sheep in the city

Harajukucat's posting of Yorkshire vs. London got me thinking about my own priorities. Being a thorough and through city girl, it has been hard for me settling down in Yorkshire where the sheep baa and the cows roam free.Well,not really roam free, but any city/town centre that you can reach all ends within 20mins by foot is not really a city city per se.

I miss the buzz of being in the city. I miss the weekly happenings, the special sales, the wide variety of food, shops, the rude people.I used to wonder what do people in places like Kuantan (an east coast town in Malaysia, akin to Whitby) or Alor Star (town north of Malaysia..akin to Barnsley in the UK)do during their weekends. There are but one shopping complex in the whole town. And obviously you won't see the likes of Armin Van Buuren playing there - I think in Kuantan nightclubs are even banned..complete with entertainment of any sort. Heck, I could not even imagine myself living in Penang, which is probably considered the second biggest city in Malaysia after KL….even having being born there

And fast forward a year and here I am, in a tiny hamlet of a town (apparently the fastest growing city in the UK!) and UK's third biggest city. Then why do I feel like a sheep in the city? I feel I stick out like a sore thumb…catcat's observation of getting lost in London's crowd but not being able to do that at Leeds stands true. I had not grown up knowing discrimination, and this is probably the first place I'm living in with such a small population of 'ethnic minorities' . On the plus side, people usually remember and recognize me and bacon….we went back to homebase two months after we paid for the bed, and the sales guy serving us not only remembered us, he remembered which bed did we order.I doubt that he just has a good memory.

On the plus side, this IS exordinarily ordinary,and I'd rather be anything other than ordinary.

I still sorely miss the buzz of a big city..but hopefully one day I will grow up and my priorities will be reset to a more relaxed lifestyle,where everything is at a slower pace = living longer. At the moment, given half a chance, I would move back into the city - despite coming back with an inch thick of soot on my face every day.

You can take the girl out of the city but not the city out of the girl.