Goodbye London 26th September 2007

Well the day has finally arrived to bid London farewell. John has been here since the 20th to help with the moving process which went something like this:

20th Sept: Movers arrive at 8am and pack everything into boxes. They leave at 2pm. John arrives at 3pm. Fedex arrives to pick up the things that I would need in the next month.
Evening of the 20th of September at the wonderful Yuatcha restaurant, with an old friend from South Africa. Always great food.


21st Sept: Start pack the suitcases and decide what else to give away. Its amazing how much stuff one collects in such a small apartment!. We leave for our last weekend away in Europe and chose the Bordeaux region of France. Arrive in Bordeaux that evening and head to Saint Emillion - you must get to go here once in your life..
24th Sept: Return to London. I complete all the packing of things that I need and start to clean out everything else from the flat. This takes us till past midnight. We spend the night at Taunton Place at London Business School.
25th Sept: Professional cleaners arrive to clean out Flat 1. Our home is no longer recognisable and looks like the super sterile place that it was when we first moved in. The cleaners received all our alcohol as there was no way we could take that with us.
In the evening, we have farewell drinks with friends to say goodbye. What a great turnout. It was like having MBA sundowners all over again.. Thank you all for coming. And then a final meal at Phoenix Palace, a walk down Glentworth Street past Clarence Gate Gardens (our first student flat with Phil, Mitali and Andreja.).
26th Sept: In the morning we head for breakfast to Maryleborne High Street and walk down to Oxford Street so John can do some last minute shopping. And then I look back at all the things that I did not do in London and that is just so very much.. We fly to Denver at 3.45pm with close to 90kg of luggage between the two of us..



On the flight back to London from somewhere in Europe, I got to take these photos from the plane to remind me of London. The aerial view is truly amazing.. on a clear day, a rarity in London.. Canary Wharf and the Millenium Dome.. and then down to the London Eye and Parliament and the Big Ben. I missed out on seeing the statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square or the boat ride on Serpentine Lake.. and the the aerial view of Hyde Park.. Its amazing how big this park is and I feel that over my five and half years in London, its the place that I have walked through the most.

Will I be back - I sure hope so but will it be to live there indefinitely, I just dont know as yet. I leave London with mixed emotions. Its definitely the place that opened my eyes to the world, that made me wiser and tolerant in so many different ways.

I will definitely miss so many things about the place, mostly the ability to walk everywehere and while away the many hours in coffee shops and people watching ... but I do believe that my overall standard of living will improve significantly in the US. Time will tell, I suppose.