Living In London

As most of you know, I have been living in London for about 7 months now. However, I have never really blogged about my experience so here it goes!

London has been a pretty interesting place for me to live in with the amount of noise, people and ways of getting around. It took me months to get used to the sound of police cars, drunk people outside and motorbike and car drivers revving up their engines at night. As a matter of fact, returning to London after a few days away is a struggle as I have to get used to the noise (and the smell) all over again.

Dealing With a Dairy Allergy

Hey,

So, today (it's 00:23 so.....more like 'yesterday'), I went through a really traumatising experience and that is what inspired me to write this.

Introduction

As some of you know, I am actually vegetarian although I do prefer to eat vegan foods and I cook/eat vegan food most of the time. Why I do not refer to myself as a vegan is mainly because if the only non-meat thing available contains eggs or dairy, I might eat it (more likely with the eggs). However, I am allergic to dairy.


I'm Allergic?!

I haven't always been allergic to dairy. This allergy started about two years ago when I pretty much cut out all dairy products due to performing or rehearsing often (as dairy products increase the production of phlegm while singing which makes it less likely for a singer (I specialise in opera) to hit all his/her high notes perfectly). I cut out dairy products for about a year, not really intentionally, but just because I knew that I had to sing.

I realised I had become allergic to dairy when I went home on a break from school, had a bowl of cereal and shortly after, had a runny nose and felt a bit odd. The runny nose wasn't like having a cold or something like that. It was more like a tap had been opened up a bit and my body was draining water through my nose to the point that I had to hold a tissue to my nose for some minutes. It was weird, but initially, I did not associate it to dairy.

This symptom occurred a few more times and I was confused because I hadn't experienced it while at school so I decided to look at what I ate often at school and what was different between that and what I ate at home. I then realised that I had barely had any dairy at school so I decided to test that out and the next morning, instead of a bowl of cereal, I had some bread (most breads are vegan) with some strawberry jam (my favourite) and I felt perfectly fine and didn't have a runny nose. Could this just be a coincidence? Maybe. Due to the possibility of it just being a coincidence, the next day, I had a bit of a cereal and guess what - I had a runny nose, felt slightly odd and was a bit bloated.