PERCY, London: Every morning the alarm rings at 7 (after having rung at 6:40, 6:45, 6:50, 6:55, and 6:58. its the only way I can get up). I crawl out from under the crisp white linen and carefully put on my suit (an astonishing combination of an old white shirt from home, a pair of slacks that feel like they are made of paper, bought in a hospice store in Edinburgh, shoes that are two small and cut into my feet, my grandfathers RAS (Royal Agricultural Society) tie, and a blazer my dad bought me. In this mismatched garb I go downstairs and prepare myself an extensive breakfast including Wheatabix, 2 Crumpets (one with marmite and one with butter), two pieces of toast (one stawberry jam, the other orange marmalade), a big glass of OJ, and of course the finishing touch: a cup of tea. Fortified with this, I step out into the icy air of London, and bolt down Mallinson Road at a brisk clip. Then I either take the bus, tube (underground), or get a ride with Charlie (the guy who I'm staying with). Through the early morning traffic and then I arrive at the offices of Europa Capital LLP, at their Granville House Offices on Sloane Square. Sloane Square bisects the Kings Road, one of the many glamourous center of teenage life in London for the rich and famous and trendy.

I step into building, smile at the guard at the front desk, and slide up a few floors in the elevator, and into the office, which is warm, and quiet, and professional. Europa is one of the top Real Estate Investment Fund managers in Europe. The small, well-run business raises funds from people and institutions all over the worlds, and then identifies and invests in promising real estate developements all over Europe. They play the market cleverly, take bold risks, and make incredible returns. Charlie Graham, and old friend and colleague of Tom Stubbs', is one of the founders and partners of the company. A good-natured but demanding boss, he holds everyone to the highest standard, while simultaneously making Europa a fun place to work. From my desk in the corner, peering over my laptop and endless files (that need sorting, proofreading, or, if they are insurance forms, filling out), I get to watch the room, watch people flirting and fighting and grinding along, on good days and bad. There is power and wealth here. There is excitement. There is also tension, stress, and the drama that results from having a lot at stake.

I am interning for a guy named Henry Morris, who spent a good portion of His gap year in San Francisco and Marin, and so is well-suited to recieve an American in a similar (albeit reversed) circumstance. He is head of Acquisitions for Emerging Europe (places like Bulgaria and Romania) and so I spend much of my time reading and writing about this fascinating area. His right hand man is Callum Thorneycroft, and their financial mastermind is Belinda Chain (I only include the names because I think they are some of the most fantastic names in the world, not sudonyms!). This tight-knit group (and a few others) are responsible for discovering good opportunities in far-flung eastern Europe, and then turning ideas into concrete investments. On the day I arrive I quickly read an FIR (Final Investment Report) for a mall that is being purchased in Bulgaria. Then we go into an elegant Board Room to present the opportunity to the Investment Committee. We receive the go ahead, and since that moment, it has been chaos. The deal has a million moving parts, millions of euro of equity at stake, dozens of lawyers and consultants on the payroll, and a ticking clock, as it has to be closed before christmas. I do everything from write Executive Macroeconomic Reports on Bulgaria to drafting a review of the Due Diligence carried out on-site to filling out insurance applications. I sit in on meetings and conference calls with Joint Venture Partners, lawyers from some of the worlds leading law firms, bankers, and the vast range of Bulgarian contacts. It is chaos, and it is demanding, and it is thrilling.

Occaisionally we (Henry and Callum and I) go out for a drink after work or a quick lunch, but time rarely permits. As an intern, I can escape by 6, but they work far later than that every night. But depsite the tension, the office stays full of energy and laughter and optimism. And outside, the streets are full of Christmas. Sloane Square glitters with christmas lights (the trees are full of them), and the shops sparkle. As I speed along icy and snowy streets, I slow my pace as I pass in front of a departments store. Each on breaths a huge breath of hot, perfume-laden air out onto the street from its gaudy interior, momentarily thawing the icy world outside.

I am staying, as I mentioned, with the Grahams. They live in the southern part of London, in Clapham, in a beautiful house on a quiet street, and many evenings I walk back through the cold night, with the heels of my shoes clicking on the sidewalk and my breath forming clouds. Returning to the house is always delightful, as it is filled with warmth and light and the smells of good food. Charlie, as I mentioned, is funny and relaxed, when he is not working (but he most often is). His wife, Analida, is Brazilian, and is constantly overflowing with characteristic warmth and generosity. And their kids are scattered on gap years and at schools and in fascinating careers across the country and the world. Will, my age, is on his gap year in Spain right now, waiting to hear back from American university's. I spend some time with Lilly when she comes back from school for a weekend. She is full of brilliant impersonations of the classic Brit, and has me in constant bouts of laughter.

After work, and on weekends, I go out and wander the city. I buy an unlimited subway pass and zip around from museum to theater to store to museum, in endless loops and circles around a city that is endlessly buzzing. I go into Fortnum and Mason's, one of the most decadent places I have ever seen. The ultimate candy shop, where chocolates and caramels and turkish delight and delicate candy canes and freshly baked mince pies beckon from the shelves at staggering prices. People bustle around with arms full of beautiful packages of sugar and elegance, people with flushed cheeks and christmassy spirit and too much money and too much perfume and cologne. The place is excessive, in absolutely the best way.

I go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and walk through an exhibition on Sergei Diaghilev, the creator of the Russian Ballet in Paris. The man who brought the russian art asthetic (music from Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and Stravinsky, ballet from Nijinsky, and world class costume and choreography) and forever transformed ballet. It was a beautiful exhibition, full of fascinating history and beautiful costumes. The best part is a massive room with one wall covered with a massive tapestry, the back-drop for Stravinsky's Firebird ballet. On the wall, shadows of ballet dances are projected, and they move in time to the final movement of the Firebird, which fills the air with its luxuriant tones. When I exit the museum I am in complete mental and artistic overload.

When I'm on the subway, I look at the people around me, people from every walk of life. I read a book on philosophy that I bought for Will (who is planning to study it in college but has yet to read a book on it) and I get heavy, overwhelming doses of Descartes and Hume in between subway stops.

I go to the Hampstead theater in north London and watch Athol Fugard's latest play The Train Driver, directed by Fugard himself. It is a shocking tale of trauma and regret, set, as always in oppressed South Africa. The story is of a white train driver whose train runs over a black woman and her baby who step in front of it. Afterwards, he cannot escape the memory of her eyes piercing his soul, and so he goes mad, distancing himself from his happy life and family, and searching for the nameless womans grave in the wilderness. He finds and old African grave digger and lives with him, trying to come to terms with what he has done and seen.. But ultimately the only escape for him is his own death, which comes at the hands of black gangsters who wont tolerate white men on their sacred graveyard. As he dies the stage goes dark and the roar of a train engine is heard. The acting is brilliant, the story haunting, and when it ends, I can't think or feel. I am numb and shocked and horrified, and I won't soon forget the story.

I go to the Wellcome Collection, a bizarre museum founded by a strange man who was seemingly obsessed with torture and human bodyparts (the exhibitions include shrunken heads and skulls and mummified corpses). I go to an exhibit called High Society, about the history of Drugs in society and am shocked by everything from pictures of ancient opium dens to pictures of contemporary music festivals. The highlights are a bizarre video that attempts to capture the feeling of being stoned with multiple voices speaking in each ear while images flicker and blur on the screen. I read passages from Dickens and Voltaire on the effects of narcotics. I watch a video of a turn of the century medical experiment where a man takes LSD and is then quizzed by his doctor on math and spelling to see if the drug is effecting his mind. Obviously, as he is completely out of his mind but still utterly proper and Victorian English, it is a hilarious and slightly disturbing video.

I go to the national gallery where I see some of my favorite pieces of art of all time. These include everything by J.M.W. Turner (especially the Fighting Temeraire and Ulyssess' Escape) and George Stubbs' Whistlejacket, and Delaroche's Execution of Lady Jane Grey. It is one of the most expansive, impressive art museums I have ever been too, and I love the way the click of my footsteps echo through the empty galleries (I go there late at night before it closes). All of these museums are free, which is thrilling, as it just feels so Right that something like that should be free.

As I wander the streets of this incredible city, I feel the endless thrill of independence and opportunity. The future, and it's endlessness stretch out before me, and the combination of good art and theater and reading philosophy and seeing millions of people leaves me constantly full of warmth and glowing. And though I can barely drag myself away from this wild paradise, I do, late at night, speeding back to Clapham Common on the tube late at night and wandering the long walk back through the quiet streets, trying to spot foxes (they have tons of foxes on the streets in London!) and walking at a brisk clip to get out of the cold. Which eventually, I do.

I seem to be always experiencing warmth of some nature here. Either the blaze of other humans, the people I meet, my colleagues in the office, Henry, the Grahams, or the warmth of good food or a warm bed, or the heat of my scarf pressed up under my eyes, absorbing my hot breath an reflecting back onto me in an attempt to preserve every degree of heat that my body contains against this cold. If not that it is the warm glow of admiration as I stare up at art or down at actors. Or the smouldering heat of tension as we negotiate loans and shares and property and management in the office. Most often those, it is the blazing, flickering fire of excitement. This is me. My life. My future. I don't know if it is in London necessarily, or art or real estate or any of that. What I mean is that as I walk these streets and these hallways and these galleries, I know that my life and future is out there, somewhere. And it is here, now. And between here and there, now and somewhere, I get to live it.