Arrived home today.

Spent half a day in London with a tube travel card, visiting some sites I haven't seen in about 4 years. Most places look the same, though Brick Lane was an unpleasant surprise. Most of the curry houses seem to have been replaced by trendy cafes and restaurants. The whole area seems to have been "cleaned up" at the expense of the underlying gritty Bangladeshi atmosphere that I used to love wandering through. A lot of people in Britain seem to dislike having other subcultures present within our own. Actually scratch that - other south asian subcultures within our own... of course there's always a justification to be found. Those two young men were speaking Arabic on the plane - they must be terrorists! (What do you mean they were speaking Urdu? Ahh it's the same thing anyway)

Oh well. I'm sure there are curry houses further out in the 'burbs somewhere. At least the East London Mosque is still there, though one thing I noticed about everything in London was it all seems a bit smaller now, coming back. I guess I was a little intimidated by the big city, straight after finishing Uni... moving there and living by myself in the middle of a place I had no idea about, really.

Not to say I don't want to go back there, though - in fact, the opposite. It was a nostalgic experience, and strange in some ways: coming out of the tube into Liverpool St. Station was like going through a time warp - I got my samosa just like I used to 5 years ago after finishing work..... but it was good to put the city in perspective, get rid of some of the cobwebs from my memories!!

A pleasant surprise on returning home to Oban was an extra cheque waiting for me, again from AMP. Not as big an amount, but apparently a final payment from work that hadn't gone through when I started my DASP going, so a nice little surprise. Plus my adsense cheque is here! So I should be ok for funds while I job hunt...which starts tomorrow.

Back to normal life. But it has its perks - a comfy seat, a pair of slippers, limitless cups of tea.

I still miss my sis though. All the best to you, Sal: may your buses never break down and your hammock swing true, and may you find a million sunrises.  ¶ 1:12 PM