On September 14th 2011 I’m celebrating my 10th anniversary in London. This is a huge number. Sometimes, I still cannot take it all in. I’ve spent the first 10 years of my life after finishing university in Romania, as an expat in London. I decided to answer to Kristin’s challenge and write about my connection to stuff and the things I brought with me when I relocated to London.

I came here with one big 23-kg-piece of luggage whose handle broke sometime during my connecting flight from Budapest. I still smile when I remember how my cousin struggled with carrying it through the London tube. I landed at Heathrow, which is somewhere in the West, outside London, far, far away from the city. My cousin lived in Newham, in the far Eastern part of London. It was a long tube ride. But I didn’t care. I was mesmerized by how new, clean and modern everything looked. So different from the dusty, parched streets and ashy blocks in Bucharest.