london by night

much as i whinge about london living, i've gotta admit at times it's pretty darn sweet. passing houses of parliament at night never ceases to make the mister and i slow down, almost unable to believe that we really live here. having grown up in london, it was a childhood dream of the mister to return as an adult. and me, well, i'm equally surprised how we ended up in ol'blighty. medsch?! did not see that one coming... what is really nice is how when i first met the mister in 2007, one of the first things he told me was how he wanted to live in london. and just over four years on, he (well, God) made it happen. it hit us quite suddenly one day how we've morphed into un-recognisable urbanites. something about being in a queue in the rain at 845am on a saturday morning, to enter a gym that only opens at 9, sobered us up. to be fair, it was the first time we've shown such enthusiasm to be yelled at by the slightly scary russian lady (spin class, for the uninitiated!) and in line with my clinicals-inspired spurt of healthy living. also, we were hours away from our weekend foray for a binge in bray. BUT STILL! our former selves would never be up that early on a saturday in singers, much less be in a queue for anything other than bak chor mee.

we've yet to return for a saturday spin class, but london is slowly but surely growing on us. it's restaurant week and the mister had booked us two dinners on saturday but somehow we managed to find time to walk through somerset house. what struck me was how the above photos received such a response over social media. a dear italian friend i met in stockholm while on exchange in 2009 happens to be doing an LLM in london and was quick to recognise the building, as did a friend who's moved back to singers for work. i suppose there's just something about london's subtle charm that compels you to identify and react to her attention-holding beauty.