Diary of an Expat: The Holidays Abroad

When I made the decision to live abroad, I knew that it would mean giving up some of the things I love. I also knew it would mean missing things that my friends and family got to experience together. But I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for my first Thanksgiving out of the US.

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday. It is all the warmth of seeing family, a fantastic meal and a few days off from work without the added pressure of having to buy the perfect gift for every relative, friend and acquantaince while baking copious amounts of cookies and making sure your house looks perfect. Christmas dropped way down on my list of favorite holidays (to dead last) once my brother and sister left for college and there was no one to share the anticipation with. It's begun to climb back up, but really nothing will ever compare with Thanksgiving. Last year was my first Thanksgiving without any of my family around. I thought it would be hard, but I have a fantastic network of friends in New York who celebrated not only US Thanksgiving with me, but also Canadian Thanksgiving (who knew you can have the excuse to cook a turkey and GBC - green bean casserole, in case you didn't know - in October and November?!).

Canadian Thanksgiving Spread

leaving home and the American way of life

Last weekend, Kathy and I traveled to San Diego to visit my parents for my Dad's 60th birthday.  Actually, Kathy went to London for work on Monday, I left for San Diego Wednesday afternoon, Kathy returned from London Wednesday night, Kathy flew to San Diego Friday morning, we both flew home to New York on Sunday, and she left for a business trip in Chicago last night.

"What would be easier," Kathy said yesterday afternoon as she packed for the next trip, "is if we had some family close by to help out with the house and the kids."  Indeed.

When I was 18, I went to college an hour from my hometown.  I lived in that college town for two years after graduation, and then moved to California, where I lived for three years.  During that time, my sister lived in Arizona and my brother moved from Michigan to St. Louis.  Then, my sister and I moved to New York, my brother moved home to Michigan, and my parents moved to San Diego.  Basically, for the last 5 years or so, my family has lived in at least three different time zones.  Kathy's family, too, is spread out.  Her mother lives in the San Francisco area, her father lives in Pittsburgh, and she lives here, in New York.

little soaps

While poking around a bookstore in London on my recent trip abroad, I came across a book about the environmental impact of tourism.  As you can probably predict, the book did not have all that many positive things to say about the environmental impact of tourism.  Maybe this will be surprising, but I had never actually given all that much thought to this issue, other than when warned that cruise ships were destroying our planet's oceans by dumping laundry detergent, human waste, and all manner of other horribleness into the water as people floated around eating all they can and playing shuffleboard or whatever else you do on a cruise.

I didn't need to read the book to realize that flying around in a jet-fuel burning jet, or staying in a hotel where they launder my sheets each day and I use a brand-spanking-new mini-soap every morning might not have the best environmental impact.  Not to mention the other dire statistics I'm sure were included about the impact on developing nations of safaris and other fun trips. 

Here is the thing.  We recycle.  We have a compost bin.  I put my green peppers right into the shopping cart rather than into the extra plastic bag provided in the produce section.  I buy the hand soap in the huge jug and refill all the soap dispensers in our bathrooms, then recycle the big jug once it's empty.  It's not like I don't care about the environment.  But.  I freaking LOVE going to a hotel and unwrapping those little soaps to wash my face each day.  LOVE IT.  Which brings me right to the cornerstone of my views on activism: Do what is easy first.

(picture of soap from a Seattle hotel from here,

which also poses an interesting solution to the mini-soap problem)

London - my top tourist picks

(see number 3)

I've only been the two times to London, but since I glossed over or omitted some of my favorite tourist sites in my more detailed posts, I thought I would provide a condensed list of my recommendations should you find yourself in this amazing city.  I am sure there is much more to do that I haven't experienced, but here are my personal top picks, if you're interested.  There are 9, and although I wish there were 10, I have been highly selective about this list.

london, ten years later - Part 2 (or, Old and New)

Because of Kathy's work requirements, our hotel in London was in the City, which I might not necessarily recommend for a tourist, but which I quite enjoyed.  Staying in the City reminded me of one of my favorite things about London: the way it combines a rich sense of history with the unarguably and unapologetically contemporary.  It creates this sense of walking the same street as Queen Elizabeth, while simultaneously running smack into the 21st century.  These two pictures from my wanderings in the City will show you what I mean.  In the first, the building known as the Gherkin rises up from behind a row of buildings that are at least a couple hundred years old, on one of the City's twisty streets.  In the second, the Lloyd's building, built in 1986, is indisputably contemporary in architecture -- but look at the guard in the lower right corner, frowning at people in his long red coat.

london, ten years later - Part 1 (or, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Earlier this month, I tagged along on Kathy's business trip to London and Munich.  When I was an undergraduate, waaaaay back ten years ago, I studied English Lit in London for a summer (which yes, was a strange option for a Math major, but it was my way of reconciling what I was good at (math) with what I loved (Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare)).  Because she was there on business, I had a lot of time to bop around on my own.  The first day, I slowly made my way from the City of London to Bloomsbury.  When I studied, this is the area of town where I lived.  I knew where my dorm was, but this was not actually the target of this trip.  Instead, I was trying to find Virginia Woolf's house in Bloomsbury.

When I went to London to study, I met a group of women, at least one of whom has remained a lifelong friend.  One of my most vivid memories of that trip was sitting in her dorm room one afternoon talking about why we came.  All of us had chosen, rather than getting a summer job or banging around East Lansing, to pack ourselves up, spend a bunch of money, and go to London for the summer with a bunch of strangers.  The love of literature alone is generally not enough to send someone on that type of journey, and we were no exception.  The question posed, then, was whether we were running away from something or running to something.  For me, it was a bit of both.  I felt a little lost, as I have felt for much of my life.  I wanted a break from my family, my rather intense group of friends, and I wanted the chance to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit and live with anonymity and autonomy.  I wanted, in a way that only a 20 year-old with a certain disposition can, to find myself.  (Of course, in an environment where someone made me breakfast and dinner 5 days a week and planned fun outings to Vita Sackville-West's gardens and The Globe.)

And so, ten years ago, I was jogging in a park in Bloomsbury at noon on a Sunday.  As my sweet, sheltered, midwestern self was rounding a corner, I saw something I had never seen before (or since, for that matter). I saw a guy tying off his arm and shooting something into his vein with a needle.  In the middle of a park.  In broad daylight.  On Sunday.  I tried to act like I hadn't seen anything, but when I reached the next exit, my legs carried me right on out of that park.  One block later, I was face-to-face with Virginia Woolf's house.  Since I was, at the time, reading Mrs. Dalloway and living in London, this seemed rather serendipitous to me.  I don't know why, but I had a sense of being in the right place at the right time.  I felt found.  The moment was not exactly life-changing -- I was still me.  But it did create some subtle shift, or opening, which allowed me to recognize things about myself that I had previously ignored.  It was like someone said to me, remember why you're here.

So that's why, when I arrived in London, I set out to find Virginia Woolf's house.  I figured that if her ghost (or at least her house) gave me a nudge then, she could give me a nudge in the right direction now.    After about 45 minutes of aimless wandering, just when I was about to give up, I came across this:

booked, for real

Last night, I wrote the post below. 

(Munich skyline)

Kathy has to go to Munich and London for work this summer. I am currently unemployed and we have a lot of frequent flier miles. What does this mean? I GET TO GO TO EUROPE for the first time since 2001. More importantly, I get to go to Europe for the first time since 2001 practically for free. To say that I am excited is a vast understatement. We booked our trip about 5 minutes ago, and I am bouncing off the walls. There is but one snag.