Cities

Here I am in a busy internet cafe in Soho, London. Just half a block from Tottenham Court Road tube station. 1 pound gets me internet ALL DAY!!
So with nothing else planned for today, I plan to hole up here and connect on the interweb!

I've been in London for 2 weeks and one day and there is a bit of pressure for me to set up camp here.

So I've been doing alot of thinking lately (actually it's been a common thread of thought for me in the last few years) about the nature of cities and which ones to live in.
I've lived in a few and been to many.
Some i quite dig and enjoyed whatever time I stayed there. Others I didn't particularly like. Others cities I look at in a romantic light and think I could live there, while very few I could seriously think i could live there.

But London....... the jury is still out.

I didn't come over here with the intention to stay in London. It's big, expensive and filled with Aussies and Poms.
I had my heart set on some of the smaller cities. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, Bath, York etc.

I've slipped into a familiarity here in London. 2 weeks in the one spot is quite a commitment for a rambling man. I've got a good network of friends and I've had some fun here.

I've been telling myself that i don't want to settle here. And I got a really tasty job bite up in Glasgow the other morning. But then i did something pretty bad.

I had an excellent day in olde London Town!

It was a lovely sunny day so I met the London-Girl for lunch in the park opposite St Pauls Catherderal. When she went back to work I met another friend in Soho to track down a jazz music shop. Not only did we find it, we also came across some other really funky shops nestled in some back alleys. A Jimmy Smith cd was bought for 5 quid!

Then the London Girl and I bought ourselves a bottle of Champaign and picnic food and we went to Hyde Park for dinner. We found a nice romantic spot overlooking the sun setting on the pond.
As we headed out of the park we were approached by a drunk fortune telling irishman and his dog, Sparky. He read our tarrot cards and while i didn't understand everything he said, the gist of it looked very favourible.

After that we walked to a swanky jazz bar for dancing to a great band.

Days don't get much nicer then that!

But I think the plan will be to just play my hands and wait and see where the chips fall!