Shakespeare's texts though gospel music (: I can now sing the prologue of Romeo and Juliet in gospel tunes! - what an invalueble skill! ), then we had an African drumming class which was a lot of fun and finally we had a Bhangra dancing class which was hilarious and exhausting in equal measures! Bhangra dancing originate from the Punjab region in Northern India and is originally a folk or community dance that was practiced in conjunction with the harvest. We where only taught a simple routine, but it was still really challenging! And even though you quickly got the hang of the basic moves it was difficult to get all the little details right like how to shake your your head in the right manner! And god it was exhausting jumping on your toes the whole time! Still it was a great experience. In the evening we all went out for dinner together and then afterwards most of the choir continued to the local nightclub where we had a crazy two-hour dance party (: we literally had the entire club chanting LYGC!! LYGC!!) before we went back to the hotel.
   Sunday we spent walking around the town centre putting up small performances (: sharing the joy of music! Ha!) in various locations. After that we had an hour long gig at some kind of summer festival/fair which turned out quite good I think considering that everyone's voices was rather hoarse from the manic club singing the night before.
   And just like that we were at the end of a wonderful weekend and we had to run to the train station to catch our train back to London. On our way back Fiona, Zack and Suzi held a brilliant 'award ceremony' as an ending to the entire tour. They handed out tiaras to everyone while presenting each of us with a 'title'; e.g.  one was awarded for 'best fusion of bhangra and hip hop dance moves', another for 'most efficient use of breakfast buffet'. I was named 'photographer of the tour'… Wonder why :P..

Sadly, my time in the choir is running out and even though it has only been six months I know that leaving it behind will be very difficult! It makes me sad to think that I'll not be there when everyone gets back together in August, but on the other hand there are things I need to do that I cannot do in London. I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity to be a part of something this fun and LYGC is definitely one of the things that I'll miss most about London! So, before I'm getting all sentimental.. enjoy the pictures (wuup!) and check out LYGC (: London Youth Gospel Choir) on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. to see what we are really up to. And if you for some reason are in London and are free on Jul 11th, come to our End of Term gig in All Saints Church Notting Hill at 8pm - It'll be wicked!!

x Sofie