if you're going abroad, i can't help you

Pursue the crowds at an airport. Be it international or domestic, you are certain/guaranteed to see a zoo of people. It’s quite an honest place to get a sense of a person’s character; what they’re like, at an airport. This all depends on different things. Are they the passengers who travel for leisure in jeans and a t-shirt  or are they the business type – in a suit, working away on their laptop sending away the last piece of email before they get on the plane? Are they the coffee drinkers? Or the homemade sandwich eaters? 

I like the sound of the operator reminding a Mr. Peter Knapp that his plane is about to board. The the sounds of baggage wheels sliding off an escalator. The sounds of people briskly walking to reach their gate. These sounds are reminders, pleasant reminders, that everyone is getting from A to B. Either they are almost home, or soon to be somewhere new and exciting. 

But the best part lies in what an airport symbolizes.  Airports are more than just a place for arrivals and departures. They are bookends. Places of new beginnings, long-awaited endings. Hellos and goodbyes. Starting in one city and only to end in another place thousands of kilometers away. Ah, but my favorite is when you close the airplane door on winter, and open it on summer - only seven hours later. 

I don't think you are the same person as when you leave somewhere. I'm not entirely certain if it is good or bad, but there is a certainty that you change with each departure/arrival. Once you start, you can never truly finish. It's the way it works and I'm not complaining.

tell me what the matter is, little man I've got a pretty face and I wear a nice dress

Dress; Zara

View from the balcony

rock paper scissors

I'll roshambo you for it.

Mind the gap

Waterloo, London

They spend time in the morning to style their hair and dress sharply. By force of habit, people will run to where they need to be even if they are on time. I guess London gives that feeling where you’re constantly needed at any given time. It’s a place you love and hate. You love it because of the adrenaline it gives you, but you hate it because you never sleep, well rather - the city never sleeps.

You’ll walk around Borough market in the mornings smelling the freshly baked pastries and fresh flowers as you pass by an old book shop - you know what I’m talking about – the one with books piled up outside - the unwanted ones, and every time you pass by it, you wonder “what happens to these books when it rains,” – It’s been open every single time you visit London, so it must be doing well, yet you never see anyone from outside the window. You walk inside hoping to find a novel to read on the train home but you never actually buy anything.

You’ll meet people who adore you because you’re different. They'll ask you to talk about everything you've done but you never know where to start. So you pick one or two stories they might like, but not the same ones the stranger asked you yesterday. You don't really like the idea of them asking you, but the idea they interested in what you have to say in that given moment is enough for you to share them. They'll nod and smile and ask more questions as you take a pause to sip your coffee in the morning, or cocktail at night. You’ll enjoy meeting old and new faces and walk home with the cold wind fighting against your coat. 

When you leave this place, you’ll want to return. It has this efficiency that not many cities have, not that I've been to all the cities (yet), but it is incomparable. The history, the streets, cultures. It is a melting pot for anything and everything. When you’re in London, you feel like you are truly a part of the city.

steak et tiramisu

karl in amsterdam

timo

paris is always a good idea, pt. 2

What would Blair Waldorf would do?

cold coffee mornings

paris is always a good idea

Audrey Hepburn doesn't lie.