Maybe it was our angle of approach, or the clarity of the cloudless night sky but I had never noticed how beautiful and awe inspiring London looks at night from a plane. Massive and sprawling, the sheer size of it took my breath away, highlighted against the blacked out earth like some kind of cancer or alien feeding off the land. The major roads and outer suburbs trailing out like veins from the centre's throbbing heart. It dwarfed all the cities combined we had already flown over on our way back from Bologna.
Thanks to Eastenders the Millennium Dome along the bend of the Thames was easy to spot, well it's Souf East innit?
I asked the very cute Italian next to me if he would like to see London. I was secretly elated when he first sat next to me. The warmth of my wine already had me imagining the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Perhaps years from now our grandchildren would be begging us to tell them of the first time we met, high in the sky above London on a cloudless night. He quickly doused my dreams with a curt reply of 'I see it many time before'.
Not like this Cute Italian Man, I thought to myself as I pressed my head against the window for another look, not like this.
