let’s build a snowman: five things today’s snowfall taught me.

“Emily: We can’t just throw him out in the snow.
Walter: Why not? He loves the snow. He’s told me 15 times.”
–from the film, Elf

1. Never say never. “Does it snow where you’re from?” many British colleagues and friends asked me before I left London for home. I assured them I’m from Virginia Beach and besides the freak occurrence of last winter’s Snowpocalypse, we never get snow. Maybe a few flurries that get the weathermen all in a tizzy, but nothing note-worthy. Even yesterday, my grandmother worried our breakfast plans for Monday would be put off because of forecasted snow. “Let the snow fall first,” I assured her, “And then we’ll deal with it.” Well, darn if she wasn’t right. We woke up today to yet another epic snowfall, a few inches at first and now measuring well over a foot.

2. My brother is the coolest. Earlier in the day, he went outside wearing shorts, knee-high blue soccer socks, and hiking boots. He rang the door and when I asked him what he was doing, he replied, “Just browsing.” I could tell he was thinking how weird it is, now that we’re older, to not be racing outside at the first sign of snow.  Then, sometime later this afternoon, he came downstairs looking like a terrorist (I know that’s not exactly PC), black mask pulled down over his face, only his eyes and nose uncovered. “Where are you going?” my dad asked, to which my brother answered, “Gonna build a snowman.” But of course, right?

3.  I’m still a kid at heart. I was pretty content to spend the day indoors, warm and toasty by the fireplace, but I knew I couldn’t let my brother have all the fun. I pulled on old clothes, tall boots, and a winter cap and trailed outside after him. We quickly devised a strategy, using buckets and boogie boards to transport snow from the backyard to the front–keeping the front yard relatively pristine except for a trench through a foot or so of snow to our “construction site.” An hour and a half later, our snowman was complete–mullet and all.

4. Skiwear is unbelievably warm. My winter wardrobe often errs on the side of impractical, my jackets never sufficient on their own, leading me to wear layer (after layer) of various sweaters and hoodies. I did the same today, but pulled on an extra proper winter jacket of my brother’s on top. “You’re wearing the one with naked women on it?” my mother asked, having never been a fan of the soccer brand, Kappa. Scandalous or not, the jacket proved warmer than I’m used to and just what I needed to keep me going outside.

5. Snow isn’t as exciting to today’s kids as it used to be. Although the prospect of a snow day doesn’t seem to be going out of style anytime soon, I was amazed at how quiet our suburban street was…all day. Only once did I see two kids playing outside, and that was for a mere fifteen minutes or so. Gone are the days, apparently, of spending all day romping around in the snow, insufficiently dressed, red-cheeked and wide-eyed with wonder. My brother and I spent the day reminiscing about the snow days of our childhood and for a few moments, it felt like no time had passed at all. Our beloved mother even had hot chocolate (with marshmellows, of course!) waiting for us on the stove inside.

Does it get any better than that?

travels with my brother.

“And that’s the wonderful thing about family travel:  it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.”

–Dave Barry

My brother's entry on the visitors' board at a craft shop.

My brother is a man of few words. I was reminded of this when he picked me up from the airport in Wichita, Kansas, last Friday night. Kansas seemed like an odd destination, especially after a semester in London, but I’d come to keep him company on his 23-hour drive home for Christmas break. He transferred out to a small town called McPherson this semester to play soccer for a small college, and I knew this was most likely my only chance to see this new alternate universe he inhabits.

After a greasy breakfast at Neighbor’s Cafe on Saturday morning (and a few moments of confusion whereby we were mistaken for a couple–“Mr and Mrs?” our waiter asked to Grant’s horror) we headed out to an even smaller town fifteen minutes away called Lindsborg–otherwise known as Little Sweden, USA. My parents had walked around it when they flew out for a visit in October and I expected it to be just the sort of place I love, the kind of towns I spent a month exploring around the North Island of New Zealand: tiny populations, quirky personalities, and outrageous claims-to-fame that only small town tourism boards can invent.

As a collection of at least twenty painted Swedish dalas placed outside shops had me running back and forth across the main street, Grant walked slowly along as I revelled in the whimsical touches of Scandinavia here in the heartland of Kansas and questioned patient proprietors of shops like the Wild Dala Winery about where exactly all this had come from.

“Alright, I think I’m ready,” I said finally, my camera’s memory card nearly groaning under the weight of a hundred photos and my capacity for dalas nearly reached. We made our way through a few back streets, around the campus of a local university, and then back, I thought, towards McPherson. But then Grant turned the car away from the highway.

“Where are we going?” I asked, but no sooner had the words been spoken then there appeared in the woods a one-lane bridge, the kind of bridge built from a structure of criss-crossing iron beams. They were painted green, had strings of Christmas lights wrapped around them, lit even in daylight, and the words God Jul–‘Merry Christmas’ in Swedish–painted across the top front beam. It was set back between leafless trees and a narrow creek ran swiftly beneath.

“How’d you know it was here?” I asked, surprised.

“I saw it,” he said simply, probably having little idea of how it touched me or how much it meant.

I hopped out of the car to get a few shots, struck by the beauty of the Christmas bridge, but thinking mostly of how we don’t always need words to know someone cares.

the little things.

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

–Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I’ve been known to get things wrong before, especially when it comes to travel bookings. Booking my flight home for Christmas, I purchased it so fast I didn’t realise my return journey to London included an unintentional 12-hour (and not to mention, overnight) layover in Chicago. I’ll be leaving Richmond on a Monday night, arriving in Chicago at 9pm, departing at 9am the next morning and not getting back to London until 10.45pm Tuesday night.

Epic fail. Epic travel fail.

But as it turns out, my flight to the States today also included another unexpected twist. My itinerary with American Airlines was to start off with a quick jaunt north to Manchester, from where I would catch a flight to Chicago and then on to my final stop, Wichita, Kansas. An AA representative had a quick look at my schedule, though, before saying, “Oh, no, that couldn’t be with us. We don’t fly to Manchester.” A brief dart of panic shot through me. I’d been anticipating this–a stopover in Manchester before an international flight just seemed too weird–and I had my Please-Have-Pity-On-Me sob story all ready for use at a moment’s notice: “But you don’t understand, I have to get on this flight. My sister just had surgery…brain surgery…and my brother’s meeting me in Kansas…Kansas!”

The script wasn’t needed, after all. “You need to go to Terminal 5, Miss,” the woman explained. “You’re flying to Manchester with British Airways.”

I’m what? I wanted to ask, but I knew better than to question this little stroke of luck. I might as well have been picking up the Ford Taurus rental car I’d hypothetically scheduled and been told a Lexus was waiting for me outside. I’m not well-acquainted with upgrades when it comes to the world of travel, so as I walked down the jet bridge, where there stood freshly-pressed stacks of the Daily Mail, the Independent, and Financial Times–all complimentary, of course–I knew I was in new territory.

That’s also when I realised life is all about the little things. When it comes to flying, I’m more accustomed to the business plans of budget airlines, whereby they strip you down to nothing but a body. Don’t get me wrong, the insanely low base fares are well-worth the inherent demoralisation (recent bookings have involved a $14 flight to Sardinia, Italy, and a $20 flight to Porto, Portugal–thank you, RyanAir), but what these fares don’t include are the $10 administrative fee, the baggage fees, the online check-in fees, the extra transport to London’s less prominent airports, and they certainly don’t include free copies of the UK’s finest publications, nor other more important incidentals involving nourishment. There have even been rumors concerning RyanAir and a potential charge for using the toilet, which seems like they’re just asking for a lawsuit.

But on my unexpectedly lovely ride in luxury this morning, I was amazed at how nice it was to have all those small touches again–the newspapers, the leather seats, and the built-in headrests that seem to welcome you in like an old friend–and then, as if that wasn’t enough, the pilot came on once we were in the air and said, “We are pleased to be serving you a hot baguette with tea or coffee this morning.”

Could it get any better? On one of those 40-minute flights that seems to begin preparing for landing before it’s even taken off? And as I sat there, sipping on hot coffee, a little plastic cup of orange juice, and tucking into a baguette filled with warm tomatoes and bacon, I thought of how nice it was to feel like a human being again, not just a body filling a seat, and how the simplest gestures bring such a smile to your face.

The little things can go a long way, can’t they?

 

the long way home.

“Paying attention, I learned again, is the foundation of great travel writing – and as a bonus, it deeply and resonantly enriches your everyday life as well.”
–Don George, Gadling

It had been a week to remember. A brisk drop in temperatures preceded Britain’s earliest snowfall in nearly two decades, since November of 1993. But a surprisingly mild weekend set about erasing all sign of the record-setting snow and Sunday’s cloudless blue sky filled my lungs with crisp chill air. It was the perfect sort of day to bridge autumn and winter, I thought as I set out for Tolworth, a little area just south of Surbiton. My editor for Kingston’s student magazine had wanted me to go report on a sports alumni event taking place that afternoon, a series of matches playfully pairing current and ex-students against each other.

Me being me, lacking the standard allotment of common sense and all, didn’t think to check with my editor first to see if the snow, the same snow that incapacitated nearly every other aspect of British life this week, might not have had a similar effect on the sports event. Indeed, as I rushed off the bus and down Tolworth Broadway towards the sports grounds, I was greeted by nothing but lonely, snow-streaked fields.

I kicked the fence bearing a cheery blue sign: ALL SPORT CANCELLED. My typical self would have been, to put it lightly, annoyed, perturbed, even angry, perhaps? But for some reason, as I headed back to the bus stop, I was fine. With my afternoon suddenly as clear as the sky above me, I felt something close to happiness and made a deal with myself: if I walked the hour back to Kingston, I could use the money I would have spent on bus fare on a coffee from the library cafe (yes, I am on that kind of budget right now…).

Once I started walking, I couldn’t have been more pleased with my decision, iPod popped in and set to a dance/house playlist to put a little pep in my step. Gratefully I’d brought my camera along, as I was just in time for the rich sunlight that comes with the Golden Hours (which sadly start in mid-afternoon this time of year). Ordinary rows of shop buildings were gloriously illuminated, shadows dancing blithely on their walls, and I started to shift into travel-writer-mode, i.e. giving attention to the details so easy to overlook: the items in an antique shop’s storefront window, the diversity of restaurants and food markets to choose from, and a road sign for Kingston Town. How cool, I thought, to live in an official “historic market town.”

But what I loved most is what I will always remember of England in the winter: church spires and barren branches. Sunlit and standing tall, the steeples were everywhere, appearing above houses and shops and framed often by spidery branches stripped of their leaves.

There’s something to be said for taking the long way home.

in other news…

Happy St. Andrew’s Day, Scotland!

Here’s just another reason why I love life in the UK:

snow day.

“And finally Winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow.”
–Roy Bean

Snow day.

Can you think of two words with a more magical connotation? Growing up near the beach, I can remember waking up and holding my breath for a quick moment right before pulling back the blinds every time snow had been forecast. It was hardly ever there, but in the few times it was, when the world outside lay beneath a blanket of snow, there was barely enough time to throw on clothes. Because snow was so rare, we never had the right kind of gear. We’d pull on parachute-like track pants over our jeans, three pairs of socks with our trainers, and mismatched hats and coats. Waterproof was a foreign idea.

This awe and wonder continued through my first year of college, where I’d wander the campus with my camera and love how often it snowed in the mountains. The world was transformed, back gardens off the Lawn without a footprint to mar their powdered landscape. But in winter of my second year, the white stuff and I had a bit of a falling out. Suddenly, living miles off campus put me  out of walking distance to class or work in inclement weather. A weak battery in my car meant countless mornings it wouldn’t start and ice to battle against while scraping sheets of it off my windshield. Snow became something to endure, not enjoy.

But here in London, without the stress of not being able to get where I need to be, I’ve found myself falling back in love with snow, rediscovering that childhood wonder, in fact even hoping for it. The past couple of weeks the temperature has dropped so bitterly (okay, okay, to freezing level), it seemed almost like it’d be unnatural for a few flurries not to result from it. They’ve been calling for snow since early last week and finally, last night, it came.

I woke up today and let out a little scream at the sight of big white flakes tumbling from the sky. I pulled on boots, hat and jacket and rushed out the door with my camera, if only for a few seconds to get a picture or two. The ground was scarcely covered, but brittle autumn leaves had crystallised beautifully overnight. Even though I spent the morning reading on the couch, instead of outdoors building a snow fort or sledding, it was such a lovely change of pace seeing a white blur in the window out of the corner of my eye.

And while the dusting on the ground today may not have been enough to make a snow angel in, not even enough to make the smallest of snowballs out of, it was just enough to make me smile.

Flashback to January of 2009 and my first snowfall in London.

 

a week’s worth of thankfulness.

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
— G.K. Chesterton

The last Thursday in November is inevitably the one day of the year where my homesickness soars to unprecedented levels. Yes, being away for Christmas is hard, but there’s something about Thanksgiving that makes it even harder. After hearing other Americans the past couple of weeks explain to Brits what it exactly it is that makes the holiday so wonderful to them, I’ve realized I’m not alone in my sentiments: it’s like Christmas, but better. All the food and family and fun, with none of the pressure of gifts and certainly nowhere near the massive commercialization. And so I’ve come to expect that pang, a little twinge of sadness, every time I Skype home on Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s just that my entire extended family seems to have that afterglow of gluttony on their faces and all I’ve had is spaghetti, but I always miss home a little more this time of the year.

When we were younger, my mother–much to the chagrin of everyone’s grumbling stomachs–would hand out five kernels of corn to each of us and before we dared touch the turkey, dip a finger into creamy mashed potatoes, or, God forbid, sample Grandma’s green jello salad, we had to go around and say five things we were thankful for. I hate lists and will have nothing to do with them in my normal blog routine–we can all figure out the “Top 10 Most Amazing” whatever’s wherever on our own, right? But, in the spirit of the season and given that it’s been an exceptionally good week in London, I thought I might dig up the old tradition…with or without the kernels to help me count.

1. Flatmates

I spent the summer at home practically stalking sites like Gumtree (a British version of Craig’s List) and Kingston’s own accommodation site. I bought Skype credit to call landlords and agents and did my best to convince them I would wire over a deposit to secure a room for September. Ha! Like that worked well. But now that it’s been two months since moving into my current flat in London, I can, with that blessed gift of hindsight, see why none of my desperate attempts this summer panned out. Although both Welsh Nick and Zambian-English Keith are lovely, it’s an Essex girl named Claire who has made me know for sure I was meant for this flat. Whether it’s catching up on the latest episode of Gossip Girl, nipping over to our local pub for a quick drink, or sharing travel stories and plans for new trips, my new friendship with Claire is one of those connections that makes each day a little brighter.

2. Food

Keeping in with the theme of one our favorite shows–“Come Dine With Me,” in which a group of four or five random people take turns cooking and entertaining each other–Claire has been fixing up some exquisitely tasty dinners for us the past few Friday nights. Two weeks ago it was a Moroccan-themed dish of lamb and red peppers, stuffed with chili, couscous, and halloumi cheese. Last week it was a Thai green curry with chicken and veges. “Where will we go next week?” Claire asked as we sat down to eat.

3. Events

I first met Dr. Chris Barlow, a fine art historian, two years ago through my flatmates at the time, Kim and Emily. Although they’ve seen moved back to the States, they sent me an email from Chris about a month ago, an invitation for the opening night of a contemporary art exhibition here in London. I was intrigued, and invited my Slovenian friend Tanja along to take advantage of her art expertise. The exhibit, held in La Galleria along the Royal Opera Parade, was called “Parallax,” which, I’ve since found out, means, “the apparent displacement of an object as seen from two different points that are not on a line with the object” (thanks, Princeton.) The paintings and pieces displayed couldn’t have been any more different from each other, but apparently that was the idea. “The theme is that there is no theme,” Chris explained to us. “How very postmodern of you,” was my response. “We need a new art history,” Tonja said to Chris as they discussed it further. I simply rolled my eyes, loving every minute of it.

 

Robert Bodem, “An Invitation,” bronze. £25,000. Yes, you read that right.

4. Travel bloggers

It’s true. Ever since TBEX in Copenhagen, I can’t get enough of them. Even as we parted ways after our whirlwind Danish adventure, I was excited to find out that many of the people I met at the conference are based here in London. I’ve since gotten together with some of them at a house party hosted by the esteemed Travelling Editor, otherwise known as Dylan. Last week I had a chance to attend a lunch the Dubai Tourism Board was giving especially for travel bloggers  and last night, Matt and Deborah of Travel With a Mate hosted a monthly London Travel Bloggers meetup at the Founders Arm in Blackfriars, where I got to catch up with my friend Justin and hear about the next 48-Hour Adventure he’s got up his sleeve. Conversations with Justin, Dylan and their friends were some of the most stimulating and thought-provoking I’ve had in a while, from freedom for Tibet to genocide in Africa and figuring out just how to make our love for travel and the world work. Who knew Copenhagen would open up so many doors in London?

5. The view

With a wall of windows overlooking the Thames, last night’s pub couldn’t have been located any better. As enjoyable as the conversations were around our table, I felt myself distracted half the time by the dome of St. Paul’s literally just across the river. It’s amazing how easy it is to get caught up in yourself here, in the craziness of commuting and the busy-ness of life. But pressing pause for a few seconds just to take in the view around me is enough to know I couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here…

all in a day’s work.

“Our work will at least have distracted us, it will have provided a perfect bubble in which to invest our hopes for perfection, it will have focused our immeasurable anxieties on a few relatively small-scale and achievable goals, it will have given us a sense of mastery, it will have made us respectably tired, it will have put food on the table. It will have kept us out of greater trouble.”

–Alain de Botton, The Pleasure and Sorrows of Work

The Ways With Words literature festival in Southwold, England.

It was a week of meeting heroes. The writers whose work you read and feel like yes, they get it–that they’ve just explained the world in a way that couldn’t make more sense or resonate any deeper with your own sensibilities.

Two weekends ago I was in Copenhagen for the Travel Bloggers Exchange’s first conference in Europe, taking a two-day workshop with travel writer Andrew Evans. I’ve loved following along his journeys since early this year when I found out about his Bus2Antarctica trip: 42 buses, 10 weeks, and 3,500 tweets of Twittering his way from DC to Argentina to Antarctica. Sitting in his class was surreal–seeing the person you’ve watched in videos posted from the road suddenly right there in front of you, talking about what makes a good story and walking alongside us to Copenhagen’s main rail station to get ideas for a piece. Weird.

And then, last weekend, I had the chance to visit the seaside village of Southwold where the Ways With Words literature festival was taking place. As I said in an earlier post, there was one name on the event’s docket that drew me there: Alain de Botton. And apparently an event hall packed with grey-haired retirees had been drawn there, too. I felt like a little kid that had been dropped off to hang out with Grandma and her friends all day.

When Alain came on stage, it was that same strange moment of seeing someone in the flesh who has before existed only on paper and in videos. His session was focused on his latest book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, and he talked–among many, many other things–about the minutae of office life, the search for meaning in the modern world, and the idea of the sabbath as a check to megalomania, that we as humans are tempted to think that we run the world, but that–perhaps surprisingly–the world doesn’t fall apart if we stop working. Of course there’s always something more that we can do, but we have to acknowledge our limitations. The world is bigger than we are.

And he was incredibly funny about it all, slipping in witty jokes and asides that the audience loved. I think I missed at least five punchlines because of their laughter, predicating his jokes. One of my favorite lines was:

“To announce to the world that you’re in the wrong job is almost as painful as coming out. You gather your loved ones around to tell them, everyone’s looking rather nervous, and your sister runs upstairs weeping.”

As usual, I had pen and paper out during Alain’s talk and even dared so much as to take a photo during the question-and-answer at the end. And–as always–I was amazed at how powerful the presence of a notebook is. From my tour of New Zealand’s Parliament building to the Colonial Cottage Museum in Wellington to a visit to White Island volcano, taking notes is about the surest way of attracting attention. “Are you writing for school?” I was often asked in New Zealand. But here in Southwold, the question was, “Are you a journalist?” At least three people stopped me after the session. “Are you a reporter?” one woman asked. I assured her I was not and she said, rather disappointedly, “Oh, I thought I might see the photo in the Standard tomorrow.”

One day, right?

On my way out of the festival, I weaved through the crowds gathered in the anteroom where all of the speakers’ books had been set out. Alain stood behind his book table and just as I passed by, there wasn’t anyone speaking with him. “What the heck?” I thought and, shocking even myself, strode right up to him, thanking him for his talk. He was incredibly humble, asking me questions about where I’m from and what I do. When I told him I study in London, he asked, “Were you in the neighborhood today then?”

“Well, not really,” I said, intimating that I’d come just to hear him.

“Wow, I’m honored.”

Well, what can I say…you’re Alain de Botton?

Alain de Botton, on the right.

seaside on a saturday.

“Brightly coloured beach huts are an essential part of the British coast. They go together with ice creams, sandcastles and the unreliable British weather to form part of our experience of summer by the seaside.”

–Seasidehistory.co.uk

Catching the bus for Southwold, I am distinctly aware of being the youngest on board. By about four decades at least. Every other white-haired passenger wears oversized polarfleece zip-ups produced by brands like “Arctic Storm.” I’m sporting a black leather jacket. But that doesn’t mean I’m not loving this trek to an out-of-the-way seaside town of no more than 1,500.

At an intersection, signs point the way to places like Spexhall (2.5km), Bungay (8km), and Beckley (9km) and it’s nice to not have any idea of where I’m going. Each little place we pass through, places like Blyford and Wenhaston Village, is lined with cottages with names that hang next to their doors on painted signs; names like Honeysuckle, Driftwood, Fern, Daisy, and then, questionably, Post Office Cottage. A row of terraced houses is painted in such a way that it resembles the inside of a carton of neapolitan ice cream. This is an altogether lovely corner of the country, I think to myself.

By the time we arrive in Southwold, my nostalgia is moving with full force and I make straight for the beach. Two months in the capital have left me itching for salt in the air and gulls squawking above. Maybe it was a week my family once spent at the beach over Thanksgiving when I was seven years old, but there’s something about being near an ocean in the winter that always gets me. Walking along the shore, it isn’t so much about the warmth of the sun and the swimming anymore, but a fundamental state of being, the openness and a briny chill in the air.

I quickly grow obsessed with the beach huts that line Southwold’s promenade. They’re nothing more than your standard backyard shed with a little porch tacked on the front, except they seem imbued with all of the character and personality Americans normally give their beach homes. Each hut has a name and is painted in distinct and vivid colors–bold primaries, funky teals and fuschias, and quiet pastels. Apparently they date as far back to the early twentieth century, when British conservatism and modesty was at a high. Changing in public was strictly forbidden, so city councils began providing the huts as changing rooms. Many are outfitted with small stoves, so that no one will have to sacrifice afternoon tea for a day at the beach.

There’s an old man working on the door of a hut named Nollers Nock. I walk up to him and ask frankly, “Is this yours?” When he realizes there’s someone standing there, I have more questions. How do these work, I ask him, do you sleep here or just hang out during the day? Do people own or rent them, are they passed on from generation to generation?

“Oh, yes, this one’s been in the family since the 1960s I’d say.”

“And is that how it normally works?”

Before he can answer, a woman’s voice from inside the cabin calls out, “Not as much as they used to be.”

“Sorry, voice from the deep,” she says again, poking her head out of the door, holding a curtain rod in her hands onto which she is in the process of sliding gauzy material.

I leave them to finish their improvements in peace and soon pass a family, little Tom and Rachel all bundled up. Tom has a small red spade which apparently Rachel wants back, despite the larger blue alternative her mother holds out to her. As usual, Tom sets off waddling down the sand like a goose with a limp, Dad and Rachel running after him.

“Don’t snatch it from him, please, Rachel,” her father exhorts. “Remember what we talked about yesterday? He just needs a bit of time to warm up before he hands it over.”

Rachel isn’t so understanding.

I make a final loop down the beach and then, full of sea air, pop into the Boardwalk Café for a coffee and a place to eat my lunch. From my seat at a long counter facing the ocean, I can see the lighthouse and the very top of St. Edmund’s church. There’s an old man wearing a naval cap sitting at the end of the bar from me. He reaches into his fleece and pulls out a pair of binoculars that hang on a string around his neck. He stares out through them towards the horizon for such a period of time that I start to wonder if maybe I’m missing something.

But then I look again at the rows of brightly colored beach huts, at the fisherman gathered under large umbrellas at the end of the pier, and at the muted sunshine glinting through the clouds onto the surface of the sea, and I know that no, I’m not missing anything.

how UK travel is like internet dating.

“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore.”

–Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I’ve recently taken to comparing travel within the UK to Internet dating.

It’s one thing to spend a few hours getting your itinerary together–buying regional train tickets, noting their times and working out local bus schedules–and yet it’s another thing altogether seeing how it works out in reality. In a similar vein, seeing someone online is a nice thought. You can learn a couple of things about them and view their (undoubtedly enhanced) photos but the real test (not that I would know…) comes when you meet them in person. Will they measure up? Will they follow through with everything they promised? You can only hope for the best, right?

And so I set out for the seaside town of Southwold this morning fearing for my life.

Well, perhaps not life–no need for the melodrama, I suppose–but at least my sanity. The last time I attempted a “day trip” in the UK a few weeks ago, things didn’t end so smoothly. It turns out London Midlands rail service isn’t quite as punctual or efficient as her online profile leads you to believe. As the train delays began stealing precious hours from my life, I began cursing their inane scheduling shortfalls. Leave it to be said there was no shortage of weeping and gnashing of teeth before that night was through.

Nearly a month ago, though, I came across a tiny blurb in Lonely Planet magazine mentioning the Ways With Words literature festival being held this weekend in Southwold, England. Although I might’ve happily gone along no matter how illustrious a line-up they had on, one particular speaker arrested my attention: Alain de Botton. With his books often said to cover “the philosophy of everyday life,” he’s a phenomenal writer and thinker, but–and maybe this is obvious–it was his book, The Art of Travel, that had me hook, line and whatever.

But after my trip home from Liverpool spiralled into a disastrous, nearly seven-hour mess of a journey, I started thinking this week: is Alain de Botton really worth all this fuss? Is visiting an obscure village on the east coast of England actually worth the risk of losing more hours of my life to the incessant failure that is UK transport? Last night, my flatmate Claire had a good laugh predicting things wouldn’t end well for this trip. “You know you are so not going to make it there! Buses hate you!” she said, tearing up with laughter, all the while fueling the fires of my inner panic.

In the end, I ran the risk anyway–but not without great trepidation. A 5am wake-up call got me out of bed and fumbling around for several layers of warm clothing–something about visiting a coastal village on the edge of the North Sea in November sounded slightly more threatening than a trip to the beach for, say, spring break in Miami.

My journey from Surbiton to Liverpool Street Station was remarkably unremarkable–both train and bus proved capable of holding to a schedule. My train from Liverpool to a town called Halesworth 100 miles away also not only left on time, but arrived exactly on target as well…I hardly knew what to think. The last test, however, was the local bus, No. 520 from Halesworth to Southwold. I waited outside the Halesworth train station with my fingers crossed so hard they hurt. And sure enough, at 10.09am on the very dot, a big yellow bus flashing “Southwold” in red letters miraculously appeared around the corner.

Just like it said it would.

I could have wept with joy. I’d come prepared. I’d brought my laptop, plenty of writing to work on, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and a full roll pack of milk chocolate digestives, just in case things got truly desperate. But for once, over-preparation was totally unnecessary.