A really long trip

When I went to Brazil last summer, I had never been on such a long flight, or trip, in my life—I was in the air for a solid 9.5 hours between Atlanta and Brasilia, with an overall trip time of about 20 hours, including all car rides, flights, layovers, and shuttles necessary to get me from Williamsburg, VA, to Pirenopolis, Brazil. Little did I know then that it was good preparation for this summer’s trip to Perth, Australia: I left Falmouth at 9 AM on a Monday morning and arrived in Perth at 3 PM on a Wednesday. I’m too lazy to do all the time zone math in order to calculate the exact length of that trip, but the bottom line is that it was long. However, because I was routed through Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I got to add two continents to my growing list of visited landmasses (Asia and Australia, for anyone who is not geographically inclined; this coming winter I will also check off Africa, but I suspect it will be a while before I get the 7th and final continent, Antarctica). The other benefit of flying through the Malaysian airport and having such a ridiculously long layover there was that I got to spend the night in a transit hotel (which, prior to this trip, I did not even know existed) in the same time zone as my destination; this was very effective in helping me battle jet lag. But I digress.

As I said, I left Falmouth at approximately 9 AM on Monday morning, which gave me enough time to endure the 5-hour train ride and 15-minute Heathrow express ride required to get me to the airport. It was a distracting train ride because the car was incredibly full, and only kept getting more full as we went on. I have no idea where everyone was going on a Monday morning, but it seems that all of Cornwall and Devon were desperate to relocate. Directly in front of me were a couple with a baby that could only be kept quiet with the aid of a rattle. Further on up the car were two caretakers and their mentally handicapped wards, one of whom periodically asked for food/drink/blanket with a heart-rending and ear-shattering bellow. This is yet another example of how impressively blasé the Brits are about handicaps; people with crutches/walkers/canes/wheelchairs/etc. are out and about in public much more than in the US, as are individuals with all sorts of physical deformities and intellectual handicaps, and nobody bats an eyelash. I felt bad for these guys, though, because (as I learned through a bit of unintentional eavesdropping) the handicapped toilet on the train was out-of-order, and they had nowhere to take their wheelchair-bound ward.

During the ride, I amused myself with music and games; not to harp on about how awesome my iPhone is, but I was also able to use it to determine which terminal I needed to get to once I reached Heathrow. As per usual, once I got to the airport it took me very little time to check in and get through security, leaving me with oodles of time to wander around wondering why on earth they tell you to arrive two hours before your flight. There was one slightly interesting event during check-in that came back to haunt me once I reached Malaysia: The woman at the Delta desk informed me that I would need to collect my luggage once I arrived in Kuala Lumpur and then immediately re-check it so that it could be sent off to Perth. I immediately thought this sounded bizarre, since normally you have to go through immigration in order to retrieve your luggage, and I would never be leaving the airport; however, when I asked her about this, she assured me that I definitely needed to go to the baggage claim area once I reached Malaysia. We shall return to this concept later.

My trip from London to Amsterdam was not very interesting, though I encountered an airport feature that would be a recurring (and annoying) theme throughout my journey. You know how you can’t ever take bottled drinks through the security checkpoint prior to the terminal? Well, in many airports, there is now a second screening process to get you from the terminal into the gate; at this point, you have to throw away anything you purchased between the previous security checkpoint and the new one. I understand why we are cautious, in general, but I am not quite sure I understand why we are that cautious. I wasted three different nearly-full bottles of water/juice during my trip because of this new technique, and I did not like it.

Things got much more interesting on the flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur; given that the flight was the longest I’d ever taken (11 hours), how could they not? First of all, I discovered that my ticket placed me right in the middle seat of a three-person row. *sigh* For a long time, the row remained empty, and I began to get excited that I might actually have two or more extra seats to myself, which I could use to stretch out and sleep. Alas, no. My aisle-side seatmate arrived and immediately asked me if I was Norwegian, a question he explained by saying that he (a Norwegian) and several members of his company were being sent to Kuala Lumpur together, but that the different travelers had not previously met and were looking for each other on the plane. It turns out that my window-side seatmate was one of these, as were the three men in front of us. Thus, for the first hour or so, my two row-mates chatted to each other across me, which would not have been particularly annoying except that one of them had extremely bad breath and it kept wafting in front of my nose.

I preoccupied myself by perusing the list of movies I could watch between Holland and Malaysia. I was on a quest to catch up on all the films I’d missed in the last several months. I saw “Shrek 3,” “Kisk-Ass,” “2012,” and “The Wolfman.” As you may notice, this is approximately 8 hours of film, which is a good portion of the flight. That is because I am pretty much incapable of sleeping on long plane rides unless I am able to position myself horizontally. I have a blow-up travel pillow, but I can never seem to get comfortable with it—it is always too flat or too low or too high, and the built-in seat pillow tilts my head forward at a funny angle. During this particular flight, I also had to contend with my neighbors. Both of them were dozing and, as they slept, began to take up increasingly more space—my space. Their legs and arms started bumping into mine and I kept folding myself smaller and smaller in order to avoid contact. The only advantage of this was that it forced me to find a position that was actually fairly easy on my bad back, such that when I arrived in Malaysia after 11 hours of sitting, I was less sore than I often am after only a couple hours in the car.

This is a good time to register a complaint about the airline and airplane itself. Back in the golden days when I first started traveling abroad, planes were not as crowded as they are today. This is an actual fact, which I can prove by offering the evidence that in the majority of those flights, I had at least one and sometimes two or even three empty seats next to me. I could lift up the arm rests, spread out some pillows and blankets, and recline in comfort for the duration of the flight. Lately, though, I’ve been on one sold-out flight after another, and there is just no room to breathe. Also, while some airlines have fairly comfortable planes (e.g., Virgin), others do not. Previously, I considered Delta to be a pretty lackluster company, but on the way to Malaysia I discovered that their affiliate, KLM, is even worse. On this particular flight, there seemed to be a problem with the air conditioning, such that it was boiling hot all the way to Kuala Lumpur; this completely caught me off-guard, since I always prepare to be frozen stiff during airplane rides. I had to strip off both my jacket and sweater and sit around in a tank top--and I was still hot. Despite the heat, the staff did not come through the compartment with drinks during most of the “night” (the latter half of which was actually “day,” since we were flying into the sunrise); by the time we arrived in Malaysia, I was sweaty and parched.

In this heat-stricken state, I wandered into Terminal C of the Kuala Lumpur airport with two goals: a) take care of my baggage issue, and b) find my transit hotel so I could shower and enjoy a loooong nap. I had decided on the way to Malaysia that the London check-in lady couldn’t be correct about my baggage, so I wanted to find the local airline desk in order to ask. On my way to do this, I passed my hotel and dropped off my carry-on luggage; the lady at the desk told me where to find the airline information people. When I got there, I started at one end of the counter, was referred to the other end, and then slowly worked my way back from one person to the next until I finally located someone who told me that the KLM-specific staff weren’t in yet. I was told to go to the main terminal, which was a short “aerotrain” ride away. The aerotrain was not your typical shuttle between terminals—it did not roll along the ground on rails, but was balanced by super magnets so that it hovered in the air as it moved. Pretty cool. In the main terminal, I found a general information desk where I was told my baggage would go all the way to Perth without any interference on my part. However, the woman who gave me this information also misread the ticket and thought I was going from Perth to London, so I didn’t feel too confident in her proclamation. Thus, I wandered around some more—a trip that included a journey down to the immigration area and back to Terminal C—before I finally found a KLM person who told me that the lady in London didn’t know what she was talking about, and that I could rest easy that my luggage would be in Perth once I got there. Whew.

That settled, I grabbed some food and headed back to my hotel. Prices in Malaysia seem exorbitant given the amount of local currency required, but through the wonders of exchange rate, they are actually very affordable. I spent something like 35-40 ringgits on 2 drinks, a sandwich, and a muffin, but that was only about $11—pretty darn good for airport food. Oddly, my sandwich was purchased from an Irish deli, which I thought seemed a little out of place in Kuala Lumpur. What was really crazy, though, was how many duty-free shops there were; I have never seen so many. If the prices there were similar to the prices at the restaurants, I understand why--people must have been getting some amazing deals on high-end designer merchandise. There were also several specialty shops geared towards Middle Eastern and Muslim customers, which I found interesting; they sold head scarves and burkas and traditional regional dress in a variety of rather beautiful (and, I am guessing, upscale) fabrics. As I mentioned in a previous post, the majority of travelers I passed were, indeed, Muslim, so I could see why these shops might be particularly popular. As an aside, I will mention that the majority of non-Muslim travelers (who appeared to be mostly Middle Eastern and SE Asian in origin) were clearly from northern Asia (especially Japan, but also China, Korea, etc.). The proportion of white people was infinitesimal, while the proportion of native English speakers was even smaller; this was quite an eye-opening and humbling experience for someone who otherwise has never been somewhere where she looked or felt in the minority.

Back at the hotel, it felt absolutely wonderful to take a shower, eat non-airplane-food, and then crawl between the crisp, clean sheets of my bed to sleep. I went to bed at 5:30 PM (local time) and didn’t need to leave the hotel until 6:30 AM the following morning, so I was able to get quite a bit of rest. However, I couldn’t sleep all the way through the night because it was just such awkward timing for my body. With stops and starts, I did manage to make it until about 5 AM, at which point I finally gave up and departed. I had several hours before I needed to report to my gate, so I headed to the Starbucks (is there an airport anywhere in the world without a Starbucks?) and took advantage of their free wireless access while drinking an enormous cup of caffeinated tea (just to further confuse my body). Not only did the Starbucks have free wireless, but the whole airport did, as well. How civilized--all airports should have free internet. I was able to send e-mails, catch up with the news, and even download a new album onto my iPod. After all that tea, I eventually had to head to the toilet, and this is what I found there:

(A squat toilet, also known as a Turkish toilet, which I had heard of before but never seen.)

To be fair, this was only one of three stalls, but I can confirm, after repeated sampling, that this style of toilet was present in each of the restrooms in the airport. I am not sure why anyone would choose to use this when she could use one of the two “regular” toilets next door; given the number of women in burkas, I thought perhaps it might be an easier style to use when you are maneuvering lots of skirts and robes? Anyway, I didn’t give it a try. I also didn't try the little hoses next to the toilets, which I always find odd because I don't understand how you're supposed to dry off after giving yourself a mini shower. That doesn’t mean that I completely avoided walking on the wild side, though. As I wandered around trying to amuse myself prior to catching my flight, I passed a Japanese noodle restaurant at just the moment that my stomach started growling for more food. It was only 9:30 in the morning, but the noodles looked good, so I sat down and had noodle-y chicken broth for second breakfast—I even used chopsticks, and it was delicious:

(I felt pretty good about using my chopsticks to eat this until I watched the Japanese girl at the next table over--she was holding the sticks much further up, which is a sign of better control, and she did it much more gracefully. Oh, well--I get points for trying.)

Soon enough it was finally time to catch my flight, and after passing through the second security check, I managed to set my passport down on a seat in the waiting room and then wander off without it. Thankfully, I happened to notice its absence before I got onto the plane and left it behind in Malaysia—that would certainly have been my worst travel mistake to date. My flight to Perth was operated by Malaysian Airlines, which was a huge upgrade from Delta and KLM. For one thing, there was a ton of leg room in front of my seat, and for another thing, there were three seats between me and the next passenger over (also, the hostesses had really cool uniforms). I plugged myself into my iPod, pushed aside the arm rest, and curled up for a nice, long nap.

After flying 11 hours from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, you think you must be near Australia, but, in fact, another 5 hour journey is required to get to Perth. When I awoke, we were over land again and flying low enough that we could clearly see the bright red soil and sparse scrubland; there was no question about where we were. I’m not sure why we were flying so low, since such flights are normally conducted at 30,000 or so feet; perhaps there is just so little competing air traffic in Western Australia that it doesn’t matter, and/or the sky is so clear that there are no clouds to obscure the view. In any case, it was cool to catch a glimpse of the land that I would be traversing in the near future (also a little daunting, given its remoteness and excessive size).

Before I could do that, though, I’d need to make it through Australian immigration and customs, which can be pretty hard-core. The immigration bit isn’t any different than in the US or UK, really, but the customs people are very intense about what can and can’t be brought into the country. The landing card you have to fill out has tons of questions about all sorts of things that you may or may not be carrying or have come into contact with during your travels. Because they live on an island, and have had serious problem with introduced pests of various sorts, the Australians have to be pretty careful. They are even concerned about the dirt on your shoes—one question asked whether you were carrying anything that had come into contact with dirt or carried dried dirt, such as cleats, etc. The scientist in me wanted to point out that all of us were wearing shoes that carried some amount of dirt from foreign countries, but I didn’t think that would go over very well. In any case, I was slightly worried because my suitcase contained an entire plastic box full of "pookies," the Metamucil-like bran cookies I eat every day. You aren’t supposed to bring any food into Australia, though I couldn’t quite tell whether they meant the “normal” sort of forbidden food (e.g., meat, cheese, nuts, fruit) or all food; this was the defense I planned if my hidden stash was discovered.

After making it through immigration, I headed to the baggage area to see if my suitcase had successfully made its way from Kuala Lumpur. As always, I was accosted by a second security guard on my way to the conveyor belt. I don’t know what it is about me, but people love to stop me for further questioning. As far as I can recall, this always involves young male security people, so I’d like to think they just find me attractive and want an excuse to talk to me. I think that’s probably unrealistic, so one day I would love to ask someone why they’ve pulled me aside—do I look suspicious? dangerous? I find it very difficult to talk to these people because I’m usually quite distracted and tired, which makes it hard to provide answers without sounding as though I’m making something up. In any case, I was finally waved through and, lo and behold, almost immediately found my suitcase—miracle of miracles! Keeping my fingers crossed, I headed towards the customs area and was directed into the line of people whose bags would be sniffed by a little beagle. Part of me thought that was pretty awesome, since I love animals and all, but part of me thought this made it pretty likely that my pookies would be rooted out. The beagle seemed utterly fascinated by my carry-on, and it took the customs lady several attempts to get him to move on to my main suitcase; I have no idea what he was smelling in there, unless perhaps it was the remnant smells of my parents’ cats. After he took a couple perfunctory sniffs of my suitcase, I was waved on, and my heart lifted. My pookies and I had made it without incident and were about to begin our journey through the land down under.
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Stay tuned for the next installment, in which I: drive on the right side of the car and the left side of the road, all by myself; discover Aussie hospitality; identify my first Australian avifauna; go shopping at an Aussie mall and find things outrageously expensive; pay $20 to go see a movie by myself; and return to the airport to pick up my husband so that our belated honeymoon can begin.

Rosturk Woods, Ireland

I don’t know what most Americans think of when they hear “Ireland,” but I have always imagined a very green place with quaint cottages, stone walls, and lots of sheep. Also, because I have read many historical fantasy novels set in Eire, I pictured sprites and pixies and all other manner of supernatural beings that emerge from the mist on a long winter’s night. In other words, I suppose I thought of Ireland as being, on average, slightly more rural, picturesque, and magical than the most rural, picturesque, and magical part of England. On the whole, my recent trip to Ireland confirmed these suspicions (though I never did see any fairies).

Before I moved to the UK, I didn’t really understand the difference between the two parts of Ireland, but now I am more educated. “Ireland” refers to the large island (the third biggest in Europe, in fact) that is off the west coast of Great Britain. It is divided into two parts: the Republic of Ireland, which covers most (5/6) of the island, has a government that couldn’t care less about what Queen Elizabeth and the coalition Parliament think, and uses the Euro as currency; Northern Ireland, on the other hand, is a part of the United Kingdom with the same kind of separate-country status as Wales and Scotland and uses pounds sterling as currency. When I recently went to visit “Ireland” during the first week of September, I traded in my pounds for Euros and went to Clew Bay in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland—or, as I tend to call it in casual conversation, “Ireland Ireland.” (I bet a lot of Northern Irish would cringe to hear me say that.)

The trip began with a flight into Dublin, which really could have been a destination unto itself—one day I do hope to go back and get more than a bird’s-eye-view of the city. We flew there from Newquay Airport in Cornwall, and it amazing how quickly we arrived in a whole other country—we were not even in the air for an hour, and barely had time for drinks and miniature bags of nuts before we were back on the ground. The flight itself is pretty impressive, since it takes you over the many peninsulas and inlets of Cornwall, then along the southern coast of Wales, before finally approaching the eastern coast of Ireland. You can see all sorts of cliffs and beaches and giant green fields, as well as the deep turquoise ocean along the shorelines:

(A view of the coastline from our plane back to Newquay; I forget where I was when I took this, but I believe it is Cornwall rather than Wales.)

As soon as we arrived at the airport in Dublin, it was obvious that we were no longer in the UK. It’s amazing how such a short flight could transport you to a place where people wear such obviously different fashions. Of course, an airport crowd is not exactly representative—there were many Americans there, and also a bunch of Brits—but even among people with Irish accents, I could see a difference; this held true even once we left the city and explored some of the smaller towns. Even down in Cornwall, which is not exactly what I would consider the most modern part of Britain, there are people who wear the types of very current trends you see in fashion magazines. The style of dress in Ireland was toned down in comparison; people weren’t dressed unfashionably, but they weren’t wearing some of the more outrageous things I normally see in the UK, either (e.g., none of those little Charlie’s Angels beach rompers or ankle socks with loafers—thank God). In other words, while the Irish looked unmistakably European, had I seen them elsewhere, I wouldn’t necessarily have identified them as coming from Ireland rather than, say, Scotland or Germany. The exception to this was many of the older working men that we saw—in particular, farmers and fishermen:

(Our caretaker, who is also a fisherman, and his son--those are genuine seafarers' oilskins!)

Those guys could have walked off the set of Far and Away or any other period Irish drama set over the last 100 years. The majority of elderly gentlemen walking through town or working in their fields wore wool flat caps that matched their wool jackets. I can imagine wearing this when going on the weekly shopping trip, but while ploughing the field?—that is pretty hard-core. It must have been rather toasty, but it did lend the gentlemen an air of distinction.

Once we left the airport, we had an unexpectedly long drive in order to get to our destination, Rosturk Woods. Given that Dublin is located on the east coast of Ireland and Clew Bay is on the west coast, we actually drove across the width of the entire country (though not across the widest part), and in a single day. I think that is the first time I have ever done such a thing, anywhere. Although I don’t particularly love car trips, given my propensity to become massively motion sick, I enjoyed the opportunity to watch the countryside as it became increasingly rural. For about the first two-thirds of the trip, the scenery didn’t scream “Ireland!” in the way that I had expected; we could easily still have been in England (though the vistas were much wider than those in Cornwall, since the roads weren't hemmed in by stone walls). However, it was extremely green (just as I predicted!) and the fields were decorated with many sheep and bright orange wildflowers. As we moved into the center of the country, there were lots of picturesque rolling hills. To my excitement, there were also tons of pine trees. Although there are also evergreens in Cornwall, the landscape is dominated by deciduous trees, and conifers are few and far between. Not only did Ireland have many pines, but they were grouped together in big patches; that is a habitat feature that reminds me of home and that I miss in the UK.

One of the other big scenic differences between the UK and Ireland was the style of house that we passed. Bungalows abounded—one-storey homes spread out over a lot of ground, fronted by a little stone or cement wall and fairly sizeable front gardens. Many of the gardens contained topiaries, or at least very well-sculpted red-cedar-like trees. I suppose the bungalow-style home is a modern version of the traditional long-house style of dwelling that many of Ireland’s first residents used. Oddly, though, we also passed some brand new McMansion-style homes like those you see in the US, jutting out of the landscape in a very unnatural way. I did not expect to see those in the middle of the Irish countryside, and they looked as surprising and bizarre there as they do in the middle of an otherwise empty field in the US. I will never understand how anyone could choose to live in such a home/location. Both the McMansions and the bungalows were situated extremely close to the road, which also reminded me of much of the US. I had a friend from the Great Plains who could never understand why East Coasters didn’t use long driveways in order to give themselves some privacy. I suppose it is a bit odd—if you have several acres of land, which these places clearly did, why not remove yourself from the noise of the traffic? I suppose it allows residents to maximize the amount of space they allocate to their livestock, which abounded. In fact, sometimes the livestock felt the need to break free of their confines and occupy some additional space, regardless of how their human neighbors felt about it:

(Stampede!)

The landscape really started to change around Westport. Suddenly there were picturesque stone bridges stretching over tannin-darkened waters and glimpses of fishing vessels sitting in the mud flats, awaiting high tide; we were definitely nearing the coast. From Westport to Newport, and then from Newport to Rosturk Woods, we passed many roadside shrines to the Virgin Mary, which is something I haven’t seen in other highly-Catholic countries I have been in; maybe I just haven’t been to the right places. As one might expect, there were also tons of Catholic churches, whose adjoining graveyards also contained shrines. This in the same country where the “quick-release” tab on a kayak’s spary skirt is referred to as the “Oh, Jesus!”handle—as serious as they may be about their religion, they can also involve it in a laugh.

We finally reached our house just before dinner time:

(Home, sweet home, for our week at Rosturk Woods.)

Like freshmen arriving at our dorm for the first time, we explored our surroundings and staked out our sleeping quarters. Oddly, two pairs of bedrooms were “stacked,” such that you had to walk through one bedroom in order to reach the other from the hall. On the bottom floor, where the bedrooms also had patio access, this meant you could reach the living room or kitchen by going outside; on the top floor, where my husband and I were staying, the only way out involved intruding on your neighbors. I found this to be particularly uncomfortable because we ended up in the back bedroom, but I was consistently the earliest riser in the house, which meant that every morning I woke up our friends in the adjoining room on my way down to breakfast. Sorry, guys! The other weird architectural thing was that the bathroom doors in both of the upstairs stacked bedrooms had panes of glass in their upper halves, covered only by a thin curtain. Thus, anyone who wandered past could see you using the toilet. I’d like to have a chat with both the architects and interior designers involved in making this building.

(Our see-through bathroom door. Luckily the curtains were not hung on a rod, but on a flexible, stretchy wire, which allowed us to hang towels in the window for better coverage.)

Our arrival at Rosturk Woods coincided with a bit of nasty weather, which was fine by me. For one thing, I like cloudy skies and rain, anyway. For another thing, I hadn’t had a true vacation for a very long time. I had a lot of sleep to catch up on and some very long books to read. Other than a brief foray down to, and along, the coast (about 5 minutes’ walk from our porch), and a short blackberry-picking expedition, I pretty much didn’t leave the house for the first three days.

(I took this photo during one of my brief forays along the coast outside our house; this castle was built in the 1800's and our caretaker's father grew up in it. I believe this may be the first time I vacationed within walking distance of an actual castle.)

It turns out that Ireland is a great place to hunker down inside, snack, and take naps. Our bedroom was particularly good for sleeping because, from it, I could hear the waterfall, the rustling leaves, and the birds singing outside; it was very peaceful. In the evening, we lit a fire and burned some very Irish peat bricks. In front of it, we watched movies and played Celebrities (in which I redeemed my poor performance in the one-word round by discovering a talent for the charades round).

I finally ventured out on the fourth day for an afternoon kayaking expedition. Although I am quite fond of kayaking and, indeed, own a kayak, I hadn’t been out on the water for over a year, and had never before been out on the sea. The day started stormily, but cleared up just in time for our outing. Clew Bay supposedly contains 365 islands (one for every day of the year), and we paddled from one to the other in bright sunlight atop sparkling waves:

(A view from my kayak of one of the Bay's more impressively-sized islands and its smaller neighbors. Unfortunately, my camera was just not up to the task of capturing the phenomenal, wild beauty of the Bay.)

We visited maybe 3-4 different islands and a nearby salmon fishery, taking shelter along each island’s coastline in order to rest up for all the hard work required to get across the choppy, open bits in between. Nobody tipped over and nobody was too sore the next day, so the trip was definitely a success. Once we got back to the pier, we had to rush home rather quickly, because the gravel track that got us back to the main road was being overrun by water as the tide came in. I suppose that is a bit of evidence in support of the widely-held belief (by Brits, anyway) that roads under control of the Crown are always in better shape than roads maintained by the Irish.

The next day, we went back out on the water in vehicles that could move a bit faster. Our hunters and gatherers hopped aboard a small fishing vessel in order to throw out lines for mackerel and collect some scallops; others of us took a rib out to meet them, making a brief detour to do some seal-watching along the way:

(The Twilight Star, our caretaker's boat.)

(If you look closely, you will be able to see that the dot in the water is the head of a bull seal investigating our presence.)

After we rendezvoused, we pulled into an island and had a little picnic, complete with freshly-made hot tea (our skipper was both prepared and thoughtful). As we ate, we could see very intense clouds making their way towards us from the open water; just in time, we collected our belongings and set off for home. Our brief window of sunny weather was closed. Luckily, we had a home-cooked meal of freshly-caught seafood to distract us from this unfortunate fact.

On our final full day in Ireland, my husband and I drove to Westport for a little shopping. I was hoping to find some traditional Celtic-themed jewelry to take back to the US as presents. Oddly, this proved to be nearly impossible, despite the fact that Westport had many shops, a large proportion of which we visited. However, there were tons of other items on offer, including a wide range of things made by local artists. My husband and I were both impressed by the quality and the prices of these artisanal products, which were made in many media. In many cases, the art had a Celtic theme, but did not dwell on the stereotypical images of Druids and "faeries" and knots and the other sorts of things that most tourists might think of; rather, they reflected contemporary ideas of what it means to be Celtic and/or Irish now. That surprised me, but I also thought it was pretty neat (and I used my credit card to show my support).

Throughout our stay at Rosturk Woods, we also did “regular” shopping, which was an interesting process. The nearest village, Mulranny, had quite a tiny grocery store—smaller than many typical 7-11s in the US. Although that is completely understandable, given the size of the local population and the distance to the nearest supply centers, it was difficult for those of us who had planned to cook complex recipes. For instance, there were no fresh herbs in the store, and only a half dozen dried herbs; there was only one brand of tea, with no herbal options; and there were no options for health and beauty products for those of us who ran out or packed too lightly. Although none of this really bothered me during my 7 days in town, it did make me think about how difficult it would be to live that way year-round; I am definitely not a city girl by any means, but I do like the choices and conveniences that are a part of being nearer "civilization."

On the morning that we took off, we woke up to the sounds of rain but, after pulling back the curtains, saw sunlight streaming through the clouds. This yielded some of the prettiest views I had seen yet, which also matched most closely with my preconceived notion of what Ireland looks like:

(The view from our bedroom window on our final day--notice the simultaneous rain and sun.)

Unfortunately, the loveliness of the first few moments of the day did not persist throughout the rest of the day; after issues with unplanned potty breaks and fuel stops and traffic jams and lacking/poorly-positioned car rental signs at the airport, we barely made our flight—by which I mean that we were the last people to check in, and did so during the final five minutes before the gates were closed. That was undoubtedly the most stressful airport moment I have ever had when traveling, but at least it had a happy resolution. Maybe after a week in the country, we had been blessed with a little of the luck of the Irish.

Travel thoughts

When I am traveling, my mind seems to work overtime, and I find myself contemplating all sorts of stuff. Mostly I think this has to do with the fact that I get extremely motion sick, so whenever I’m on the road/air/water, I am forced to do absolutely nothing except maybe listen to a little music—a far cry from my normal state of being, when I can barely think straight because I am usually busy accomplishing about ten different things simultaneously. I am, by nature, full of curiosity, so with the unusual amount of mental freedom afforded by long-distance travels, my thoughts wander far and wide. In addition to all the normal thoughts in my head (the book I’m reading, the last movie I saw, my research project, etc.), there are also many ideas related to the new and interesting things I’ve been exposed to during my trip. Having just completed 37 long hours of travel (that’s 5 hours on the train, 18 hours of layovers, and 17 hours of flying, in case you were curious), I currently have a very tired brain.

What was I pondering during that long trip? Well, for starters, I started wondering about geography after I checked out a map of the flight route between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur. I realized that I wasn’t really sure if Malaysia and Indonesia were both countries or whether one (or both?) of them was a collective name for one or more of the archipelagos in the region (it’s the former; and, speaking of archipelagos, would you believe that Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands?!). I also noticed that Singapore was at the tip of the Malay Peninsula—this leapt out at me because that’s where my husband is right now—and it occurred to me that I didn’t really even know what Singapore is: a city? a territory of another country? a country in and of itself? When I looked it up online, I discovered that it’s a city-state, which then made me wonder how many other city-states there are in the world (apparently 2—the Vatican and Monaco). As you can see, I am woefully ignorant when it comes to geography and world history, which is a shame; I really find all this stuff fascinating, especially because I like to apply that kind of knowledge when I travel. Every time I discover yet another obvious geographical fact that had previously escaped my attention, I cringe at the knowledge that I am proving true the stereotype that Americans only know about their own country.

I also think about cultural stuff, for obvious reasons—when you are in an airport, you are bound to run across someone who is “different” in some way. When I was in the Kuala Lumpur airport, for instance, I encountered more Muslim women than I have ever seen in my life (the only other place I’ve observed multiple burqas in a single day/location is Minneapolis, Minnesota—weird, huh?). Given how few burqa-wearers I’ve ever seen, it is perhaps unsurprising that I’d never noticed how the women often decorate their otherwise bland outfits in order to spice them up a bit—many of the ladies had beads or sequins placed around the edges of the headpiece, or along the trim of the sleeves and dress; some had also pinned their scarves in place with jeweled barrettes. It was quite pretty, and I was surprised to find that such a practice was allowed, given how solemn that particular mode of dress is. I also noted the striking eye makeup that all the women wore; they all looked quite beautiful, though of course it is difficult to make those judgments very accurately when all you can see is someone’s eyes. That made me wonder what courtship is like in areas where the women always wear burqas in public: Is there ever a time when their husbands-to-be get to see their brides prior to marriage, or does the literal unveiling only happen on the wedding day? If it is the latter, one would imagine that some men are in for a serious disappointment, if their brides’ eyes are their most attractive feature. Perhaps you will forgive me for being so shallow when I tell you that my Muslim-oriented thoughts also drifted to a wonderful book I read in high school, called Daughter of Persia. It is the autobiography of Sattareh Farman Farmaian, the daughter of an Iranian prince and a humanitarian who lived through the turbulent, US-aided regime change in Iran. I had always meant to re-read that book, but never did; now I’m feeling inspired to return to it. Back to a bit of semi-shallowness, I was also trying to remember the names for the different parts of Muslim women’s headwear. I recently read an article about the different components and how they all fit together to make the final product, which usually looks as though it is all one piece. I was totally convinced that one of the pieces was a habib, but when I looked it up, I discovered that habib meant “beloved.” The word I was trying to think of was hijab, which can be used to describe both the head covering itself and the modest Muslim style of dress, in general.

By this point in my contemplation, I was feeling pretty stupid, which prompted a whole new flow of ideas—about Americans and their general ignorance about Islam. This was a particularly timely topic, topic given the recent events with that idiotic pastor in Florida who threatened to burn the Qu’ran last week. It occurred to me that, while Americans have become more aware of Muslims and Islam since 9/11, most of us haven’t really become much more knowledgeable about them. As someone who’s taken some history courses examining Muslim countries, who has read up a little on Islam-related history and current events, who has some Muslim friends, and has been to places where multiple Muslims can be seen at any given time, I would say that I represent the American median, in terms of Islam-savviness—although a part of me suspects, with a bit of dismay, that I might actually be slightly above average in this respect. Either way, that means there are actually people who know less than I do, and that is pretty scary. What is even scarier is that I was having these rather deep thoughts at what was, to my body clock at least, 3 AM.

Of course, at that time in the day, it’s a miracle that anyone can think straight at all, and I will admit that my mental stability was waning. That’s another interesting thing about travel-induced meditations. They are not only affected by my surroundings, but also by my state of being. There always comes some point when I am running on empty, and when that happens, I find everything funny. This is dangerous because I keep wanting to chuckle to myself, which probably wouldn’t do much to endear me to other nearby travelers. I’m also often highly caffeinated, since I am an avid tea drinker, slurp down Cokes in order to minimize motion sickness, and take caffeinated headache pills. All that caffeine makes my thoughts race—not only am I constantly thinking of something, but I also jump from one topic to the next with amazing rapidity. For instance, the following is a fairly accurate representation of a sequence of thoughts that actually went through my head during my recent trip: (listening to iPod) “Wow, this is a great song, I’m glad I bought this album. I wonder if Mom would like this? Well, she would, but she might not have the time to listen to it. I wonder what kind of souvenirs she’d want me to look out for? I could buy her something with my own money, maybe as a Christmas present; or, I could use her credit card and she could buy it herself. I wonder how much money is her limit? I should buy Dad something, too, but that’s harder—what would Dad like that I could fit in my suitcase? What am I going to get Dad for Christmas? I should go shopping for myself at Christmas, too, and take advantage of being able to spend in dollars instead of sterling. I definitely need some pants. But no sweaters—I have too many sweaters. I’m going to need to reorganize my clothes when I get back home. And clean. I need to vacuum and do the bathroom and dust. Ugh, I hate dusting. Why can’t they sell Pledge in the UK? That’s what I really need but they don’t have anything that good…” I could go on, but I won’t bore you; it’s boring even to me and they’re my own thoughts.

When I get to this phase—the uncontrollable-racing-thought phase—I often am overwhelmed by the desire to list things. I think that may be my coping mechanism to prevent myself from coming totally unhinged. Sometimes I make to-do lists; other times I make grocery lists or plan out travel itineraries in more detail. Occasionally, I record all of the questions I’ve pondered during my trip (e.g., Malaysia vs. Indonesia, names of headdress components, etc.) so that I can remember to look them up when I get to a computer; likewise, I also write down words whose definitions or pronunciations I’ve realized I am unfamiliar with. Since starting the travel blog, I’ve also started writing down all the topics I could discuss in future entries. That’s what I did this afternoon at the peak of my over-caffeinated, under-rested mental overload. I made a list of all the bizarre things that happened in the day and a half since I’d left Cornwall. Thus, some of my most recent travel thoughts have ultimately proven to be useful, since they will help get this blog rolling again. That just goes to show that all this cogitation can sometimes be good for something, as when I catch a little inspiration, remember a vital piece of information, or, on the rarest of occasions, have an epiphany. But, most of the time, my mental chatter is relatively pointless--I have fleeting thoughts that keep me entertained for a bit but then vanish into the mists of my mind, never again to resurface. I think maybe there is a metaphor somewhere in there, but my brain is just too tired to grasp it right now.

Strangers in a strange land

When I first moved to England, I heard lots of jokes about how I was going to end up sounding like Madonna, with her phoney-sounding British-esque way of speaking. I promised everyone, including myself, that I would never stop sounding American. But you know what they say about promises--they're made to be broken. Soon enough, I heard myself saying things like "advert" instead of "commercial" and (woe unto me) "courgette" instead of "zucchini." I even hear myself pronouncing my "t's" more emphatically, and using British inflections when speaking. Oh, well. During my college years, I picked up several Philadelphia pronunciations ("whut" and "wutter" for "what" and "water," for instance), and during my graduate years I picked up "y'all" from Virginia. I suppose it was inevitable that I should also bear the stamp of my British residency, though thankfully I haven't gone so far as to speaking with a full-fledged British accent--I think I might never live that down during my trips back home (much as I might like sounding elegant and exotic, comparatively speaking).

Oddly, I have been so obsessed over this issue of language that it never occurred to me that I might begin to change in other ways. Recently, my parents came to visit, and their presence in Falmouth helped me see it, and myself, through the eyes of a stranger. At the same time, I found myself observing Americans from a more British perspective--which was disconcerting.

One of the first things I noticed was my mom's propensity to interact with strangers. At the train station, she waved at other people to walk around her, indicating her luggage and saying she didn't want to slow anyone down. I heard her give this explanation a couple of times, as well as saying "excuse me" to people she passed as she got on/off the train and weaved in and out of the crowd. This was particularly noticeable because, with the exception of people who were talking to each other because they were traveling together, nobody else was making similar comments. That is because British people do not like to talk to strangers. Americans, on the other hand, are very friendly. We say and/or wave hello to people when we pass them on the street, we say "excuse me" and "bless you" to complete strangers, we end up having conversations with others who are standing in line with us or sitting near us in waiting rooms. You see this portrayed in movies, where you can tell that a place is "nice" and "wholesome" when neighbors there call "good morning" to each other as they pick their papers up off their front porches, and where everyone waves cheerfully to cars driving down Main Street. Brits make fun of us for this all the time, which is why I was particularly appalled to find, shortly after my arrival here, that I was proving these stereotypes to be true. I had a couple of uncomfortable small-talk conversations with check-out ladies before I realized that the awkwardness stemmed from their surprise at a customer's being overtly friendly for no reason at all. I also used to smile and/or say hello to people that I passed on the street, if I happened to meet their eyes or if we were the only people on the sidewalk (obviously I wouldn't say hello to everyone I passed if the streets were crowded; that would be very Borat of me, not to mention quite time-consuming). Nowadays, I don't say "excuse me" if I sneeze or "bless you" to someone else who sneezes, I don't say "sorry" if I bump into someone, and I certainly don't start any conversations. I went from friendly American to wallflower within a period of five months, and I hadn't even noticed the change until my parents provided a point of reference. The next question is: How will I act once I go back to the US again? Is the friendliness gone forever, or is it just a matter of setting?

One of the important things you have to learn quickly in a new country is currency, and my parents asked me for a lesson in identifying coins. They wanted to be able to identify them quickly rather than having to search for the label on each one, which I can understand--when I first got here, I preferentially used paper money and larger coin denominations in order to avoid having to laboriously count out the little coins in front of anyone, since I didn't know what any of them were. Nothing marks you out as a tourist faster than that, and nobody wants to look like a tourist. The problem with British money is that many of the coins are doppelgangers for American coins, only they don't represent the same denomination. For instance, 5-pence coins look like American dimes, while 10-pence coins look like American quarters. It would be a lot easier if nothing looked like anything else, since then you wouldn't have any preconceptions. As an American, it is also difficult to conceive of things like 20-pence pieces or 1- and 2-pound coins. I don't remember some point at which I began feeling felt comfortable with handling money, but as I ran through the monetary lineup with my parents, I suddenly realized that when I opened my coin purse to pay a bill, I did so with an exact a priori image of what coins I wanted to pluck out.

Another subtle change has been my acceptance of the British eccentricities around our apartment. For instance, the handle on the toilet used to drive me crazy because I could never manage to flush the first time I tried. In fact, most of the toilets here in Britain have quite interesting flush mechanisms, by American standards. When my mom commented on what an unusual handle it was, I realized that my struggles with it had ended a while back, without my even noticing. Another interesting thing around here is the electric sockets, where you have to flip a switch to turn on electrical flow in order to then turn on whatever is plugged in. I had to explain this to my parents so they'd be able to use electronics. I don't remember when I first encountered that British peculiarity--probably the first time I vacationed here--but I used to think it was really bizarre. Now I just flip the switch and carry on with my business without a second thought. I also taught my mom how to use the washer/dryer, and she had the same reaction to the laundry detergent setup that I originally had--"You just set it on top of the dirty clothes?!" Our various beeping appliances also raised some eyebrows. They drive me crazy, but it no longer strikes me as unusual to have a dishwasher and a dryer that beep incessantly to let us know that their cycles are through. But if you come from the US, where these appliances are either quiet or just make one single noise when the timer is up, these sounds are peculiar and unexpected. Also, all of our appliances are wearing a cunning guise of wooden paneling to make them blend in with the cabinets; imagine my parents' surprise to find not cabinets full of food and dishes, but a tiny dishwasher, refrigerator, and freezer! The diminutive size of those last two caused a stir, given that these are but a fraction of the size of their American counterparts.

Speaking of things related to food, eating with my parents reminded me of some of the many things I had to learn when I first moved here. Both my mom and dad asked me to explain "cream tea" and "clotted cream ice cream," which was something I never fully understood until I finally found out what "Cornish clotted cream" actually is (the product of heated unpasteurized cow's milk left to sit in a shallow pan). There was also the issue of ordering "fillet" (where the "t" is pronounced), as opposed to a "filet." I was impressed to note that both of my parents acclimated quickly and used the British pronunciation; I still use the French/American word because I feel too weird doing otherwise. That just goes to show that mind set, as well as time, is a critical factor in the acclimation process. However, one thing that my dad, at least, could not quite seem to adjust to was the size of British beers. Individual servings here are larger than those in the US, and my dad kept leaving unfinished bottles of beer in the fridge (my husband would come in and finish them off later).

Timing of meals was especially interesting, especially given that my parents were jet-lagged and struggling with their body clocks, anyway. Although the UK isn't quite as extreme as the rest of Europe, where appetizers might be rolled out at 11 PM, people do tend to eat later here than they do in the US. Of course, this has a lot to do with stopping for tea at 4 or 5 PM, since you often accompany your drink with a bit of a snack. My husband and I usually don't eat before 7:30 PM at the earliest, and often we don't sit down until 8:30-9 PM. When I first moved here, this drove me crazy, but now I've gotten used to it by spacing out little snacky-meals throughout the day, rather than the big three that most Americans eat. One night, my mom and I went to the gym before dinner, which meant that we didn't go out to eat until at least 9 PM. I'm not sure that my parents loved that timing too much, or at least would want to keep it up permanently.

We took a few road trips around the area while my parents were here, which gave my dad the chance to get comfortable with being on the left-hand side of the road. This was vital, as he was to be the driver when he and my mom rented a car to get from Bath to Winchester and then onwards to Cambridge. Getting used to traffic on the opposite side of the road is difficult because you have to overcome instincts that were formed by years of experience. Even in the US, I have trouble looking in only one direction when crossing a road that I know has one-way traffic; imagine what it's like to add an extra lane of traffic and then reverse the directions in which the cars are driving. Although I now find it pretty natural to expect oncoming traffic from my right rather than my left (especially in large cities where this information is thoughtfully supplied by signs painted on the ground at crosswalks), I definitely look both ways about four times as often as I do in the US when crossing the road. I don't even feel that weird driving on the left, though I still have a hard time judging distances while sitting on the opposite side of the car. I will be interested to see what it's like when I have to drive in the US after living in the UK for so many months--I'm a little nervous that my reflexes might now steer me into a lane that is "right" in the UK, but "wrong" in the US (pun intended!).

When my parents asked me what to pack for the trip, I emphasized rain gear and layers, which turned out to be a very apt suggestions. I was impressed that nobody complained about the overwhelming lack of sun (we didn't have much rain, but we did have a lot of clouds), which of course is the stereotypical thing that you notice and discuss in Britain. I did hear some comments about the wind, though, which can be ridiculous around here. High Street acts as a funnel, and sometimes when you walk up it on a breezy day, you might easily think you'd accidentally wandered into a wind tunnel. That and the rain make me very glad to have short hair, which tends to weather the weather pretty well. I've gotten to the point where I ignore the wind, or at least view it in a very matter-of-fact way: "Oh, it's windy again, I'd better pack a warmer sweater." It's funny to be reminded that there are lots of places where these gusts aren't a normal part of life, and where you don't have to bring in deck furniture to prevent it from toppling over in the breeze. What's even weirder is that I lived in one of these places for the first 18 years of my life, and yet my recent experiences in Falmouth seem to have obliterated my memories of that "normality" and replaced them with the new "normal" of Falmouth.

When I think about acclimating to a new place and redefining "normal," I can't help but remember my trips home from college. At first, the only differences I noticed were ones of convenience--my hometown is a college town built to accommodate students, while my own college town was not, so my main focus was the relief I felt at having easy access to shops and restaurants again. As I got older, though, and spent more time away from home, I started noticing other aspects of my hometown because they were not what I'd grown used to during my time away--the lack of a sushi restaurant or smoothie shop, the Appalachian accents, the limited cultural diversity of the residents. Returning to school in the fall, I'd have to readjust all over again--to the traffic, to the proximity of suburbia, to the lack of hills on the horizon. It's amazing how fast something "new" becomes something "familiar," while things that used to be "familiar" become a distant memory. I'm not saying that nothing in Britain surprises me anymore--it is a foreign country, after all, and I've only lived here for 4 months--but I no longer bat an eyelash at many things that used to strike me as odd. It's the same thing that happened when I moved away from home to go to college, and then again when I moved to do my graduate degrees. As long as I keep moving between such different environments on a regular basis, I am probably destined to find things interesting or stimulating in some way, which is encouraging--I'd hate to become complacent. Sometimes all of these comparisons can be a bit sad, as when you notice flaws in something that you used to think was perfect, or when you take a new look at yourself and realize how you've tuned some things out or focused unnecessarily on other things. It just goes to show that everything really is a matter of perspective, and the best you can hope to do is keep an open mind and collect as many of them as possible.

Welcome home!

When I was younger, I used to love flipping through my mom’s catalogs, of which there were many. I would look through the pile of mail and pull out each glossy booklet that looked promising—anything to do with books, toys, novelty items, hippie-themed gifts, or other amusing oddities. Until I was in my teens, I carefully left behind catalogs devoted to shoes, clothing, and beauty products. The remaining category—household items, including decorations, furniture, linens, and cookware—went untouched well into my 20's, not worth my attention even if I was completely bored and could find absolutely nothing else to occupy my time. So how did it happen that I finally find myself interested in these things? I not only browse home-oriented catalogs, but I peer into store windows where these items are on display, I peruse homewares websites, I go shopping with the single purpose of purchasing a set of sheets or matching pillows. What happened to me? How did I become…domesticated?

Oh, well, I suppose that this is somewhat inevitable as you grow up and live on your own, particularly if you are a woman—there’s that instinctual urge to build a nest and line it with nice, cozy materials. Or, in my case, with an ever-growing collection of bird art and kitchen implements. From the moment I began purchasing my own domestic items, it was clear that I had diverged from the path taken by my mother and her mother—both of whom have a very comfortable country style; my mother’s is accented with a suite of variously-sized antiques, while my grandmother’s is enhanced by the many pieces hand-built by my grandfather. Instead, I found myself drawn to the exotic—colors, textures, and patterns from Asia and the Middle East. Here, for instance, is the first major investment I ever made in an antique:

(My Chinese hatboxes. The first, on the bottom, was purchased at a wonderful antiques store called the Blue Crow, which I happened to stop at while driving along the peninsula of Virginia's western shore. The second also comes from Virginia--from the Old Chickahominy House in Williamsburg.)

It’s rather a happy coincidence, then, that my husband has spent his life traveling and acquiring things from abroad. He has also received a number of "multicultural" gifts from his diversely-origined friends and family. The few decorations that he already possessed prior to my arrival suited my tastes just fine--the Guatemalan clock, the series of African animal sculptures, the toucan statue, the set of Indian coasters. Even his collection of ultimate frisbee disks has an international flair, since they were acquired from competitions all over the world and sport (pun intended!) interesting and colorful designs. We were lucky, then, that we didn't have any moments of tension when it came time to join our two households; we kept everything my husband already had and then added my own things. As far as that "addition" process was concerned, I was given free permission to do what I liked. Given the general dearth décor when I arrived, that was quite a lot of freedom. I'm still a bit surprised by how few embellishments there were in the apartment despite the fact that my husband had lived here for three years prior to my arrival. Much of the furniture had been inherited, either from the apartment’s previous occupant or from people in his department who handed down pieces of furniture from one generation of academics to the next. This, for instance, is how my husband came by his couch, which was so disheveled that it had to be covered by a decorative sheet:

(The sheet failed to cover all of the places where you could see bits of metal and foam interior poking through the upholstery; it also couldn't disguise the ominous sounds that occasionally arose from the frame whenever you sat down.)

Unsurprisingly, the couch was high on my list of things to remedy. However, the first item on the list was cleanliness—not tidiness, which also needed some improvement—but sanitation and freshness, which seems to be something that many men, my husband among them, are not nearly as concerned with as we ladies are. Before I first came to visit, my husband had to pay a (female) friend to come clean the apartment so I wouldn’t be shocked by its appearance; there were actually places that he hadn’t dusted, vacuumed, swept, mopped, or scrubbed since he had moved in. To make this worse, there is always at least one window open in our apartment, and Falmouth produces this strange industrial dust that is thick and almost…furry. Its accumulation is quite noticeable even during the week that passes between my routine cleanings of the apartment, so you can only imagine how bad it was after nearly three years—especially in remote, inaccessible places like under the bed, on the baseboards, atop the armoires, on shelves, etc. As my mother would say, it was so thick in places that you could practically have planted corn in it. Another bane of my cleaning existence has always been the shower stall. The water here is full of minerals; within a day of cleaning the shower glass so that it is actually transparent (ooh la la!), white streaks are already collecting again. Even with the most toxic cleaning substance you can locate, de-opaquing the stall requires so much elbow grease that my muscles are sore the following day. Even I, in all my neat-freakiness, can only muster the energy to tackle this problem a couple times a year.

The next item on my list was organization. In the entire two-bedroom apartment, there is only one closet—one and a half, if you count the space under the water heater in its little closet by the bathroom. This worked fine for my husband, because he didn’t have much stuff. Even when I was just visiting, I routinely introduced many more things into the apartment—cooking implements, dishes, medicines, toiletries, reusable shopping bags, an iron and ironing board, etc. These all seem like normal items for any apartment to contain, but when there is no place to put them, they become quite problematic. There were also some issues associated with my husband’s general lack of neatness: All of his paperwork had accumulated in a single large pile on one of the kitchen counters; all of the extra parts and directions from home-assembled furniture had been crammed into one of the kitchen drawers; all of his recycling was piled in boxes and bags in the closet. When dealing with a packrat (yes, that’s right, I said it--he's a packrat), you have to pick your battles wisely. Thus, I only threw away the things it was absolutely imperative to get out of the apartment; the rest of them were organized by baskets, trays, boxes, and even my pride and joy, the closet caddy:

(I'm a little ashamed of how much I love this thing. To truly understand, you'd need to see a picture of the closet before it was organized by this nifty little piece of furniture. Unfortunately, I so detested looking in the closet during those messy days, I failed to document its previous condition.)

Luckily, my shipment from the US included two storage trunks, a chest of drawers, a bedside table, a desk, and several ornamental but also functional baskets and boxes; now all we need is a bookcase, and we will be more or less fully organized in here.

From the first moment that I stepped foot in this place, I had two nemeses: the couch and the laundry hamper. The couch I have already described, but words just cannot convey the awfulness of the laundry hamper. A large woven basket, it disintegrated while being carried from the store to the apartment; it then sat, in its unraveled state, in the corner of my husband’s bedroom, slumping more and more as it came more and more unwound from use. I first managed to relocate it to the guest room and at least get it out of my immediate sight; then I finally dismembered it and removed it from the apartment altogether. That was a great day. The couch took a bit longer. My parents’ wedding present to my husband and me was to buy us a new sofa, but the furniture company took a solid 9 weeks to deliver it after we’d placed the order. It’s more than a little frustrating to spend hundreds of dollars on something you don’t even get to enjoy until 2.5 months later. But, what a comfortable couch it is:

(And look how well it matches the rug, which matches the blanket along the back of the couch!)

Of course, couches require end tables, so we had to purchase those, and while we were at it we also bought a bedside table for our bedroom and a new bed for the guest bedroom (all of which was made possible by wedding present money from the other side of the family—do you see a theme here?). In the furniture assembly process that ensued, I learned an important lesson: Never let my husband put things together without supervision:

(Two of the three matching end tables that I put together. Beautiful.)

(The bedside table assembled by my husband. Notice the problem? The base of it is on upside-down, with the unfinished part rather than the finished part showing. *sigh* In his defense, the building instructions were pretty shoddy.)

With these basics taken care of, I could begin the much more fun process of decorating. For instance, I have purchased pillows that match not only our different-colored loveseat and sofa, but also each other; I have bought a pineapple “accent” table made by an artist friend; I’ve picked up a couple of locally-made paintings. I also brought many decorations with me from the US—in particular, several wall-hangings of various types, statues, sculptures, and picture frames. Unfortunately, another thing that is lacking in our apartment is surface space, so I’m not entirely sure where or how I am going to display all of these pieces I have painstakingly collected over the years. The pictures are a bit problematic because we lack the power tools needed to hang them appropriately, so we are either going to have to locate a friend with a drill or bite the bullet and purchase one of our own. I’ve managed to put a couple up already, using pre-existing nails and holes in the wall. It’s amazing how much warmer and less austere a room looks once it has color on the walls. The addition of plants and floor coverings also makes a huge difference; I added rugs early on, and we inherited a veritable greenhouse’s worth of plants from some friends a few months ago, not to mention the potted herbs that I have cultivated for the past year:

(My babies--basil, thyme, and oregano, with a random blade of grass thrown in for good measure.)

People who haven’t been over in a long time are always surprised when they walk in and see all the changes I’ve made. Take, for instance, the changes that have occurred just in the guest bedroom:

(When I arrived the bed was actually a futon, and the duvet was merely placed on top. Then we folded up the futon in order to make the room more spacious, ditched the dorm room-style duvet cover with the old one from our bedroom--I'd upgraded in there, of course. Next, we purchased a new bed. Then we added normal bedroom furniture, such as the bedside table and the trunk, some decorative baskets, and a new dresser. Finally, I purchased a new duvet cover that was a bit more mature. Note the towels on the bed runner--we have guests coming. And I'm not embarrassed to show them to their room.)

I do sometimes worry that I’m doing that clichéd makeover thing where women come in and feminize the bachelor pad; it makes me feel a bit overbearing. Then again, my husband really doesn’t care much about these domestic things, and I do give him opportunities to chime in (he was instrumental in choosing the couch, for instance, and for helping decide which rugs to put in our bedroom—he’s not bad at this stuff when forced into it). Also, I’m not one of those women who decorate in extremely girly ways. I once pet-sat for a family whose entire house was filled with pastels and floral prints, and I kept wondering how the husband felt coming home to such an oversized Barbie dollhouse; worse yet, how did he feel having male friends over to watch the game on Sunday?

I guess we all have our territories to reign over and defend. My husband, for instance, can still indulge in both messiness and dirtiness at his office, which is so mind-blowingly untidy that I feel anxious after standing in it for just a few minutes. He can also do whatever he likes in his car (but not when/if we trade it in for a car that is “ours”!). I’d also like to point out that, however strong my opinions about the apartment, and however forcefully I bend its appearance to my will, the same is not true of my husband’s own personal decorations. I have flooded his closet with many new items of clothing (mostly because he had so few to begin with), but I never complain about what he wears (well, I rarely complain), and I’m not trying to force him into any fashion mold.

In any case, he seems happy with all the changes, and that’s the important thing—that we both feel at home. Despite all the changes that have already been made, we still have more to go (as seems always to be the case—my parents are still making changes to their house after 27 years of living there). We need to purchase and assemble at least two bookcases to house all of my many tomes, we need to do something to organize the explosion of food (spices, in particular) in our pantry, and we need to install some sort of storage unit in our bathroom, just to name a few items on the list. And, of course, we have to clean the whole place once a week or so, to keep the Falmouth dust and fungus at bay. It’s hard work being an adult and living on your own. I sometimes miss the days when I could just focus on books and clothes, rather than worrying about whether things fit or match or are broken and need replacing. Still, it’s fun to create a place that really feels like home—one that exhibits your own tastes and interests and makes you feel safe and comfortable. After spending the last 11 years bouncing among various types of temporary housing, from dorm rooms to field housing to apartments rented in a sketchy part of town, it’s nice to be mistress of my own domain.

British dress code: what to wear to look like a native

When I was a grad student, my adviser would occasionally let slip a few anecdotes about his previous life as a student in Britain, and one of the recurring themes was the wearing of unusual (one might even say inappropriate) clothing out in public, often for no reason at all. In fact, he even brought this fondness for playing dress-up to America, where his outlandish Halloween costumes became legendary in our department. At the time, I thought this was a part of my adviser's personality; it never occurred to me that it might actually be a part of the British psyche. But then I began dating my now-husband and, as is practically mandatory in these modern times, I Facebook-stalked him. Imagine my surprise at finding this:

(Dressed up at one of the retro-themed nights at Falmouth Week. He's the one in the red shirt and the once-ubiquitous-but-recently-misplaced black 'fro wig.)

...and this:

(Dressed up at another retro night during Falmouth Week--this is supposed to be a Miami Vice costume, by the way.)

...and even this:

(My husband is the one who's sitting down, thank God. The person in the lovely pink ensemble is a guy from his team who's torturing him with a cross-dressed lap dance in honor of his birthday.)

Interestingly, these photos are relatively mild examples of my husband's costumed past; other pictures have even more extreme costumes, not to mention the many where he is dressed as a woman. You'll have noticed that two of the above pictures come from a single event (Falmouth Week is an annual occurrence and has multiple nights that involve costumes, including "'70's Night," "'80's vs. '90's Night," and "Caribbean Night"). However, I am happy to tell you, my husband is hardly the only Brit to engage in costume-wearing, and Falmouth Week is hardly the only event associated with dressing up. In fact, special events aren't even necessary.

In Britain, "costumes" are known as "fancy dress," and there are fancy dress shops all over the place, in addition to all the vintage clothing stores that are also a useful source of costume pieces. In a town so small that it doesn't even have a full-size grocery store, we have two large costume shops. People wear fancy dress for all sorts of occasions--birthday parties, holiday parties, regular parties, dances, the beginning of the school year, the end of the school year, after-parties for athletic events (whether you've participated in the events or just watched them), bachelor/bachelorette parties (stag/hen dos), and many more that I can't think of because the Brits seem capable of making pretty much anything into a reason to put on a costume before wandering up to the pub. If you are on High Street late on Friday or Saturday evenings, you are nearly guaranteed to bump into at least one person wearing fancy dress.

Now, obviously, not everyone indulges in this national pastime; as you might expect, there is a correlation between age and frequency of costume-wearing. However, there's a plateau between childhood and, oh, middle age; only after about 50 do people seem to feel less inclined to make fools of themselves. This is particularly interesting to me given the amazing amount of money you can sink into costumes. One of the major reasons I stopped wearing Halloween costumes when I was in college--despite the fact that there were many costume parties to choose from--was that I just didn't have the money to buy outfits, or even to buy supplies to make outfits. It is not cheap, even if you reuse some of the pieces (which people here do--my husband has a couple wigs, in particular, that appear quite regularly in all his fancy dress photos). Shortly after I first moved to Falmouth, I visited the costume shop in order to buy supplies for the "'80's vs. '90's Night" at Falmouth Week. Here is the outfit I put together:

(I am representing the '80's here, in case you couldn't tell. I purchased leg warmers (which, unfortunately, you can't see here), as well as fishnet stockings, the see-through shirt, the elegant neon plastic necklaces, and the fishnet fingerless gloves. If only I'd been old enough to actually dress like this in the '80's.)

I also purchased a few items for my husband:

(My husband, dressed as Billy Idol, or the lead singer of The Prodigy--whichever you prefer. I bought him the gloves, a leather cuff, and some fake nose rings.)

Altogether, I spent about $70 on our outfits, which is pretty outrageous considering that I was still on my graduate stipend at the time and didn't exactly have a surplus of cash. However, since it was my first time living in the UK, I wanted to act like a local. Now, imagine how much is invested in a collection like this:

(A small portion of the total collection--these were chosen as especially embarrassing pieces to be worn by a hen at a hen do.)

Another interesting thing is that people here are not obsessed by choosing the sexiest/sluttiest outfits possible, as is the case in the US. One of the other reasons I stopped wearing costumes in college was that most girls saw dressing up as an opportunity to go out in public looking as scandalous as humanly possible--the naughty nurse, the naughty librarian, the naughty Mrs. Claus, the naughty kitten, the naughty anything-you-can-think-of. Every year when I was in college, one or more girls attended the annual Halloween party wearing nothing but saran wrap (I'd like to point out that these girls were always from Bryn Mawr College, rather than my alma mater, Haverford). When I was a girl, costumes were fun because they involved ingenuity to create (in my case, my mother's ingenuity) and they reflected things that I liked. For instance, over the years, I was a butterfly, a Cleopatra, a Spanish dancer, and a gypsy, to name a few. During one of my rare costumed appearances in college, I was a bluebird nest (my study species); on another occasion, I was a hermaphrodite (don't ask). However, these biologically-themed costumes couldn't really compete with all the short skirts and cleavage-revealing tops around me. In the UK, though there is still plenty of flesh being revealed, people are at least doing it creatively, and there are also many more people who just care about putting together a convincing ensemble that is notable for any of a variety of other reasons.

There are also many events where your costume needs to meet certain rules. For instance, I attended a weekend-long getaway to celebrate the birthday of my friend Tom. We were all requested to dress like him for dinner on the evening that we arrived. Because Tom has attended several meditation retreats, I dressed as the Buddha:

(The tissues are not part of the costume. I was very, very sick during the whole weekend, which is why I'm as pale as a ghost here.)

The reason that I happen to have fancy dress on my mind right now is that I attended a hen do over the weekend (my first!) and got to witness first-hand the power of fancy dress. It is fairly routine to make the hen put on something ridiculous and/or embarrassing before hitting the town. Indeed, we had a quiz game where every wrong answer was rewarded by an additional bit of costume. Here is what the hen looked like after a few questions:

(I'd love to show you what she looked like at the end of the game, but that is just not appropriate for a family audience.)

Before we went out for dinner and drinks, we changed into our fancy dresses, but the hen was also forced to wear fancy dress:

(Yes, that is a pair of granny panties stuffed with a wig on one side and a pair of gloves on the other. You'll notice the hen is also wearing a feathery tiara.)

During our evening out, the hen's costume pieces were slowly discarded, but when we got back home at about 12:30 AM and headed to the kitchen to listen to music and snack, someone (who'd obviously had a few drinks) got the idea to delve back into the dress-up box. What ensued was another 30-45 minutes of fancy dress dancing:

(Both of these outfits were put on, in their entirety, during the midnight dress-up session. I believe the background music was provided by Paolo Nutini.)

(Even the dog got in on the action by donning a lei.)

I should mention, by the way, that the hens were hardly the only ones who got in on this type of action: The stag also had a costume--rented from a costume shop, no less--and I noticed that the members of his entourage were also wearing some unnecessary accessories.

I was quite surprised to make these discoveries about the British, since normally we Americans think of them as being rather proper and uptight. We don't generally envision Brits running around every weekend in Halloween outfits, and we certainly don't envision British men having an inclination to cross-dress every chance they get (okay, that's an exaggeration--but there's still an awful lot of cross-dressing). It's rather endearing, though, and it's also fun. Falmouth Week is coming up again in less than two weeks, and it will be happening while my parents are visiting. I wonder if I can persuade my mom and dad to be a wench and a pirate (or a pirate and a wench--after all, cross-dressing is the norm here) for the Caribbean night? As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do...