A Weekend in Stavanger

After two years of virtually no travel, 2022 opened the floodgates once again. In passing dinner conversation one night after a particularly dizzying spin class, Dawn and I flirted with the notion of booking a weekend away. Words became plans became a May weekend away in Norway's fourth largest city, Stavanger.

We arrived late on Friday night after the the emptiest flight I've ever taken. Not complaining--I had three whole rows to myself. Our hotel was right by the lake in the middle of the city and we pulled the curtains back the next morning to a view. 

Stavanger made its money in sardines, canning, shipping and oil, in that order. It's home to both a Canning Museum and a Printing Museum housed under the same roof; although you may think you have better things to do, they're actually pretty wonderful. Explore canned fish across the ages AND learn about how those cans got printed. There's not even a fishy smell for miles and the museum is in the middle of Old Stavanger, a settlement of 173 heritage wooden houses and narrow cobbled streets. 

From there, it's a short walk to the pub-lined harbour where an ugly view is hard to find. 

A stroll around the lake and a wander around the shops later, we found ourselves at the delicious Restaurant SOL, Stavanger's very impressive answer to fine dining. Three chef friends opened the place and it was doing a roaring trade. We opted for two courses of local sourced produce and fish with wine to accompany the multitude of tastes. 

Solastranden Beach

After a decadent lunch we hopped on the airport shuttle to Stavanger's closest beach which took us back past the airport and not too far from the city itself. The weather played nice and we were greeted with sunshine and the occasional bracing sea breeze. Hearty Scandinavian families walked, rode bikes and built sand castles on the shore making the most of the increasing daylight hours. 

We found a hotel bar just off the beach to enjoy a glass of prosecco before making our way back into town for a hotel rest and pick-a-mix stop. It turns out Norwegians love their weekend sugar just as much as their Swedish neighbours. 

Daylight continued to linger and as we headed home from dinner (a first time delicious Ethiopian food experience at Gadja in town) a few hours later at 10:30pm, it gave us perspective of how miserably dark winters would be. I'm not sure the spring into summer long days would be enough to get me through. 

Fjord Tour 

On Sunday morning, we made for the port to hop on a 3hr cruise of Lysefjorden and Preikestolen (also known as Pulpit Rock), Stavanger's most stunning natural beauty. Most people come to the city to hike the famous rock but Dawn made it clear there would be 'no mad walks up big hills. I know you, Jen.' And so we queued to buy tickets for Stavanger's number one attraction, by boat. Fate almost intervened when the cruise ships docked and the ship was nearly sold out. My advice: book tickets online in advance and avoid the drama. 

We opted for the outdoor top deck views and although temperatures weren't arctic, we were grateful for our hats, scarves and layers. 

The scenery was incredible. Every which way we turned, it was impossible to be disappointed. The water danced, reflected, shone in ways I did not know was possible. The air tasted just like you image oxygenated, pollution-free fresh air would--it made a stark contrast to any day in even blue-sky London. The entire journey was absolute magic. 

Debarking and making for the airport after a weekend of fresh air and blue skies felt like a bit of a let down. And clearly a weekend is not enough to really dive into Norway's beauty. So I'll keep it on my list of places to return to--next time I'll take that hike up the big hill. 

Give Rome a Chance

The small beauty of a recent Covid infection is that the fear of imminent reinfection dwindles. And with this, Paul and I lived in hope that we'd make it to Italy for our Easter holidays, our first time since the world shut down. 

Rome was not a first choice for either of us: Paul's parents burned him out on the tour of every church and Catholic artefact in the city (no small feat at over 900) as a teenager; and my memories of travel there involved August, intense heat, travel buddies who didn't get on, travelling on a very tight MA student budget and being followed by a strange man staying in our hotel. 

But it turns out that our options were limited and Rome was one of a few places we could fly to from Edinburgh, where we found ourselves after a friend's wedding that took place in the backwaters of Perthshire in Scotland. 

Fortunately, with time, experience and a bit more money, we found the true delights of the Italian capital. We minimised time at the Major Tourist Sites and based ourselves in the Trastevere neighbourhood, a former working-class, student enclave of the city. We took our mission of eating everything and walking everywhere to heart--by the end of the week we'd wandered 183k steps, shunned all forms of transport and consumed 3 of the 4 iconic Roman pasta dishes.

As a testament to our hearty appreciation, I have over 100 photos from this segment of the trip. I won't bore you with all of them but I will start with the food. If you, like me, are a bit overwhelmed by ancient grandeur and centuries of history, you could ignore this all and just eat your way across the city. 

Let me convince you.

The Humble Artichoke 

The Romanesco artichoke rules Italy from February to April every year--they dominate menus, markets and street corners across the city. From Testaccio Market to the Jewish quarter, you can find them in all their splendour. Accompanied by their other colourful companions, they make stopping for food something you want to do whether you're hungry or not. 

Romans cook artichokes two ways, boiled and deep fried. When fried, the leaves crisp up like chips and you just peel them off and eat. 

The Four Pastas of Rome

Before travelling to Rome, we happened upon Stanley Tucci's very foodie TV exploration, Searching for Italy. His episode on Rome is steeped in food history and some delicious tips about where to eat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pastas of the city have their roots in poverty and necessity. Flour was cheap, cheese and pork were plenty, and thus four iconic dishes were born. 

Pasta 1: cacio e pepe

Don't let the simplicity fool you, this pasta laden with pecorino and black pepper is a genuine delight. It's rich, creamy and very more-ish. I found myself ordering it again and again and even had a concoction of it in a suppli, a Roman-style deep fried rice ball. 

Slight digression: if you find yourself in Trastevere and want epic, local suppli, head to Suppli Roma, an institution feeding locals for over 40 years. Our B&B owner recommended it and we joined the queue several times over the course of four days to enjoy the array of gastronomic delights, including the cacio e pepe suppli! 

Pasta 2: amatriciana 

Paul treated himself to this feast of tomatoes, guanciale (pork cheek), pecorino and pepper. He raved. 

Pastas 3 and 4: pasta all gricia; carbonara 

We have no photographic proof of either of these pastas but the first is a lot like the amatriciana, minus the tomato and add eggs. Carbonara, well everyone knows that one, and it's a solid favourite. 

Aperitivo
Aperitivo, not a food but a way of life, is a uniquely wonderful part of Italian life. Consider it a pre-meal drink to 'open the stomach' before eating. Aperitivo hour lasts from roughly 18:00-20:00, depending on the part of the city (and the city) you're in. Italians love drinks with a bitter flavour --Aperol and Campari come to mind--and these reign supreme. But perhaps most charmingly, you cannot drink without a snack. Sometimes the snack is a bowl of olives, some grisini (breadsticks) or a little bowl of crisps. Other times, it's much more involved as we discovered in Piazza San Calisto in Trastevere.

Depending on the size of the snack will also dictate whether a bar will charge you or not. The 'snack' above cost us an extra 2 euro/person cover, hardly breaking the bank and really putting London prices to shame. 

Upon reflection of our Italian travels, we deduced that Rome did indeed take aperitivo the most seriously. And for that, we are eternally grateful. 

Breakfast

One other food tradition I hadn't quite cottoned on to in my previous trips to Italy (I blame staying in cheap hostels) was that of breakfast. Italians aren't big on it. A coffee (espresso, not Americano size) and sometimes a pastry predominate. Pastries are low key; they come plain, or filled with nutella, chocolate or pistachio cream. Often they're accompanied by a cigarette or three. As we sat in the institution that is Bar San Calisto and watched local life, the 95-year-old woman travelling with her wheelie oxygen tank put that stereotype to rights. 

We sat here for a solid two hours, watching the world go by. It was perfect. 

Gelato

Finally, it goes without saying that gelato is a solid staple of the Italian nation. Everyone loves it, it comes in its vegan sorbet equivalent and gelaterias dot every street. This is an all-weather, all-season food. Cup, cone, one scoop or three, everyone agrees. 

So. In short, if for nothing else, go to Rome for the food. Whatever else you find along the way will be a bonus. 

A Weekend in Amsterdam

Our weekend to the city a 45-minute flight from London coincided with Paul's birthday and the easing of covid restrictions across Europe. And we couldn't have picked a more beautiful weekend of weather for the city of over 160 canals. 

A'dammers filled the streets to sit canal-side moving their chairs with the sun. And we made it our mission to walk, wander and relax as best we could amongst these happy locals. We did very little of cultural significance (unless you count Febo, the introvert's dream hot fast food vending machine, as culture...we did):

We took in no museums, avoided most tourist hotspots and instead opted to see the city by foot and boat. 

Our hotel, The Albus, was ideally located right at the edge of the city centre, on the cusp of the canal belt and De Pijp, home to hipster cafes, a long, merry street of gay bars, the Heineken Museum and the Albert Cuypmarkt, a half-mile long outdoor ode to cheese, hot food and other random things you never knew you needed. 

It did not disappoint. The city built on marshland, off the ingenuity of windmills, dams and dikes is a stunner. Everywhere you turn is a waterway; the city is home to over 60 miles of canals. Big, small, tiny. They like their canals like they like their prostitutes in the windows of the Red Light District. And I've got time for them all. 

So what about the subsidence? It seems to add to the charm. And if you look closely at the photo below, you'll see a woman in a first floor window soaking in everything the sun has to offer. 

We wandered from De Pijp through the city centre to the even more charming Jordaan neighbourhood. We stopped for canal beers and more street markets. We took every opportunity to Just Be, something I'm often accused of struggling with.

Between canals, the city's streets were lined with signage, graffiti and reminders of the hub that Amsterdam once was/still is. 

Off a hot tip from my friend Lindsay who used to live in the Netherlands, we found our way to one of the city's many Indonesian restaurants, opting for the deliciousness of Indrapura in Rembrandtplein just a short walk from our hotel. The country's 'national' dish, Rijsttafel (translation: rice table), is the aftermath of Dutch colonial powers in Indonesia in the 19th century. Imagine the delight of a series of small and medium plates served with a huge bowl of rice and you can begin to imagine.

On Sunday we woke to less sun and more blustery weather but that didn't take the shine off the city. We hopped on one of those hop-on hop-off boats ubiquitous with famous waterways the world over. Our journey piped in interesting historical facts about Amsterdam,  its history and heritage, its moneyed, artistic past. And then we went shopping for Stroepwaffel, had a Heineken and made our way to Schipol via the cheap, convenient, reliable train network that crisscrosses the country. 

This ease put British transport to shame. Because of course when we landed at London City Airport later that evening, the overground wasn't working. And so we zigzagged our way through the city, venturing 1.5 hours from east to went to eventually find our way north wondering why the EU ever wanted anything to do with the UK in the first place. 

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. 

Covid Happens

Our story starts a short bump along the road from my last post. We did our airport covid tests and received two immediate negative results. So we packed, cleaned, shopped, cleaned in a frenzy of less than 24-hours because I refused to jinx our chances beforehand. 

Early the next morning we journeyed to the airport, an airport that laughed in the face of social distancing. We ate our breakfast in a jam-packed restaurant, sat down and waited in a jam packed departure lounge and then got on our plane. Which was the only place not jam packed. 

Eight uneventful hours later, we landed at a jam packed JFK to repeat the process in reverse. Getting through customs was laughably the same as ever. We queued like sardines, packed tightly into our little can. No one checked our documents, vaccination records, negative lateral flow tests. 

We picked up our luggage, walked straight through customs where the two TSA employs were more worried about their rapid-fire gossip than anyone passing by. We jumped into the world's most disorganised security queue that snaked and snaked and snaked again, only to have a queue jump access point for a range of families with prams who proceeded to cut in front of us. 

With 10 minutes left before we boarded and 1hr, 30 minutes into our 2hr scheduled layover, we finally made it to the front. And a nice TSA man opened a new window to let our panicky asses through. But then he tussled with another TSA woman who WAS NOT IMPRESSED with the setup for her afternoon. And Paul intervened because we were bricking it and was immediately, rudely, precisely shut down. We were told to calm down whilst the queue we'd exited moved swiftly and we stayed stuck in one place. 

So Paul did a thing that Paul never does. He played the kidney card, lifted his shirt and lamented: 'I need to take medicine for my health condition. Look at my scar!' He was shut down again: 'you should have prepared for this, sir...' to which I cut him off, showing our passports and telling him that OUR airline arranged OUR connection this way. I was stressed. Clearly he saw that. Because another agonisingly slow minute later, we were through. But the x-ray machine needed to be calibrated first. 

We sprinted through Terminal 4 carrying a laptop and a pair of shoes in hand. Our gate, unsurprisingly, was at the end of the terminal. We walked straight onto the plane, taking a breath and a moment to gather ourselves. The flight was uneventful. 

Arrival in Detroit was a reunion in waiting. Paul's not been back to the US for four years--my parents eagerly awaited our arrival. We hugged, walked to the car and took a lateral flow test perched on the bags in the trunk of the car. Negative, negative and home we went. 

We went to bed, woke up to sunshine, the first sign of impending apocalypse. Bad shit never happens on a rainy day unless it's the movies.

Paul picked up his laptop for his final remote days of 2021. His colleagues continued to freak out about omicron, about the outdoor Christmas party with four people who have since tested positive. And so we took tests. 

And now we're here, separated by a set of basement stairs waiting for tomorrow's PCR to confirm Paul's second bout with Covid-19. Despite three jabs. Despite previous infection.

I was joking with colleagues earlier this week that there needs to be a word for surprised but simultaneously not surprised. And this is why we need that word. 

Excuse me while I panic.

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.