summer post #1

This summer is the calm before the storm, aka my last year of school and the IB diploma. (yay)

While all my friends who visit regular schools are out and about traveling the world or watching the entire series of Game of thrones in three days,  I'm stuck behind my desk hoping for my school work to magically appear done to perfection, neatly placed on my desk. And since that's not happening,  I'm left with the constant self battle of procrastination and ambition. Also , as an IB student, there's no such thing as procrastination and getting away with it in the long term, alas I actually ended up studying ; "wasting" my precious summer time. 

Then again I did spend three short weeks in London which was a drop on the hot stone, literally. I'd never been there before so I was pretty exited to get off that plane asap as I had simply refused to visit that nasty bathroom for seven hours straight and 3 ginger ales later with the loud flush and people trying to break that glorified curtain out of the frame,  perfectly aware of the presence of someone else. I mostly end up not eating anything on planes because their food tastes worse than Ikea's food ; rather I detect hints of plastic and jelly .  Needless to say I wanted to rip someone's head off as I emerged into the atmosphere outside the airport and felt the all too familiar feeling of heat creeping up on me, my hoodie and wool fed sweatpants sticking on me (I kinda prepared for rain and wind???).  I frantically started walking around looking for the hidden cameras and heaters but apparently there weren't any. 

London was absolutely beautiful and I was surprised to see that the majority of the people were either from the UAE , India and Korea. No londoner's in sight. (they're all here).

Naturally , for any person that's Arab or has arabs in their family , Hyde park became my second home and basically resembled the people you'd find in Abu Dhabi, just without the malls. And people pretty much did the same thing, which was to find a place to sit and rest from a big meal they just had or the 3 meters they had to walk to get there, placing their Harrods bags on the dirty grass and having shisha in the middle of a forrest in London. Iconic. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the cultural diversity , observing people from literally every religion and country I could think of. An entire street was dedicated to muslims/arabs with arab restaurants and shops which was very pleasant to encounter . I feasted my eyes on all these different people who wore extravagant clothes and treated Oxford Street like a fashion show ; I was one of the critics in the rows with my thick black sunglasses, making it fairly easy to scan people for long periods of time. Trust me, once you get there , you realise how deprived your eyes and mind are. 

I became appreciative of the luxuries that we experience in the UAE and that are not available in Europe. If you don't want to get stabbed and actually have some running water you better keep 50 cents in your pockets because public bathrooms will cost you. 

I can't remember having eaten anything English , but their Italian food was hands down phenomenal. 

The one thing , however, which I enjoyed the most was Camden Street. Think of a place that has every single thing you could ever think of , that you can't just get anywhere else. That A8 canvas of a pug claiming the pug life chose him that you've dreamed of forever, or shirts that have "winter is coming" printed on them, I mean come on. I wish I could've visited that street more and I recommend anyone to visit it , simply because you'll find everything you've ever needed there. 

Hope everyone's had a great summer!