Laurie's light travel travel tips

I do this every year, but because my favorite stuffed cabbage-making-Chagallesque painter-cum mystic has passed, I contemplated chucking it. Then I heard Mom's voice admonishing, 'Have fun!' So here goes... JANUARY: I had to move out of my beautiful apartment in Falls Church, Virginia and get back to London and my classes at King's College London. Although I'd started my course in early October (two weeks late), I couldn't get out of my lease at Oakwood. Turned out, though, that being able to soak up the ambiance of DC was enriching. I took advantage of my locale and did research at Library of Congress and Folger Shakespeare Library. LOC was particularly useful for my essay on pickpockets in the Eighteenth Century. When I left DC in early January, Wally and I had to spend another night in Paris because London doesn't allow pets to fly in in the cabin. That was fine until I realized I wasn't as far along on pickpockets as I'd hoped! Brilliant plan,...

I've been in London a little over a year now, and have not taken for granted certain people who always greet me with a smile. Christine Allen is one such individual. She has been working at this newspaper stand at the Temple Tube, across from the Thames, for '20 or 30 years' she says, happily serving customers of all stripes, including busy businessmen and women, kids, tourists, and students from King's College London (who me?), located nearby. I caught up with Christine recently for the low-down. Do you own this? Bobby owns it. Where do you come from originally? (laughs) Bethnel Green. And where do you live now? Bethnel Green. Have you travelled outside the UK? Yeah. I've been all over America, I've been over to Korfu, I've been quite a few places. Really? Where have you been in America? We went to Santa Barbara, LA, California, uh, Utah ...we went on a big tour. Is it Yosemite Park? Oh I love Yosemite; good place. We stayed there in a log ...

Ever wonder how your U.S. hometown stacks up compared to others when it comes to green space? I was actually surprised, and certainly delighted, that a city I've often visited and reported on placed #1 by Pots, Planters & More. . Their publicity team writes that, "After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005, the process to rebuild itself included finding more sustainable building techniques while maintaining the character and appeal of the city. New Orleans boasts the high score of 73 thanks to a high volume of parks per 1,000 residents (71 acres), high spending on parks per 1,000 residents ($156), combined with good air quality (7.5 out of 10) and a comfortable average year-round temperature of 70 degrees. Efforts like these make the Big Easy the greenest city in the country." Note, please pronounce it right: "N'awlins". Caveat: August in New Orleans feels like a sauna turned up to turbo-drive; it's not for the faint-hearte...

When I arrived at Heathrow in October, I was two weeks late to the start of my course at King's College. Frazzled, cat-in-tow, I was a picture of what a middle-aged woman who thinks she can pull off acting like a 22-year-old again would look like on too little sleep and too much bluster. Luckily, I had and have enough of the latter to propel me along as I maneuver the challenges of London housing, grad school (including the protracted instructors' strike in the UK), and missing friends and family back home. It would have helped if I had understood the following before I arrived: 1. When people tell you it's impossible to find a cat-friendly flat in London , they mean it. If you are planning to bring your cat (as I was), start searching in advance for a place. Put down a deposit before getting on that plane. God, I wish I'd done that. It's been a nightmare and I'm not done yet. Fingers crossed for something to come up in Ealing this April. 2. Everything you...

Buona sera! Did I say that right? OK, good. I've been talking about wanting to go to Rome since 2004, when I bought a $20 D.K. guide and slapped it down on my desk. "Ever been to Rome?" I asked my then-boss Eugene. "No," he said, "but I'd like to." I was reporting for a London-based company out of their New York SoHo office. My world was opening up as I worked with colleagues from the UK and also, remotely, from Hong Kong and elsewhere. I remember a coworker saying to me, when I told him I didn't have a passport, that "there's a whole world out there!" It took me about a week to hustle out and get my first passport - thank you, Ben. So that brings us to Rome. It only took me 14 years to realize this dream, but it was well worth the wait. I took an Alitalia flight out of London's Heathrow, purposely sitting at the window. Being daylight, flying into Rome and seeing ruins from the plane stirred the giddy child in me. It had ...

Hiya, greetings from London . Though my body is in Blighty, part of my heart remains with the good ol' U.S.A., especially at holiday time. With Easter fast approaching (April 1 both here and in the States), time to think of one's favorite treats. Yes, I love a good chocolate malt ball-stuffed bunny or a blue Peep or even some of that finely glazed ham Mom makes. But I really love butter-flavored Jelly Bellies. Source: CandyStore.com Thus, I was tickled to see that my former state of Connecticut agrees with my choice, as reported by Candystore.com. The company has provided a beautiful graphic delineating each state's preference. Here are the top 6 faves: #1 Buttered Popcorn. As Candystore says, yes, "it's polarizing" but it's also America’s #1 favorite for a reason - with its salty-but-sweet flavor reminiscent of a trip to the movies, it's unmatched. Wish I had a handful right now. #2 Black Licorice. Black licorice was one of the original Jelly B...

Most days, I don't feel like a joke. I worked nine years to get here, to my M.A. course in eighteenth-century studies at King's College London . Yet, more often than not, I am reminded that I am an oddball, a blip, a one-off on the sphere of age-appropriate academics plying their talents in these corridors. Take, for example, this bar I'm sitting in. I am taking these nachos home, in no small part because there is no one my age here to socialize with. Ironically, we were told today in class that the eighteenth century was a remarkably social one. And yet, I have been forced to be less social than I was back in my home country. Try hanging out with people young enough to be your children and you look like Woody Allen in any of his movies after 1980. Today, although I look nothing like my convenor on the programme, the museum docent told my group that she'd found our teacher and pointed to me. I am 5'9 and have brown hair. My teacher is about 5'4 with grey hair...

Moving to London hasn't gone exactly as I had planned. After struggling to raise the funds to get here, I arrived with an indeterminate thyroid nodule (indeterminate for cancer), too little money, and a rude awakening when it came to finding a cat-friendly flat. Now, a few months later, I'm on the verge of finding a flat, still haven't determined the nature of the nodule (could not perform a biopsy after last ultrasound), and don't have enough cash. I had to hang on to my apartment in DC for three months due to terms of my lease, and it broke me. So happy to be out of my lease, I rented a small storage unit in Falls Church, Va. I had grave doubts about this: I already have a long-standing unit in Conn., my principal home for nearly two decades, and I didn't want to incur additional expense. I also doubted I'd be back to the DC area for any serious reason and it seemed like a hassle to pick up stuff from storage. Nevertheless, I had too much stuff the weekend I ...