Detroit: City of Understated Goodness

When people ask me where I'm from I say Detroit but anyone 'from Detroit' will know that's a lie. I'm from a bougie little suburb of Detroit, a place that sees D-town as somewhere you go when you're looking for a bit of an edge. In my childhood, Detroit wasn't even seen as that, it was downright dangerous. For four years running, Forbes has listed it as the most dangerous in the USA. And with gang violence, years of local government corruption and the white flight of the 1950s, it's a city with an infamous past. 

But Detroit also has a beautiful past. The automobile industry, although destructive to public transportation, also brought opulence and glamour. The Detroit Opera House, the Fox Theatre, The Fisher Building, The Masonic Temple, amongst others, are all world-class. Diego Rivera's murals adorn the walls of the DIA. And stalwart institutions like the DSO and Eastern Market continue to pedal their wares to Detroiters and those suburbanites who pass through the city. 

Hipsters, love them or hate them, are bringing their entrepreneurial excitement to the area. New breweries, distilleries and even a local winery have popped up. The restaurant scene is having a revival. And a range of initiatives, from urban farming, to a goat grazing lawn service and urban beekeeping, are thriving. This city has a lot of heart. 

And so I tapped into my childhood friends to show me the beauty of a city they know better than me. Since our reunion in London, Erin and Lauren have a renewed sense of wanderlust attached to our friendship. They took me out for a glorious afternoon to wander Eastern Market, a place I've never been before. 

Eastern Market 

The market was founded in the 1800s and is home to food, flowers, wholesaling and most recently, various holiday markets. At over 9 hectares, the market takes up considerable space. Their mission statement is all about supporting the local community, through food programmes, love for local businesses and even free community fitness classes. The first stop for us was pierogi:

Detroit and surrounding Hamtramck are home to a large Polish-American population. From pierogi to paczki, a fried doughnut eaten on Fat Tuesday, lots of Polish culture has been subsumed into metro Detroit's culture. We took to a plate of fried cheese pierogi with sour cream and sauerkraut. 

The remainder of my indoor market pictures are a bit mundane; essentially, the Sunday market is a lovely indoor artisan and street food market. Outside, graffiti and other store fronts abound. Many of them were closed for the day so perhaps a not-Sunday visit would be better.

Eastern Market Brewery 

Around the corner from the main market, Eastern Market Brewery was doing a swift trade. Founded in 2016, it's bought into the hype of craft beer. I can't say much about this; beer is beer to me. But my friends attested to the quality and so I'll trust them there. 

Modelling the fun hat I bought in the market...

Campus Martius Park

From here, we hopped into the car and over to downtown proper. At the corner of Woodward and Michigan Avenue lies a pedestrianised area, home to an ice rink, Christmas tree and covered market in November and December. This part of the city is a bit sanitised and was full of people jostling their way around the market. We stayed for an hour before moving on to our final downtown stop. 

Belle Isle 

This little island in the middle of the Detroit River has also seen better days. It's home to an Aquarium, Conservatory and Nature Centre, as well as a golf course and beach. There is a beautiful stately home on the island too. Due to the city of Detroit's bankruptcy coupled with drug use and violence on the island, the state of Michigan took over management of the park in February 2014. Entrance by vehicle now incurs a fee and the park closes after dark. Fortunately, we got there just in time. 

Detroit Curling Club

On a separate excursion, Lauren organised an outing to go curling. The adventure started at Erin's house with Detroit-style pizza, a square, crust heavy concoction that I didn't even realise was unique to my homeland. No picture, I was hungry. Back to the curling! 

We had to book this weeks in advance; curling is a competitive sport in Michigan and amateur night only comes a couple of times per week. Much like other Detroit institutions such as the airport, the CC isn't actually in the city. It's in nearby Ferndale and walking in is like stepping into a 1970s time warp. In the best way possible. 

The walls of the reception and waiting area off-ice were dressed in dark wood panelling. Various trophies and award from over the year were proudly on display. Each lane was appointed a table to drop their bags and coats on; free cookies accompanied the table. And there was a bar but for members only. Think old-school bowling alley and you've captured the spirit of the DCC. 

Before we could start, we had to wait for the two other members of our 'team.' Teams of four play against one another and we were only six people. So when two 13-year-olds arrived with their dad in tow, I laughed. They were nerdy and quiet--I think we scared them. 

Before any team can begin curling, you have to complete a curling induction. I think this is partially so you don't hurt yourself and partially so you don't break the ice or the equipment. Under the watchful eye of two lady curlers, we passed the requisite tests in order to begin a game. 

The only thing we struggled with was the old school score board. And I couldn't tell you who won, or even who played on which team. What I do know is that we had such a good time that we're planning on making it an annual activity! 

Ferndale: Urbanrest Brewing 

Our final stop of the evening took us to Ferndale's Urbanrest Brewing, another community spot churning out delightful craft beers. Just outside, two food trucks also operate, although they were closed when we were there. In the post-Christmas daze, the brewery was quiet and we enjoyed a beer (and me a sparkling cider) before making our way back to the bougie suburbs once again. 

With all the time in Detroit and its greater area, I was left with a profound sense of happiness. In fairness to the city, there's always been pockets of wonderful. So perhaps I'm grateful that I'm now in a place to experience this. And that people continue to believe in this little diamond in the rough.

The Perks of International Friendships (and more Boston)

My real reason for a wintertime Boston visit was to spend time with my friends, Karen and Laura. Karen teaches at the international school and Laura at a public school in Waltham, another suburb of Boston proper. I met Laura at Warwick Uni back in 2006; she was on my course but we didn't really become friends until I moved to London. As is wont to happen, you choose the part of the city you live in based on where you know people. I didn't know her entirely well but Laura was kind to another American abroad and let me sleep on her Clapham couch while I did the mad London flat search. She introduced me to Jen and a beautiful friendship was born. She dated Dave's brother and moved in with him before it all blew up into spectacular fireworks of a doomed relationship. 

Laura moved back to Boston in perhaps late 2008/early 2009 and we kept in touch online. Life moved on for both of us--she got married and went on to have three kids, I moved across London, to China and back. Despite the crazy, we remained friends. She came to London for a very long weekend last November and we all picked up right where we left off. Our roots run deep and, to get to the point, I was very excited to see her in her natural habitat. 

On day three of my trip, I took a taxi across the suburbs and made my way to Laura's classroom for an end-of-term peek into life in an American high school. It looked a lot like what I'd remembered from my formative years. And from there, I got a glimpse into the three-child school run, snack time and karate drop off. Libby, Laura's oldest, has a penchant for history, so Laura drove us around to the green that once housed the Battle of Lexington and Concord. No pictures, my phone sucks.

In a brief flash, Laura and I did a handover of the children to her husband, whom I briefly met in the flurry of making grilled cheese en masse. And then we headed into downtown Boston to meet Karen for dinner in Boston's North End, the city's oldest residential neighbourhood, and home to a sizeable Italian-American population and the restaurants that feed them. As we sat down for dinner in one of these candlelit brick-walled institutions and conversation flowed, I got to see the upside of living all over the place. 

It's having people you can pick up with right where you left off. It's knowing that you don't need to explain yourself for long absences in communication. And it's knowing that these people will drop everything to spend a little bit of time with you when you're in their part of the world. I was drunk with good feelings, not to mention red wine.

We rounded off our dinner with a trip to Modern Pastry, one of North End's many family-owned bakeries famous for their cannoli, amongst other decadent pastries.  

Laura drove us home and both she and Karen reiterated my need to come back to Boston in the summer sunshine and/or to work and live. They'd show me the ropes, they'd help me settle into a ready made community. I have no doubt. 

The next morning, only a tad bit hungover, I made my way back into Boston proper to see the North End in daylight. A wander down little side streets and allies yielded tiny bakeries, long standing delis and more Italian restaurants packed with charm.

 

A turn in another direction takes you to more historical sites, such as the church Paul Revere rode into to let his compatriots know that the British were indeed coming. Revere's house, now a museum with limited opening hours during Christmas-time, also lies down a back street of North End.

If you venture just a bit too far West, you'll cut through West End and end up in the Beacon Hill district. Here, the streets feel distinctly fancier. Gas lamps line narrow streets with row house buildings and it's not hard to imagine a long-standing community and their horses dating back to the early days of American colonisation filling the streets. Imagine stepping into Brooklyn Heights and that's the feeling. I felt underdressed to step into one of the many chi chi shops so I just did a window browse.

And since I'd just about frozen through at this point, I found my way to the nearest transport hub and made my way to Harvard. Because it bears being seen. After walking around the town of Cambridge, MA and through the empty university campus, I will say something controversial. 

It was pretty. But it wasn't that pretty. It was old. But it wasn't that old.

And if I'm honest, I don't know how I'd feel about being a student there. The surroundings felt VERY expensive, particularly for someone on a student budget. There was a pretension that didn't exist at my little old state university. Projection, I suppose. 

And so I made my way back to Karen's apartment for one final evening of pre-Christmas festivities. We made our way to some of Karen's favourite Brookline haunts, for drinks, Mexican food, margaritas and gossip. With some perspective away from Shanghai, we reminisced about the good and not so good moments of life on the opposite side of the globe. It was a warm hug after a long term and one final Boston reminder of the strength of long distance friendships. Seeing Boston was just a bonus.

Boston, Where Everything's an Institution

The difficulty of being an American abroad is that trips to the USA need careful planning. You run the risk of disappointing/angering your entire family should you be within a reasonable distance to your home zip code and not dropping by. A reasonable distance for any proper American happens to be roughly 5000 miles (I mean, you COULD reasonably drive that within a few days) which means that even dipping a toe into the continent necessitates a stop home. 

Fortunately, I work in an international school. And Christmas holidays are that extra week longer giving me ample time to fit in a pause on the east coast before dropping into the midwest. Because I've worked in the international school circuit for some time now, it also means that I have friends far and wide. Karen, from my Shanghai days, lives in Boston as does my friend, Laura, from my early Warwick days. 

And although the uncertainty of blizzards and the odd nor'easter make Christmas in Boston not ideal, I worked with what I had and boarded a plane to Bean Town a few days later than scheduled (drama involving Paul's postponed kidney transplant saw to this). 

I was greeted with blue skies and two very excited friends. Karen lives in Brighton, on the outer edge of Boston, and one reasonably priced overground T ride into the city centre. While she worked, I pottered around enjoying the best that Brighton and Boston had to offer. 

First stop, a real bagel at Fuel America, an institution of coffee, bagels and the work from home but from a coffee shop set. No judgement. These are my people. 

Sustained, I tried my hand at navigating public transport, still a challenging feat even if you do speak the language. I found my way to the end of the C line, watched bougie Brookline out the window (a great place to stop for yoga, book shopping, a margarita--as Karen and I did later) and eventually made my way to Boston Common, the institution that it is. It transpires that Boston Common is, in fact, the oldest city park in the USA so it's trading on more than its name and beauty in the blue skies. 

Next door (as such) the Public Gardens extend the Common space and are home to lots of wildlife, including the famous Make Way for Ducklings statue made famous by the children's book of the same name.

And just on the other side of the Gardens, past all the expensive shops I cannot afford, another city institution lies. The Boston Public Library is a place of beauty, inside and out, and since I operate with a tiny bladder and a dying mobile phone that needs a regular blast of energy, I hung out with the students, city employees and homeless people of the area. Taking off the layers was very welcome and I sat with a book for the better part of an hour and watched the world go by. 

Hunger eventually snapped me out of my reverie and I made to find another Boston institution, a bowl of clam chowder. I can't remember what I was looking for but I didn't find it. Getting lost, I found the famous Boston Harbour, you know, the one where the big tea party was held and stumbled my way into Legal Seafood, where a small meal is impossible to find. 

The clam chowder at Legal's is, you guessed it, an institution. It's been around longer than me, since 1981, is the Official Soup (capitals necessary) of Fenway Park and has been served at the last six presidential inaugurations. Seems like my bad sense of directions led me into a bit of culinary history.

And from one type of heat to another, a stumbled around the Quincy Market area of the city, built between 1824-1826. What was once a produce and fresh food market has now given way to a bevy of commercialism including a mega-three story Uniqlo (where I stocked up on thermals), a Cheers Bar store (another classic Boston bit of folklore) and a little LL Bean popup boot (fashion meets function). 

Fortunately I'd chosen good footwear for my jaunt and so I made my way to Boston City Hall, a brutalist architecture nightmare in the middle of this historically old, in American terms at least, city. According to Wikipedia, the building was greeted with universal condemnation and calls were made to demolish it before it had even been fully erected. It's regularly voted one of the world's ugliest buildings but is conversely also considered one of the ten proudest achievements of American architecture. The structure is an excellent example of the old adage that you can't please them all. 

From the vantage point just next to the building, you can see Faneuil Hall and muse on a city where modern America all began. 

Perhaps it's just that I've spent too much time in London but Boston still feels very young to me. The streets feel clean, crisp and quiet. I suppose I didn't engage with too much of the history in my time here and I missed out a lot. I tried to get to the Boston Ships and Tea Party Museum but ran out of time. As my Boston-based friends would later remind me, I will need to go back. Summers in Boston are apparently a game changer. 

London with Fresh Eyes

Over the thirteen years I've lived abroad I can count the visitors from home I've had on almost two hands. My parents have been here twice, my sister once, my brother never. My godfather and his family came to visit last year. My best friend came to visit back in the early days of UK life, when I was still a grad student. A few other friends have passed through over the years but their visits have coincided with larger trips. I am not complaining about these latter visits in any way--I love to reconnect with the denizens of my past life. 

But in years without the prospect of any visitors, it does become difficult to see yourself as little more than an afterthought. It comes with the living internationally territory and something you begin to develop a thick skin about. So I was overjoyed when two of my oldest friends from middle/high school, Erin and Lauren, decided to organise a trip to London. 

September saw affordable flights with Wow Air and so they booked. And then March rolled around, Wow Air went bust and we were back to square one. It all worked out in the end because the girls found a cheap trip to London for the October half term; I had the week off and could serve as friend/tour guide full time. 

Lauren is one of the few people who have visited me in the UK before so I put together an itinerary that rode a fine line between tourist essentials for Erin and real London. In the end, the balance felt right and, mercifully, the weather played nice. 

For a taste of the tourist trail, we walked from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall and up to Hyde Park. The girls organised a horse ride in Hyde Park. 

We chose the one day with hideous weather to go to the Sky Garden (free and great views of the city IF the rain stays away; I timed it perfectly so that we went up on the only day that this wasn't the case) and then the Museum of London (definitely worth a free visit), the Tate (and Dali's lobster phone);

and Postman's Park, a public garden dedicated to Londoners who gave their lives in saving others.

The girls wanted to see Waitress in the West End and so we started at the nearby Port House, a cave of all things Spanish and Portuguese and then made our way to a fabulous theatre that piped in the smell of pie and sold slices in the lobby. 

And then I took them to some of my favourite haunts: Highgate Cemetery for a touch of the literary and the gothic (and as one of London's 'Magnificent Seven Cemeteries'--London has seven 19th century private gothic cemeteries scattered from North-South--it's a favourite spot to visit);

to Gordon's Wine Bar where we ate cheese, drank wine and actually got a seat in the cave; 

to the Backyard Cinema where we watched Dirty Dancing under a transformed 'Winter Garden' warehouse in South London;

to Neal's Yard Dairy (because cheese AND the girls work with the proprietor's niece back in Michigan); Borough Market (and local pubs); to Camden Market and Carnaby Street where, to all of our surprise, we each bought a pair of Dr. Martens. 

And finally, because the weather remained good, to Brighton for a day trip to the pier and various Brighton goodness. We got Frank a jumper at newly opened Holler Store, a shop run by two delightful men with a passion for pooches. 

In showing the girls the best of my adopted country, it reminded me of all the places I love, of all that is wonderful about this expensive, often-rainy (but never when guests are here) metropolis. When my friends left, I was exhausted; I haven't done this much in the city for a very long time. And so the exhaustion represented the perfect London week (with a Brighton sidebar). 

So if you believe in the power of manifestation, if I put my wish into the universe, it will become. And so my wish for the future is that more friends and family come to visit. We have a spare room. Our dog loves a snuggle. Come stay!