2023 in Review

So it's been a hot minute. The time between blog posts seems to be getting bigger and bigger, perhaps made worse by the continuing responsibilities of my day job. And my attempts to juggle my life with my day job. I do firmly intend to come back to this space. I find it a beautiful memorial to my adventures in the world, even if no one really reads this. 

As I dig into the archives, this year has seen a return to pre-pandemic travel. I've tried to make the most of each school break. To that end, we've gone far and wide: 

• February half term: Lisbon 
• Easter holidays: Israel and Palestine 
• May/June: school trips to Bosnia, the Peak District
• Summer part 1: Berlin, France and Switzerland 
• Summer part 2: Guatemala and Mexico 
• August Bank Holiday: Florence 
• October half term: Pembrokeshire, Wales

Considering I'm not halfway through blogging 2022, I'm not holding myself hostage to strict deadlines. But I'll get there eventually. 

Plus, 2024 looms and promises some big adventures. I can't wait.

Resolution 2023

There's a saying that goes: the days are long, the years are short. And I find myself nodding along to that trite phrase staring out the window to a grey London sky on the dawn of this new year. The rainy grey dark makes it hard not to flashback to lockdown 3.0-- from January to March 2021--three months that pushed the UK public to the limits of their mental health. 

We're not there anymore. The world has opened up again. But we're now living the consequences of lockdown-cum-Brexit madness, not that anyone in the government is using the B word. The UK is in the midst of the worst recession since the 1980s. A solid core of people are choosing between turning on their heating and eating. Train drives have gone on strike at least six times in the last eight months, ambulance driver have taken their second round of strikes, nurses have opted to walk out for the first time in British history. 

We're the lucky ones in so many ways. We have decent jobs, we can afford insane inflationary prices, travel is not off the cards for us. But the current state of affairs still feels pretty grey.

Perhaps because of this, I've abandoned any attempt to make a new year's resolution in 2023. It's been a dwindling practice for a while now but this small act seems like the only two fingers I can lend towards capitalist systems that demand more, more, more all the time. I'm sick of the chaotic pace of work, of climbing a slippery pole and expecting to do this with a smile when more gets piled on the plate but it's a recession so just muck in. I'd like to abscond to kidney island, Paul and my fantasy tropical island where health problems don't exist and money is not needed. 

In the absence of this imaginary utopia, I'm doing what I can to reclaim the little in my sphere of influence. I'm taking advantage of cheap weekend flights to visit friends who live in sunnier European cities. (Hello, Lisbon! Hello, Berlin!) I'm taking Frank for walks between rainstorms. I'm attempting to find the beauty of weekend afternoons in London pubs, particularly ones with big fireplaces. 

In short, I'm still here. And if you live in London and have a pub recommendation, I'm all ears. 

In the Interlude

Pardon me, life's been busy since Christmas. I wish I could say I'd been caught up in a travel whirlwind but reality is far more mundane. The Christmas covid episode grounded us in Michigan for 3 whole weeks--no trip to New Orleans, no indoor restaurant loitering, no hanging out in coffee shops. 

Mercifully, Paul's second case of covid was mild and he began testing negative on day 5. The rest of us stayed negative. So we swapped romantic meals a staircase distance away 

for walks in winter gear to downtown Rochester, walks in winter gear down busy city roads to the mall, walks past winter permafrost backyards, front yards, schools, walks. 

I saw three friends but at a distance: from 6 metres masked up in the youth room at my mom's church; in the backyard across a fire pit in winter clothes in -10 degrees. What unites us is the toll the last two years have taken--with family, with mental health, with work, with our personal journeys. But maybe that's just us getting old.

Home, Michigan, America is a complicated place for me. It's no lie (or secret) that I felt a huge sense of relief upon wheels down in London.

And then we ran pell-mell into Term 2 of our third year of pandemic teaching. Student attendance dipped and staff attendance saw an all-time low. Paul got sick with a different virus that hit him much harder than covid, rendering him briefly deaf in one ear, and we cancelled a weekend away out of London. I finally succumbed to omicron in early March and must humbly apologise to anyone at the school musical, my barre studio, the pub whom I passed the plague onto. Symptoms started on Thursday morning but I didn't test positive until Saturday and new 'live with it' guidance meant no quarantine until you test positive. Although it wasn't as rough as it could've been, I got it worse than Paul and missed four days of school. It's the first time in my 15-year teaching career I've missed that many consecutive days. 

Of course I tested positive the week before Paul and my weekend trip away to Amsterdam. I downed litres of water, crossed fingers and, against all odds, tested negative two days before our weekend away. And so, after three consecutive cancelled trips/part of trips, we made a flying visit to the Dutch capital. And not a second too soon.

I'm not sure about you but I've grown accustomed to shoving up long q-tip up my proboscis. In this pandemic world, I don't think there's a better way to wake up. 

International School Teacher Blues

There is something very special about the International School sector. It goes beyond a globally minded curriculum, which is a big highlight in of itself. But for me, the biggest perk is the people I work with. We're from every corner of the globe. My closest work friends, a group who call ourselves 1D, not because of the band but because of our office number, are from Argentina, England (with a Kurdish/Jordanian background), Romania and South Africa. 

This group, without me having to explain, get what it feels like to be Other. They get what it feels like to be new somewhere, to stick out (whether self-imposed or not), to have a yearning to be everywhere. This is a concept that most people don't quite understand and, sometimes, don't appreciate. But with my international school friends, it's something we lean into. It's something we celebrate. 

And it's also something we sometimes commiserate about. The last two weeks most of us have lived in a state of Covid-limbo. Roughly 70% of the staff at my school are nationals of other countries. We have families, houses, parents abroad. With travel restrictions recently largely reduced worldwide, we have clung onto hope that we might make it home to see these pieces of who we are. 

Omicron has had other ideas. 

Cases surge in the UK and the government gives the delightfully vague advice of 'we suggest you take caution but we're not going to suggest that you should cancel Christmas parties or stop going out. It must be an individual choice because we live in a 'free' society and you can make your own stupid f-ing choices about how to live your life. But you might want to wear a mask if you feel like it could be the right thing to do. Plus, are we even allowed to advise when we've just been caught having Christmas parties last year when the restrictions said NO parties whatsoever?' I'll spare you the lesson on modal verbs and loaded language. If you know me you can hear my tone.

Meanwhile, covid cases at school continued to rise. Parents started voting with their feet again, pulling their children out of school in order to ensure they could be covid-safe. Teachers didn't have this opportunity. 

My South African colleagues had their flights cancelled when the UK briefly closed its border to Southern Africa. Three weeks later, and three days ago, the border opened again. From going to cancelled to going again, my friends have ridden the adrenaline roller coaster that is travel in Covid times. 

Yesterday evening, I received a text message from one of my American colleagues--she's going home with her family, including three children. Her flight is today and it was unclear about whether she would be. Three weeks ago, the US introduced a 24-hour window to receive a negative covid test. This is complicated for so many reasons: surging omicron cases in schools (ours, her children's), expenses, logistics, cancellation fees, hopes, dreams, expectations to name a few. 

And now, after skipping out on after-work parties and events for the last two weeks, Paul and I wait in a similar limbo. We *might* fly tomorrow IF our Covid tests that we're taking in an hour come back negative. We haven't packed, Christmas shopped, told anyone at home beyond my family that we might be going. 

With that in mind my friends, international school and otherwise, continue to send messages of support. They get it. We're in it together in this strange pandemic but let's pretend like we're not in a pandemic teaching world. Despite the shit that continues to be 2021, this is one of the things that keeps me going. Little slices of gratitude keep me going. 

Dual

Friends, it's happened. Fifteen years, countless money spent, visa applications and forms completed, patient queueing (the ultimate British sport), and it's official. I am a dual citizen! 

It usually doesn't take this long. But I got lost somewhere in the quagmire of bureaucracy and a brief stint in China and I wouldn't change that experience for the world. Student visa to graduate visa to shortage area visa to indefinite leave to remain to citizenship, here we are. A British-American dual citizen. 

With Brexit, the passport comes with fewer perks than it used to hold. Freedom of movement across the EU is a thing of the past. The French disdain towards the British now is open and comically hostile. 

But I won't let that sully the pomp and ceremony that is a citizenship ceremony in a pandemic. Where you're allowed to bring one other masked adult to the local Town Hall to swear your allegiance to Queen and Country, via religious or secular oath. 

Where a man with a Portuguese sounding name and a South African sounding accent manages to be excited in running a ceremony he's done countless times over the year, proven by the fact that three of your close friends know THAT guy and his flag schtick.

Covid may have prevented the singing of the National Anthem but that didn't stop me from humming 'My Country Tis of Thee' in my head because America shamelessly stole that tune off of its mother country.

And when you stand up, read the oath, take a picture in front of the queen's picture, it's all a little magical for just a moment. When I moved to the UK fifteen years ago, I never considered where this journey would lead me. I was never looking at the big picture; there's no way I could have imagined how the years have panned out. Master's degree, marathons, man with kidney problems, an often-ridiculous career path, friendships that have stood the test of time.

Yet here we are. A girl, standing in front of some flags and a lady in a crown swearing to be true to another red, white and blue.

 

Now I can legally travel to Cuba. Totally worth the long game. 

The New Frontier

Today starts the last week of summer 2021, an 8-week teacher holiday that felt more than deserved after the madness of a second school year consumed by Covid. Radio silence has been provoked by two predominant emotions: overwhelm and exhaustion. To suggest that the 2019-2020 school year combined with the 2020-2021 school year felt like my first year of teaching all over again, might be putting it lightly. 

I'm not sure there are words to cover the lacuna that has been the last year of life in London. We made it through lockdown 2.0 (a joke) and lockdown 3.0 (a really bad dream). I went to work for a spate of time between September and December before being contact traced by a member of staff. We abandoned socialising, planning and even being hopeful about when we might do these things. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went without any sense of occasion. I made no attempt to book flights home for the holidays, only the second time I've not been home since I moved abroad. 

In a story that's far too close to home to bear repeating, I acquired a very mild case of Covid in early January. So mild, I didn't get tested. But then Paul lost his sense of taste and smell and we became casa Covid for a window of time. But we got lucky; neither of us had it too badly. 

And then a bigger glimmer of hope in the form of science and a vaccine emerged. Paul was called in early Feb for his. Mine arrived much later, towards the end of March. We watched government ministers lie, profit and philander their way through the crisis unscathed. 

In a somewhat vain attempt to hope that normality might return in the summer, we booked flights back to the US to attend my little sister's wedding at the beginning of July. We waited and watched to see what travel restrictions and vaccination campaigns would mean for Paul being allowed in the country. US Travel restrictions, still as of today, mandate that anyone non-citizen or greencard holding who has spent the last 14-days in one of the following countries is barred entry: the UK; the EU (clearly, a homogenous 'place' according to the US); China; Iran; South Africa; Brazil. No matter that the US has the most number of Covid cases in the world despite its access to vaccines. No matter political dramas in a number of those countries. No matter. 

And so we begged, pleaded and applied for special status for Paul to travel. But we're not married so our relationship doesn't count. Apparently. 

And so, I cancelled Paul's flight, grappled with changes when my flight got cancelled, Covid tested two days before departure, smiled through graduation and prom and, against all odds, boarded a (first class!) flight bound for US soil early morning on the 26th of June. 

I'm not going to lie, upon wheels down in Atlanta, I burst into tears. When I eventually got to Detroit the next morning, I wept. 

And here we are, in the age of Covid travel. 

Covid Chronicles: December

 As is typical with any year, I neglect to update this space until I have a decent chunk of time off. There's a strange psychology in my perfectionist mind that if I can't write several entries in one go, it's not worth writing. But 2020 is no typical year. I've had a lot of downtime, I've done very little travel and my last foray onto an airplane was in February. 

At the start of this mad pandemic journey, when the government suggested a 12-week lockdown, we all wondered how that would even be possible. 12-weeks inside our houses. Nope. And now it's December. We've been in and out of lockdown, been out of school for four months, out of offices for much longer and watched the death count rise exponentially. Concerts, events, parties of more than 6 people outdoors seem like a thing of the past.

Ongoing restrictions are contradictory. I've been at school since August but I'm not currently allowed to sit indoors with the same people I share an office with in a pub or restaurant. Several 'grade bubbles' have been collapsed and sent home due to positive covid tests and I'm currently at the end of a 14-day self-isolation period after being in contact with a staff member who went on to test positive. I've cancelled my annual Thanksgiving party, won't be going to Michigan for Christmas and don't even know when to begin feeling hopeful about getting on an airplane.

On the wider world scale, we've watched protests, riots, a divisive US election and Brexit proper is just around the corner. For a year I've spent largely inside my flat, it feels awfully eventful. It's difficult feeling to put your finger on, knowing that you're in the middle of a historic period that students will learn about in school one day. 

With all of this in mind, and as much as I've felt trapped this year, 2020 has also forced to to do something I'm bad at: stop. I may even emerge from this pandemic with a Covid type of Stockholm Syndrome. I doubt that will stop me from booking a flight for off this rainy island as soon as is safe. 

With a vaccine on the horizon, 2021 sure does have a lot of expectations to live up to. Fingers crossed.

Haslemere, West Sussex

A far cry from previous summer holidays, Paul and my summer 'travels' took us to Haslemere, West Sussex. Given Haslemere is a London commuter town, Paul was happy to go from door to door in roughly 1.5 hours. Our four-day stay saw us shack up in an outbuilding of a very rich family's mansion which happened to be miles away from any proper amenities like shops or a bus stop. But they had a pool so it was all good. 

And because it transpires that it's not where you go but who you're with, the trip turned into a hilarious series of misadventures. From not realising our outbuilding didn't include a kitchenette, only a microwave and kettle, to having to cross an A-road at a blind corner to get anywhere, we actually had a very memorable time. 

Most importantly, cooking pasta in a kettle works. It may take awhile and you will need to boil the water repeatedly but our first hot meal of the trip was a success. 

We spent one day in the room, hiding from the bucket down rain, and then proceeded to discover walking trails, polo grounds and farm shops of the surrounding environs. Cowdray Farm Shop and Cafe gets my vote for best place to people watch with cake. The villages of Midhurst and Easeborne also became easily walkable, though the gps dot on my All Trails map occasionally thought otherwise. 

A fifteen-minute walk down the very darkened private road and around the corner, the perfect countryside pub awaited. The Duke of Cumberland Arms is the pub of your stereotypical British dreams. There's a perfectly cozy garden, a charming dining room and an open patio out back. It's so lovely that, in fact, if you don't have a reservation for dinner at least a week in advance, good luck to you. 

The surrounding sub-village (is that a thing?) of Henly, Haslemere, also looked as if it were plucked out of a film like The Holiday. Between thatched cottages and old red phone boxes, we understood the appeal. As did a range of wealthy Londoners who now call this village home. 

So our trip might not have had the verve of summers gone past but we laughed a lot. And given the continued madness of Covid, it felt like enough of an adventure for a man with a kidney issue.

North Devon: Mortehoe to Clovelly

Our next resting stop took us to an old converted heritage property in the village of Mortehoe, just up the hill from Woolacombe Beach, somewhere the summer hordes HAD found. We stayed away from the crowds and opted for more walks and wanders slightly to the north. 

Mortehoe and Woolacombe

Between meals at the pub, literally 20 metres from our accommodation, and leisurely picnics on our little patch of grass, Mortehoe was a fabulous haven of calm. 

We had scones the Devon way, cream first and jam second, and appreciated being away from that big London after so long locked up in our flats. 

Clovelly
Since my days of dating Dave, I'd always meant to go to the village of Clovelly. It happened to be close to where we were staying and so we made our way one foggy morning, white knuckling the whole drive there. Without us realising, it won the 'Britain's Most Instagrammable Village 2020.' Go figure. 

Tucked into the cliff and down to the sea, you must pay to enter this National Trust Heritage village. A day pass will set you back £8.75 and is well worth the visit. Clovelly was once an estate owned by William the Conquerer and slipped into another family's hands before being 'officially' discovered in the middle of the 19th century.

There's a few pubs, sweet shops and bougie tat shops that lead the way down to the harbour. It's a steep journey but a beautiful one. We spent an hour or so wandering the village before launching ourselves back up the hill and onto the significantly less foggy way back. 

Coastal Walk: Croyde to Georgeham

On our final day, we took one more big walk winding our way past Woolacombe to Croyde and beyond. The views speak for themself. 

On the trails, we largely had the surroundings to ourselves. But the village of Croyde was markably busier and if Summer 2020 is a barometer, I can only imagine what a non-covid summer might be like. Comparing this second half of the summer journey to its first half counterpart, I must admit Northumberland still has my heart. But Devon gets a stunning honourable mention.

Covid Wanderings in North Devon

I write this from the vantage point of well past post-2020. And what a weird, difficult year(s) it was. But silver linings did abound including a summer jaunt from London to Devon with two of my former Hornsey colleagues turned friends. In a sentiment that best encapsulates the madness of 2020, Lindsay also contemplated bringing her sourdough starter on the trip. In the end, her brother promised to feed it at home. And so, we travelled without ready-to-bake bread. 

Lindsay arrived one early Monday morning to pick me up in her mum's rather decrepit car. Despite it passing its MOT, the speedometer started shaking and then stopped working when she exceeded 50mph on the motorway. We eventually made the four-hour journey down to Braunton, Devon via Somerset, where we dropped Lindsay's mum off at her friend's house. 

Our uneventful journey took us past Stonehenge (really just a stack of rocks in a field off the motorway)

and to our rented cottage and resting place for three nights. In a world of Covid restrictions, we met our hosts outdoors, were promised strict cleaning guidelines had been followed and then were given lots of recommendations for outdoor eateries to enjoy what turned into the most glorious British summer in my memory.

Every day turned into a different coastal path beach walk. From Saunton Sands to Westward Ho! (the exclamation, I assure you, is part of the place's name) and Woolacombe we were greeted with many quiet places to walk, gaze and pause. 

Without a car, this would have been nigh on impossible, which is why I really must take steps to get my UK driving license. Then again, hedgerows really are a thing...

Dartmoor National Park
On our one rainy day, we took the car down to Dartmoor, one of England's ten national parks. The wild and vastness of the park is impressive and although a road bisects the park, animals rule the roost. Wild horses roam the moor as do the odd sheep, some that seem to have strayed from their last few years of haircuts.

Towards the Northwest corner of the park, the village of Widecombe in the Moor, does a good job at being quaint and feeding people. We stopped for a pub lunch (they even let us inside, but at a distance!) and browse, deciding not to join the British proclivity to collect Toby Jugs. Google it, they're creepy. 

From there, we moved on to our next destination, the village of Mortehoe, where we moved into another quaint cottage and picked up Clara along the way. More to come!