Laurie's light travel travel tips

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 ...

Where DO I start? It's December 31, 2017, and I'm lying in my beautiful studio here in Falls Church, Virginia watching the sun rise. I'm about to get started or rather get finishing a 5,000-word essay for my World Novel module at King's College London. I know what you're thinking, don't waste your writing hands on this blog. But how can I not? For me, 2017 was the kind of year that comes once in a lifetime. For the girl who once thought she'd never leave San Francisco , whose friends were running off backpacking in Switzerland and whose brother took enchanting photos from the Seine, it's remarkable that I've become such an adventurous spirit. When I head back to London, it'll mark my fifth trip across the Atlantic this quarter. And while I keep telling people I won't be back to America for the whole of 2018, I doubt that's true. Here are the highlights from 2017: JANUARY: I rejoined a coloring group at the library in Alice, Texa...

I'm flying back to the U.S. Sunday because I have had a lease in the States that doesn't end til January. I had also flown out there in October during Reading Week, ostensibly to pick up my cat, but I think there was a deeper reason. I think I might have been having trouble Letting Go. When I got to King's College London, excited as I was, I was daunted. As I fumbled to find my way around the city -- somehow not as I remembered it from my last trip, in 2008 -- I dealt with harsh realities regarding the pound-versus-dollar (not as favourable as I'd thought!), lack of pet-friendly properties (bloody hell!), and exhausting trips to the doctor because I arrived with a thyroid condition (and dealt with frustration at having to start everything anew). Those first few weeks, too, were fraught with trying to catch up on reading, getting to know my classmates in my core class and related course on the Great Fire through Great Exhibition (it would have been too tricky in World ...