LONDON TIME

In 2006 I lived in London for three months, right in the heart of ‘the hip and happening’ Shoreditch. I was there to do an internship with Peter Jensen a Danish designer based in London. Well, I was there to do the internship but maybe even more so to discover the big city, the bars, the clubs, it’s restaurants and it’s shops...My, you can shop in London! And then, as you might have guessed by now, I’m not just talking about the ‘High Street Fashion Shops’ or the ‘High Fashion Chique Shops’ but the endless food departments in Harrods and Harvey Nichols, the posh ecological supermarkets or even the regular Sainsbury made my head swirl!

At the beginning of the three months I was modeling for Peter. I had the perfect size to moulage his dresses on for hours. But after a couple of weeks, without noticing at first, my belly started to expand and I could no longer fit in his pretty clothes (I wasn’t too sad about that as modeling makes your feet hurt and gives you a dizzy head sometimes).

It was true that I had been enjoying myself immensely discovering all kinds of new foods;

I couldn’t resist starting the day with a breakfast of full-fat yoghurt with a dot of lemon curd on top accompanied by a fresh scone. 

Then I usually had lunch with the girls (the other interns at Peters, we were with nine girls on about 20m2(!) excluding Peter himself, his assistent and the patternmaker) which existed of an organic soup or sandwich from Sainsbury with a coke, I never drink Coca Cola but this was the hottest summer I’ve ever survived in my life. Sometimes I even had a  candy bar to load the battery for the second part of the long day.

As soon as I came home from the steaming atelier, I pulled a cold beer from the fridge and hang out with my roommates on the balcony or on the couch smoking a sigarette (a bad habit, which came with living the London life) if it had been a really long day. 

Then if everyone was there we cooked up some pizza from scratch or I made me big plate of pasta with some salad. Just across from my room there opened up an organic shop where I got my veggies and fruit. To end the day we usually agreed to share a bucket of Ben&Jerry’s from the 24/7 shop downstairs...

No wonder I gained a couple of pounds, huh? And I’m not even including the weekends...I’ll tell you another time about that!

My favorite coffeeshop Old shoreditch station

Cheap, but very good vietnamese 'bring your own drinks!

Yumm!