FSG_Lulu

"Welcome to London!" yelled the hostess as we stepped out of the British Airways plane. It wasn't the first time I'd been on a plane, but somehow I was scared, strangely timid. As my mother and I strolled down the sidewalk to get to our minicab, a group of people slouched by the doorway, giggling and smiling at us.

' Why are they doing that?' I questioned ignoring their vicious smiles. As we walked along, they followed us still laughing, joined by another group, and another. I thought that soon the whole airport would do the same! I noticed just one thing about them, they were all English.

Is all of London like this?

Luckily we arrived at our cab, and surprisingly, the cab driver was international, I knew it, but I didn't know which country she was from. I assumed she was French. I perched on the soft leather seats of the Chrysler minicab.

"Why were those people laughing at us?" I questioned the driver.

She answered: "Vell you see, zey vere doing zat to me too: it is just to make you feel left out, zey don't like people from anozer country, and you vill not make any friends 'ere ezer."

"So vill, I mean, //will// there be another group when we get home?" I replied in question.

"Yes, of course, but forget about zem, just look at ze more beautiful sings in London." it truly was breathtaking. The London Eye, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament: they all surrounded me. But no friends. ’Isolated' was written in my mind.

The cab driver dropped us off at home while we gave her the ten pounds she wanted.' London is expensive!' I wondered. I ran upstairs to see the real picture of my room. It was very different from the picture the estate agents gave us. Blue flowers layered it! The walls were covered with beautiful blue flowers, the carpet was blue, the curtain was painted with blue flowers and the bed was even blue. Lucky for me blue was my favourite colour! I sat admiring the room that stood firmly on the grounds of the Hilton hotel. I did want to explore London after we put our stuff away, but I still did want to know why my father wanted us to move here. He always said that he would earn more money here and that we would live a better life here in London. London was just too different to Jamaica, my home country; it was brighter there, and for some undefinable reason I just liked it more. It was home. My home.

My mother entered my room: ”Come on then, why don’t we make some use of our time and have some fun shall we?”

I replied:” Yes why don’t we look at ze more beautiful sings in London!” I giggled imitating the cab driver. As my mother and went to visit the top attractions, we noticed that there were some more international people. People from fall around the world, Egypt, Spain, France like the cab driver, Jamaica like us and lots of other countries!

It was truly a wonderful, joyful day!

From then on I noticed that everyone is different and you don’t have to be the same to fit in.As the years went by, I grew. My mother, father and I had a great time here in London and I learned lots about it by going to school; make that I learnt at the Falcons School for Girls, where everyone was so different. It is true: I've had a great time in London!