Mix and match

One of the things I love most about working in London is the diversity. In the advisory FS (Financial Services) group in Adam we had some foreigners, but not many. Here, the team of about 30 includes people from the UK, Pakistan, India, Iran, Singapore, France, Czech, South Africa, Canada, America and Holland. A fantastic mixture. And since yesterday, China can been added to the list.

The British and Chinese governments sponsor a training scheme for young Chinese graduates. Companies like ours, JP Morgan and Accenture have implemented the program. Ten very talented chinese students, one of whom is in my team, have joined the advisory FS practice here. Yesterday we took three of them out for lunch, a proper English pub lunch. The three graduates were just lovely. One was a big fan of Dutch football, which made for good convo. England must be a complete culture shock for them. Imaging being so young and living in a completely different culture, not having left your own country before. They'll stay with us for nine months, and then join the Chinese firm. There will be a lot of mutual learning in these nine months!

New friends

When I came to London, my friend Zoe moved here with me. I have a couple of Australian friends here who I met in Sri Lanka, an English friend who moved back here from the Dam and I made a Dutch friend via a blog. And that was fine. I have enough friends in Amsterdam, enough in London and don't necessarily need the sometimes ridiculously busy social life I had in the Dam. Decided I couldn't be bothered to put effort into making new friends and rather spend my time chatting to old friends.

New Yorker Heather joined our team a month ago and asked if I wanted to go for dinner shortly after that. And that turned into a frequent thing. When she, english colleague Viv and I went for dinner last week, Heather invited an Australian colleague to come along too. And when Heather, she and I decided to meet for dinner tonight, the aussie brought another friend.

And so I found myself in a Thai restaurant with a Vietnamese New Yorker, a Vietnamese born Melbournian and a Thai born, kiwi bred Chinese whose family moved to Melbourne in his teens. The melting pot that is London. I just love it. And some new friends are worth the effort!