Things I Miss

Forgive my (constant) self-indulgence, but since I did a blog post
about all the reasons I love Ethiopia, I wanted to do one about all
the things I miss in the UK. Obviously, I miss my friends and my
family, and I miss my own home, but these are the little things that I
miss having in my day to day life:

- Text messages!
That little envelope in the corner of my phone screen used to make me
smile! I love to text. Text messaging has is now available in Addis
(I believe the government 'enabled' it for the Millennium celebrations
in September 2007) but people don't use it very much as far as I can
tell. And anyway, anyone who is likely to text me is in the UK, and
it doesn't work internationally.

- The Metro
My morning routine in London was my favourite part of the day: listen
to the radio as I doze on the bus, then jump on the tube with the
Metro. Yes, it may just be a collection of press releases with no
in-depth reporting (and they did write that Ethiopia is a West African
country, which annoyed me!), but my morning wasn't complete without
it. And how am I going to know whether my day is going to be good or
bad now I can't read my horoscope?!

- Chris Moyles on Radio 1
See above! The bus journey was never the same without Comedy Dave, Aled, et al.

- Nandos
I make small involuntary mewing noises when I think of the peri peri
sauce, of chicken breast in pitta with chips, of the fat free
chocolate frozen yoghurt that we all got a sugar high from at
Miranda's birthday … mmmmm ….

- The mix of cultures
Spend a day in London and you will see people from nearly every
country you can imagine, and hear 100s of different languages spoken.
There are restaurants serving every cuisine in the world, from
Ethiopian to Chinese, to Spanish to Lebanese, and there are always a
variety of cultural events happening. The multiculturalism is
something I've always loved about London, and I miss that in Ethiopia.
Not that there aren't different nationalities in the city, there are,
but simply not to the extent that there are in London – and a
foreigner (be they black, white or otherwise) is still a source of
amusement and interest. It can get wearing after a while.

- Have I Got News for You, QI, Mock the Week, Friends etc
All those TV programmes I enjoy so much! I particularly miss the TV
channel Dave, and all the programmes on it (even Top Gear, though I'm
doing okay without that so far!), but generally I miss comedy and
satire. As you may guess, satire is not big in Ethiopia! I miss
watching a panel of comedians make comments on the week's news – even
if that week was July 27th 1998, as is sometimes the case on Dave!

- Indian food
What I wouldn't give for a chicken tikka masala with garlic nann bread
right now …! There is a very expensive, very posh Indian restaurant
in the Sheraton Hotel which I am saving for when I am feeling really,
really homesick, and the craving for curry is just too strong…