Ten years…
It was ten years ago today, that my friend Sebastian and I packed up my dad’s Lada estate with all the personal possessions we could fit into it, mounted our bikes on the roof and set off for Hamburg to catch the ferry to Harwich. Sebastian went back to Berlin a year later, but I have lived in the UK ever since.
Of course, at the time I would never have thought I was going to stay this long, get married, have children and be on course to spend the rest of my life in this country. So it wasn’t quite as significant a journey then. We were only going for a year, to study, maybe for two to get some work experience. But looking back now, our slow cruise up the Elbe in the sunset certainly marks one of the most defining moments in my life.
We arrived in the East End after a 24 hour journey, tired, excited but perhaps also a little scared. Sebastian had arranged for us to stay with a friend of his who lived in a huge loft apartment in Lana House on Commercial Street, just opposite Spitalfields Market. The area was already up and coming back then, but it was still extremely rough, dirty and poor. I remember that we went out to play basketball on a small court around the corner on that very first afternoon and that this felt incredibly comforting. It wasn’t the kind of thing that tourists did. We had only just arrived, but it already felt like we belonged. It was a great start.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:11 am
You went native, huh? I was in London last weekend, at my ten years reunion on Houghton Street. London felt like an old girlfriend - really familiar, but then again changed. A little love lingers, but I live in a different universe now. And this is only ten years ago… //henrik