The London I've never dreamed of

by Rayane Lima (Brazil)

I didn't expect to find Brazil

I was at the school cafeteria that I would study for 3 weeks on Oxford Street. It was break time and I found myself at a table with one of my Brazilian friends that I met on the first day. As usual, we were eating a sandwich and talking nonsense when another student, whom we knew by sight, sat with us. He started a conversation with my friend and I, without showing much interest, stayed focused on the phone in my hands updating my mother about the morning's events. Everything was going well, until I hear the following conversation: “Where are you from?” he asked. "Brazil" she replies proudly. "It doesn't look like it!" he said. It was at that moment that I decided that the phone in my hands wasn’t that interesting, then I looked at the tall and blond young man. "Why?" she asked, already knowing what was coming next. It was then that he, as we say in Brazil, “kicked the stick of the tent”. "You are too white." I don't quite remember what happened next, but maybe that's because the conversation was over. The second event occurred in the last week of the trip. I was again with my Brazilian friend and we went to visit platform 9 ¾ and the Harry Potter store at King’s Cross station. We were perfectly fine filling our bags and being carried away by emotion, until a siren started to sound. I looked at one of the store's clerks hoping for answers and saw her wave her arms saying “you can keep shopping”. Who am I to disagree, right? I returned to the two Ravenclaw mugs I was analyzing as a gift for my sister. I was so concentrated that I hadn’t noticed that the siren continued to sound and, shortly after, everyone was rushing out of the store. I only understood the gravity of the problem when I put the mug back on the shelf, calmly, and my friend pulled me by the arm saying "let's go!". What happened was this: they believed they had a bomb at the station that needed to be evacuated immediately. From the outside, the situation seemed to be different. Everyone who left hurriedly chatted on Pancras Rd, even laughed. For a Brazilian who had never been in a similar situation, the first thing I did was to look for a sign of panic to know how fast I should run from there. But the naturalness with which everyone faced the suspicion of a bomb made me realize that, that might not be my reality, but it certainly belonged to many others. And to close the trip, on the last day I decided that I would leave early and spend the day buying souvenirs. So, nine in the morning I was already walking the streets. Many stores were still closed and things looked pretty smooth. As I said, they looked. I confess that I was lost and could not find the store I had visited the first week. As soon as I spotted a street that I thought was remotely similar to the one I was looking for, I headed towards it and accidentally watched the scene of a burglary at a newsstand. The man came around the stall and ran with the owner of the establishment in pursuit. I continued my journey ahead and, who knew? I was wrong! The store was not there. I went back the same way to find, at the same stand, two policemen talking to the owner. I watched quickly and crossed the street to the next sidewalk. Just ahead of me I saw a crowd of people and, when I passed by, I recognized the thief inside a telephone booth with his arm around a woman's neck. Outside, police were trying to convince him to release her from there. I spent 7 years dreaming about what my first trip to London would be like. 7 years so intense that, in fact, I forgot that it was still a city like so many others with all it’s problems. But, despite all that, it made me fall in love with all other little things that only London can offer.