London Isn’t Chill, and Neither Am I

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: We’re in London for two more weeks.

London Isn’t Chill, and Neither Am I

This time last year, we were cozily ensconced in an apartment in the Faroe Islands. The weather was cool and rainy and sometimes epically windy. I joined the town gym; we bought groceries and ate in the apartment and watched the Tour de France on television and enjoyed an idyllic rural month in the middle of nowhere.

As a matter of fact, we loved it so much we decided to do something similar this year—hunker down in a cool climate outside of Schengen for the month of July. It would get us out of European heat, European tourism, and preserve our precious Schengen time.

So while we were hanging out in Faroe, we booked an apartment in London for 28 nights. We don’t get to London very often, and it’s one of my favorite cities, so I spent the intervening year looking forward to returning.

Now, twelve months later, it’s July again, and here we are in London.

It should be obvious, but sometimes I am dense: London is NOT the Faroe Islands, in any way, shape, or form.

As a matter of fact, I would posit that the two places have exactly two (and only two) things in common—high prices and limited housing. But we’re organized, right? We booked an apartment a full year ahead, to be sure we’d get a place in the neighborhood we wanted, with a big bed and air-conditioning. I run hot at night, and I wanted a bit of insurance against the remote risk of an errant heat wave.

As of today, we’ve been here two weeks, and London has apparently forgotten that it’s supposed to be damp and chilly and gray. We’re currently in the THIRD round of high heat since we arrived. It’s not surface-of-the-sun hot like Las Vegas in July, but it’s hot enough that this winter-built city is slowly steaming in its own juices.

People walk around sunburned, sweating through their clothes, congregating in little patches of shade. Some of the busses seem to have automatic heat that runs all the time, even when it’s 90 degrees outside. People whip out little personal electric fans on the Tube.

And our air-conditioned apartment? The air-conditioner doesn’t work. After five days of sweating and messaging and eventually meeting the repair person, we finally heard from our host that it’s going to have to be replaced. She has no idea when that will happen.

We stuck it out for ten days, decamping to a nearby hotel (at the host’s suggestion) during the second round of heat. But as our weather apps and every news source in the United Kingdom began to warn that yet another wave of 90 degree temps was approaching, we threw in our sweat-soaked towels, and canceled the rest of our booking.

We’re now settled (I use that word loosely) in at a Hyatt Place in a different part of town—the room is on the small side, without as much natural light as I like, but the air-conditioning works like a charm.

I’m having to completely reset my expectations for our quiet, settled month in London. We’ve packed our bags and moved twice. I’m not shopping at the market, making beautiful salads for lunch, or having long, lazy breakfasts in our apartment. I’ve given up my fun neighborhood gym, and I’m using the hotel gym in the basement. It feels weird to sit in this dim little room all afternoon watching cycling on the television. At least in the apartment, with the windows open to a busy street, I felt connected to the city. In this insulated, quiet room, I could be anywhere.

(Note: because I am watching the Tour de France, in spite of, or perhaps because of, my discombobulation, I can tell you that the most British part of our last two weeks is the commercials. Our favorite is the one for the cremation service: pre-plan your own funeral before the end of August, and they’ll throw in free afternoon tea, worth up to £50!)

Instead of feeling connected now, I feel disoriented and unsettled. I’m having difficulty planning a day, making decisions, settling down to write. Limbo is not where I expected to spend the month of July, so I’m having to work a bit harder than usual to align my expectations with reality.

It’s weird, because I’m accustomed to moving—the mere fact of packing and unpacking and sleeping in a different room shouldn’t bother me so much. I think the real problem is the conflict between expectation and reality. So often I go into a situation with no expectation, because it’s a place I’ve never been, or a place I don’t feel especially connected to. But over a lifetime of visiting and loving London, I’ve built up a mental image of what my time here should be, and this time it’s not that. I’m having to be even more flexible than I usually am—disgruntlement is a choice, and I would prefer to shift my expectations and find joy, rather than end our time here with a sour taste in my mouth.

These new expectations are requiring some effort, a lot of self-talk, a lot of reminders of gratitude. Also, more treats than I need. Sometimes you just need to hunker down in the air-con and have a cookie.

Take care,

Lisa

P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.

A Legend in My Own Mind

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: We’re in London, where we are (maybe-probably-it’s unclear) staying for a month. Also, I’m pretty certain this is my 300th newsletter; I believe people who write newsletters and blogs and things of that ilk are meant to point out when they hit nice round numbers like 300, so thank you to all of you who read and share and comment and question my ramblings. Also also, for my American readers, I hope you enjoy the holiday weekend!

A Legend in My Own Mind

Our London month started with me yelling at Lee about the broken ac in our Airbnb. (Because he has control over that? I am irrational when overheated.) Perhaps you saw headlines about the heatwave in Europe? Yes, the UK is part of Europe, and it has been toasty. Anyway, that saga is still unfolding.

The more interesting part of my week was my quest to join a gym.

I joined one in Slovenia, which was massive and modern and perpetually abuzz with pretty people in their stylish workout clothes, drinking smoothies and lifting weights and socializing between sets.

So when we arrived in Dalston, a neighborhood in East London that feels a bit like the further reaches of Brooklyn, I looked for something similar. There are five gyms in a three block radius of our apartment; I assumed I’d just slot right into one of them and pick up where I’d left off in Ljubljana.

No such luck. The one across the street has a six-month minimum contract. The one in the next block is some kind of pod set-up where you work out in your own private space—probably very nice, but also expensive. There’s a place that only has spin classes, and there’s a climbing center.

And then there’s Legends, which is where I inquired next.

The entrance is on an alley, behind an anonymous black door, and up a metal staircase, beneath which years’ worth of wrappers and cartons and cans have piled up. It’s literally trashy; the day I went to join, I had to force myself up, one step at a time.

Legends is not, shall we say, where the pretty people are hanging out, but they do have an option to join for just one month. I tapped my phone on the credit card machine and promised to come back the next day for a workout.

My new gym is even more jammed than the gym in Slovenia, but with banged-up, ancient equipment in various states of disrepair. I don’t know how most of it works. The place is not air-conditioned. The other members I’ve seen are, well, legends (possibly only in their own minds, or possibly once upon a time in a boxing ring or some other scary space that I know nothing about). They’re body-builders. Mostly men, mostly older, mostly with really big muscles, some with gold teeth.

They’re all incredibly focused on lifting heavy things. No one is sitting around staring at their phone, or having social hour on the rowing machine.

The owner and the manager are completely lovely. During our conversation about whether or not I should join, I told them truthfully that I was kind of intimidated by the place. I’m very middle-aged, my muscles are pretty dinky, and the things I can lift are not very heavy. They could not have been more welcoming and encouraging, and during both of my workouts thus far, they’ve made a point of checking in, asking if I have questions, offering to show me how the machines work.

I am so out of my league in this place, but I kind of love it. Bounding up those trashy stairs at 7:30 this morning, I felt like Rocky Balboa, except with a cuter outfit.

It’s not quite the same as going to the theatre and the British Museum, but it’s definitely expanding my cultural horizons.

Take care,

Lisa

P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.

It Was the Best Thing Ever, and We Missed It

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: We’re in transition today, heading for London after a few days in Trieste, Italy. It’s hot in Trieste, so we spent a lot of daylight hours hiding out in our air-conditioned hotel, not-doing the things tourists do. I wrote this a few weeks ago (three countries ago, actually) while we were in Malta.

It Was the Best Thing Ever, and We Missed It

Every time we leave a place, someone asks if we saw The Famous Important Thing.

Last week, it was ‘Did you go through the Holy Door?’

We did not.

The week before, it was ‘Did you see the Hypogeium?’

Nope.

The week before that, it was ‘Did you see Aphrodite’s Rock?’

We missed that.

Last month, it was ‘Did you go to Rotterdam (the Netherlands)/Geiranger Fjord (Norway)/the Grand Palace (Bangkok)?’

We didn’t.

We were probably sitting in a coffee shop, or a laundromat, or a sidewalk cafe. We were people watching, or reading, or exploring, or walking, or lunching.

In Rome last week, we met a very sociable retired British couple. They pop over to the Continent every few weeks—usually to see an art exhibit. This time it was Caravaggio. If I’d known about it, I might’ve booked a ticket—or I might not have. I’m selective. After overdosing on art in Amsterdam, I was trying to pace myself. Besides, in Rome it’s easy enough to see beauty and art on the way to buy sunscreen.

Lee is even more selective, or at least differently selective. After years of trying to love the world’s most famous museums, he has finally decided to experience them in his own way. As often as not, that involves going for a long walk in a neighborhood far from the tourist center. A couple of weeks ago, the day I got up early and went to the Doria Pamphilj Gallery, he went to see the Islamic Cultural Center and Grand Mosque of Rome.

He enjoyed it, found it interesting, and got in a nice long walk. I also enjoyed my morning and got in a nice long walk.

As we all agreed over peanuts and drinks in the hotel lounge: you can’t see it all. It’s just not possible. The world is too big, too layered, too rich with culture and beauty and chaos. The best any of us can do is soak in the parts we stumble across, whether on purpose or accident, at home or on holiday.

Even if you’re the most meticulous planner, the most organized traveler, the most obsessive list-checker—you’ll still miss something. Probably something extraordinary.

And that’s fine.

I’d rather carry the memory of what I did experience than regret what I didn’t.

Take care,

Lisa

P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.

A Decade Is Both Long and Short

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: This is our last weekend in Ljubljana, and we’re very much enjoying a visit with Lee’s mother, brother, and sister-in-law.

A Decade Is Both Long and Short

Our wedding anniversary is this coming Monday. We’ve been married 35 years.

On our 25th anniversary, we said good-bye to the US and got on a plane to Berlin.

We’ve never regretted that decision, and after ten years of constant togetherness (I’m talking 24/7/365 togetherness, usually living in one small hotel room), we’ve neither killed each other nor gotten bored. #airpods4evah

This peripatetic life is not for everyone—we’ve had to get comfortable with minimalism, rootlessness, unpredictability, constant change, and all kinds of really, really bad pillows. Some days I wake up with a crick in my neck. Some days I wake up and can’t immediately remember where I am. Some days I wake up and wonder how I missed the revolution in home automation. Did you know that people don’t carry keys now, or that treadmills have Solitaire built into the control panel? Mind. Blown.

Would I like to own more stuff? Sure. Sometimes I think I’d like to have another pair of shoes, or some new earrings, but I hardly wear the two pairs of earrings I already have, so I’ll probably give them to one of my nieces, and have fun buying two more pairs somewhere down the road. My shoes are boring, but they enable me to walk—and walk, and walk, and walk, and isn’t that the point of shoes anyway?

When people ask what we miss (a common question, actually), I usually say I miss grits, and my Vitamix. And I do, in theory—once upon a time I had a great kitchen, with all kinds of bells and whistles, and I loved to cook. I still do. Nowadays, when we have an apartment with a kitchen, and we’re in a place where produce is familiar and plentiful and easy to come by, I enjoy indulging that part of my identity. Is it the same as baking all our bread and making all our jam myself? No. Is it worth letting go of some parts of my old identity, in order to blow open the walls that once contained my entire experience of life? Absolutely.

What I really miss is our people—family, friends, having a consistent barista/pharmacist/hair stylist/dental hygienist. That’s the hard part, but I’ll tell you the truth: it’s the only hard part.

People sometimes tell us we’re brave, and we usually laugh, and say there’s no bravery required in a life of hotel breakfast buffets and daily housekeeping.

But maybe I get what they mean: we’ve stepped off the path we were on. We’ve turned our backs on the white-picket-fence-house-in-the-burbs American Dream.

I have no doubt that if we wanted to step back onto that path, into that dream, we could, and it would be easy and predictable and comfortable, and we’d enjoy it, because we tend to enjoy everything. Life is what you make it. But neither of us have any desire to do that at this point, even as we’re getting older and gradually realizing that age will require us to adapt even more.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson we’ve learned in the last ten years is this: ultimately, we’re all going to wind up in the same place, at the end of our days. How we get there is the point.

Happy anniversary, my love. Here’s to the next decade.

Take care,

Lisa

P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.

Yours and Mine

Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.

Where we are: We’re still in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Yours and Mine

Once, reading reviews of a hotel somewhere in Northern Europe, I stumbled across a comment that stuck with me: a guest said that the bed was made strangely—he thought the two folded duvets looked like giant caterpillars.

It stuck with me for two reasons. Obviously, I thought it was super-judgey. I mean, if the bed works, is clean and comfortable, why comment in a public review on the way it’s made up? What, exactly, is the purpose of a comment like that? Might it help another potential guest make a decision regarding the hotel? Probably not. Some people just don’t think before they write reviews.

But the other reason it stuck with me, the reason I remember it so clearly, years later, is that I so vehemently disagree.

Twin duvets are one of Scandinavia’s greatest contributions to world peace, and that’s saying something, given that Norway (a Scandinavian country) is literally the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was founded by a man from Sweden (another Scandinavian country).

In our current apartment in Slovenia, far away from Sweden and Norway and their Scandi neighbors*, our king-sized bed is made up with a king-sized fitted sheet, and two twin duvets. Lee has his, I have mine, and never the twain shall meet.

The air-conditioning is juuuuuust barely adequate, so the fact that his body heat is corralled in his sleeping space is the only thing keeping me from having a (literal) nightly meltdown.

There is no tussling over the covers. Neither of us is subject to the other’s pulling or pushing of one large comforter. There is no (accidental) kicking or poking or bumping.

In other words, I am sleeping just fine.

And when I changed the linens on Sunday, putting the duvets into their clean covers was easy as pie, because they’re not so big I can’t maneuver them, like our old king-sized one was. I do solemnly swear I will never again wrestle with a duvet the size of a tennis court.

All because of those tidy, manageable twin-sized duvets that look nothing like giant caterpillars.

*We may be far from Sweden, but there’s an IKEA about a mile and a half away, just 15 minutes on the #27 bus. Coincidence? I think not.

Take care,

Lisa

P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.