Enginn veit hvað átt hefur fyrr en misst hefur

Sorry - but some things are best expressed in a particular language, in this case Icelandic. It is an old saying, and roughly translates thus: You don't know what you have until the day you lose it.

I live in an amazing city. Yes there's all the major attractions, such as the Chelsea-Arsenal Cup Final, West End Theater, Live 8, and the upcoming Olympics, but it goes so far beyond that. It's the little things.

This weekend I crashed a lecture at one of the top universities, went to a club to watch five bands from the underground music scene, ate at a five star restaurant disguised as a pub, watched the (American Football) Superbowl with a nice mixture of the fanatic and the clueless, and had a little leaving party at my apartment that at one point featured eleven people from ten nationalities, started out with samba and candlelight, passed through some remarkably successful dining, and ended up with an impromptu mosh pit with the accompanying body slamming somehow forming in my kitchen (Thanks Hazel for all the help and to my family for the secret family recipes. Who would have thought I, of all people, would be sharing recipies with a group of six guys???). Tonight I'm going to watch a show called Avenue Q (think puppets making crude jokes and having sex on stage), and tomorrow I'm going to a talk given by Wangari Muta Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Price Laureate.

The problem, of course, is that none of this is new. The city has been this dynamic, amazing and interesting since I first moved here, and will continue to be so long after I leave. But I haven't always taken advantage of it. Suddenly, with ten days to go until I leave London, I'm soaking up London life, and loving it. I always loved it, but somehow I'm loving it - more.

Goes back to living in the moment. If you're waiting for something to happen before you can be happy, you're doing something wrong. Be happy now.