My Tribe Visits, Part 1

These last few months have seen a slew of visitors coming to York to visit me.

In February, Jamison, one of my dearest friends from college, came to York.

We went up to Glasgow with two of my new friends, Aline and Chantal (both au pairs who are originally from Germany and living here for the year). None of us had traveled together before, but somehow we all clicked perfectly! It was a really magical journey - we all got along and had meaningful conversations. Our traveling styles' were in sync.

It was one of those rare weekends that I know I'll look back on and feel deeply blessed to have had. After a day in the city, we took a bus tour up to the Highlands.

We saw a castle!

The last day was spent again in Glasgow. I would highly recommend a visit to this magical city! Especially to Kelvingrove Museum and Park.

The city center

Then we returned to York and while I was working, Jamison got to explore York and took a day trip to Liverpool. We also celebrated his 26th birthday! I was a bad friend and made him a non-vegan dessert because I got frustrated with my various attempts at finding/making a birthday vegan dessert.

Oh well. Luckily Jamison is not militant. He ate the buttery birthday flapjacks, and we had a great time overall catching up and hanging out.

I can't believe it's not fake-butter!

Next to visit me was my godmother, Mrs. Diane! Despite the weather, which was the COLDEST I have ever experienced (and that is saying something in this country), we had a wonderful time exploring York on her first day.

Then over the weekend we took a mini-holiday to Scarborough! Yes, the same Scarborough as in Scarborough Fair.

The best part of this trip was when we made it into Scarborough. Mrs. Diane had booked a place for us to stay and I didn't know anything about it - until, fighting our way against a bitter wind, we rounded the corner and she said, "This is it!"

I looked up and there in front of me was a giant WINDMILL! I have not been so surprised in a long time. It turns out she had found this bed and breakfast online - it's an old disused windmill with a few adjoining guesthouses.

We, however, got to stay INSIDE this beautiful building. It was really magnificent. Mrs. Diane is one of those rare people who is both creative and thoughtful, so while I was astonished that we were staying in a windmill, it actually doesn't surprise me that she thought of this for our weekend away together.

I'm a bit of a baby about the cold, I'll admit it, but I've gotten better since moving here. Even so, this three-day period was terrible. As we stood on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the iron-gray foaming sea beneath us, we had to brace ourselves in order to stay in one place simply because the winds were so heavy. The winds alone would have been kind of fun, but the temperatures were freezing, too, which made me less happy.

Weirdly, this day was the exact same day that winds were so strong back home that the government and schools closed! It was such an odd coincidence.

In addition to exploring Scarborough, we did a few of our other favorite things - sleeping, eating, watching movies, playing ukulele (OK, that's all Mrs. Diane), writing, and reading. It was luxuriously delicious to snuggle up inside where it was cozy and enjoy some time catching up and hanging out.

Mrs. Diane loved the space because it had round walls - as an artist, she has an eye for the small details that make things beautiful. I loved it because it was warm and I felt like I was in a storybook. For all the years we've known each other, we've not gotten to travel much together, so this was a very special weekend for us both.

Just over three weeks later, my family came to visit! My dad, Sue, Krissy, and Tommy all arrived into London, where I met them. I thought it would be SO WEIRD to see them again after not having seen them for seven months - that's the longest I've gone without seeing my family ever - but actually it felt really normal in a very good way. We had a ton of fun.

My crazy fam

We spent five exciting and jam-packed days exploring London. I must admit to being a tiny bit proud of my ability to navigate the city, which only a year and a half ago I'd never even been to. The first time I came I simply followed Shantonu around, and the second time I simply followed my cousin Erin around!

But this time, I guided my family.

On one of those days, we took a bus tour to Bath and Stonehenge! It was excellent, though we all agreed we needed more time in each place. And that our tour guide wasn't very funny, even though he tried to be.

Because no month this year has been complete without me getting sick at least once, I managed to come down with a nasty cold that turned into a sinus infection. That was fun. Pumped full of Strepsils, Airborne, and Tylenol, we continued our travels.

Then we took the train up to York. I was very excited to show them my home. When I first arrived in the city at the tail-end of August, I began my year-long practice of wandering around on aimless, hours-long walks. And even on those extremely early walks, I would plan what I would show my family when they came to visit. So many things reminded me of them and I couldn't wait to share the experience. I've been mapping out their visit since, literally, Day 1.

So it was really magical to show them York. It was hard to live up to my own expectations of how great I wanted it to be. My family were willing explorers and gave all the appropriate reactions - they loved pretty much everything - but the weather did not cooperate. It was rainy and cold.

And I kept having the feeling that they weren't seeing enough - I had so much I wanted to show them. I wanted them to see the city as I did, which is long aimless walks around interspersed with many hours on weekends spent in museums, cathedrals, parks, bookshops, stores, and the library.

I wanted them to see its sunny side, its windy side, its cobbled-streets-filled-with-drunken-revelers-side, its clear-evening-stars-in-the-sky side, not just the rainy-touristy-gross side. I wanted them to wander aimlessly for hours and flit in and out of bookshops and stores. I wanted them to take every tour of York possible at least three times, like I have, and to waste time at M&S and Waterstones, and to wander slowly along the city walls, getting annoyed at tourists and gazing up at the Minster from all sides.

But in just five days, that isn't possible. I had to reckon with that. We hit the York highlights and we did a lot more than that too - I think they saw a lot more than what the average York tourist would see - but when they left, I realized something important.

The best way to have an experience is to appreciate what you have more than what you don't have.

My family certainly embodies this. Despite the crap weather, they loved being in York and made sure to have a fabulous time. They made sure I had a fabulous time. It was an incredible trip together.

That idea can be applied to a lot of things. I thought about it and realized it applies to my YAGM year. Certainly, living in any country this year would have been a valuable time of growth, but I'm so happy I'm here in York. I'm having a great experience, learning and changing, so I don't really know if I'm missing out on any other type of experience. If I am, really, what does it matter? I'm happy. I appreciate what I have here in York. I'm blessed.

Tevas, Trump, and Typecasting

I was running extremely late for church today. When I arrived, I was grumpy and tired and walked in hoping to simply coast through the rest of the morning, but a few minutes into the service, a family entered. It was a man, woman, and their three young children.

When they walked in I thought, with some surprise, "They don't look British."

We all know typecasting is wrong and we all do it anyway - our brains jump to conclusions. That doesn't make us bad people. Confronting our biases and challenging ourselves each time we make assumptions is the most important thing. I've slowly learned not to live in guilt over my own failings and just to move on, keep working on it. We are all racist, biased, and prejudiced - it's when you don't recognize that in yourself (and society) to try and change it that it is dangerous. 

So why did I not think they looked British? The mom was wearing Teva sandals and a nose ring, the dad had a big beard and khaki shorts, and the children looked like sweet little sprites. I was impressed at how the kids immediately found the books and art supplies I had stowed at the back of the church and were quiet and contented for the ENTIRE service. 

After the service, I went downstairs and was getting a rejuvenating mug of hot water when someone told me that the family was American. "Aha!" I thought. "I knew it."

Turns out, the family is traveling the world for an entire year. They were already home-schooling their children when, after a family tragedy and some upheaval, they decided to rent out their home in San Francisco. Using a brokerage company that helps them figure out some of the logistical details and their own savvy, they have been on the road since October. They've visited Australia, New Zealand, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Singapore, Morocco, Zimbabwe, South Africa, France, and are now here in the United Kingdom. 

Sounds like your crunchy, creative, hippie, and typical, albeit pretty exciting, California family right? 

I thought so too. They are a lovely couple with equally lovely kids. The mom, Jessica, and I had a wonderful conversation. She was warm, friendly, and reminded me of why I miss talking to Americans on a daily basis - the energy! She was expressive, laughed, used her hands, and I found myself relaxing and sharing, mirroring, and laughing a lot too. It was refreshing.  

Our conversation started to get deeper. I confessed that I have started to consider myself a socialist here in the UK - almost a dirty word to many Americans - because I admire how the government attempts to provide comprehensive social care in an egalitarian way. 

She disagreed. Her take was different and she described a bad experience she'd had in a French hospital as an example - waiting for 8 hours, watching patients lie in gurneys along the wall out in the open, seeing muck on the hospital floor, only to be told she couldn't be given a test to determine if she had giardia because it was too expensive and that if symptoms persisted, she could come back in ten days and try again.

My experience thus far with British healthcare have been intense and variable, so I could understand her frustration. We weren't agreeing but we were having a healthy discussion. We talked about how social care in other countries is said to be better, but Jessica doesn't feel that it is. By and large, I do feel that it is better here in the UK. How she didn't feel that the high tax rate and the privileges it provides in certain European countries are worth the loss of personal choice and freedom, while I don't see it that way. She likes the option of personal choice but I personally would give some of that up if I was getting more care from the government. 

It was fascinating. Her husband, William, joined us and the kids flitted between us and ate biscuits. We went further than I've gone on social issues in a long time. It was enlightening to hear another perspective from Americans who are living abroad, especially ones who haven't become the frustrated socialist I feel I'm turning into but seemed to have a nuanced perspective that I admit I often lack.  

What was most interesting about our conversation? That's easy. 

William and Jessica voted for Donald Trump.

While our conversation about social issues was deep, it felt even more enriching once I'd unearthed this fact. Granted, this family is used to talking to liberals, and they admitted that most of their friends in California were progressives (their terminology), so they both told me that they understand how inflammatory politics are. 

Jessica also told me that the family had been featured in a New York Times article about traveling families. In print, the article was titled "The New Nomad: Have Wi-Fi, Will Travel" but online, in order to boost clicks, the article was titled "Some Said They'd Flee Trump's America. These People Actually Did." (Because the family's names are published in this article and used on their Instagram account/Youtube account, I'm choosing not to use initials or pseudonyms in this post.) The funny thing was, she said, they didn't flee. It was simply for personal reasons and has nothing to do with American politics. They voted for Trump, and they consider themselves conservatives. 

Back home, I am all sorts of frustrated and judgmental about the ways that a vote for Trump has negatively affected my country. Talking to people who disagree with me politically about social justice issues drives me so mad, I often shut down the listening part of my brain and commence smile-nod mode.

I'm still intensely angry about what Trump and other Republicans are doing. But something in me has shifted. 

I can't pin it on an exact moment. This year has slowly changed me in many ways. Yes, I complain more than ever about the state of American politics, but American people, they're something else. They're complex and nuanced, just like people everywhere. 

And just like people everywhere, the choices we make don't adhere to a check-sheet, as much as the media and social media would like to have it. Californian. Homeschools. Wears Tevas. Voted for Trump. These things don't go together on the surface, do they? 

This family denies all sorts of stereotypes. When they walked in, I had typecast them and then I typecast them again when we started talking. When they admitted to voting for Trump, I could have continued to stereotype them.  

In that heartbeat of a moment, after learning they had voted for Trump, I decided to listen to what the universe had been telling me all morning. Stop making assumptions. And instead of shutting down and negating their experiences because they were politically polar opposites from me, I made a choice. I let my mind stay open. The decision happened in a fragment of a moment and it wasn't entirely conscious.

The most surprising things happened because of that tiny internal pivot: I continued to relish our conversation. I continued to enjoy talking to Jessica and William. It educated me. We connected. 

Jessica and William provided fascinating, intelligent perspectives on their travels. We discussed the state of the American middle-class in California, money, home-schooling and world-schooling, church, religion and culture. Jessica and I even touched on the importance and global relevance of the Black Lives Matter movement.

We agreed that first world privilege is a thing and we feel different about it now that we have seen the other side of it - her family when they spent time in South Africa especially and for me when I spent time living in Mexico. We didn't agree on everything, but we listened to each other. 

Best of all, they were kind. They asked me questions about my own journey and made me feel comfortable. They engaged. When we said goodbye, we hugged.  

It wasn't what I expected. I let myself listen and it was so good.

I could argue that they aren't typical Trump voters. Jessica even said herself that they're surrounded in San Francisco by friends who are liberal to the core. They're homeschoolers and have lived abroad for the last seven months. 

So, no, perhaps they aren't typical Trump voters. Maybe, I thought, as I walked home, there aren't typical Trump voters. Jessica and William are complex, compassionate, and thoughtful. They care about their children and their country and the world around them. Just like you, just like me. Just like people everywhere, no matter who they voted for. 

That's the thing, though, isn't it? That's the real message behind the gut feeling I had this morning when, in the space of a single heartbeat, I decided not to close my mind. I'm so glad I heard that small God-voice telling me to keep engaging past the boundaries of politics. I'm so glad I listened. Thank goodness I did, because this wasn't a typical conversation and these aren't typical people.

None of us are.

British-isms

I've been pretty open about the fact that originally, moving to England wasn't top on my list because I wanted to become proficient in Spanish. In the end, I am unspeakably glad I am here for my YAGM year, even though it has nothing to do with learning Spanish at all - there are just so many other great things about living in York. And learning British-isms is certainly fun and satisfying in its own way. I kept a list in my journal in the beginning of new-to-me phrases, but over time forgot to be amazed when someone said something I'd only ever heard before in Harry Potter.

But I started thinking about learning a language all over again thanks to Apu (Shantonu's cousin) who sent a list of 88 British Phrases to Shantonu and me. Read 88 British Phrases That Will Confuse Anyone Who Didn't Grow Up in the UK here. On first thought, I added Number 89 - naff, which basically means something is messed up. Then I thought of a few other Yorkshire-specific words. It still delights me to hear them - things like nowt or hiya. Nowt means nothing - I was walking down the street lately and a woman asked a man if he had been given any sort of directions or assistance, and he responded with a very emphatic nowt. I was inordinately pleased by this exchange for some reason. It's the little things, innit? (isn't it)

Another Yorkshire expression that I fancy (like) is the York-typical greeting of "Hiya! You alright?" It's like saying, "Hey, how are you?" but when I first moved here it confused me endlessly. Specifically, one of the women who works at The Island would greet me as such. And I never could figure out how to respond. Yes? I'm alright? Fine? OK? To me, at the beginning, it sounded like she was asking if I was doing OK, which to me then meant I must have looked like I wasn't doing OK. It didn't sound like the equivalent of "How are you?" at all. And I was worried I would be par if I responded incorrectly (committing a breach of social etiquette).

I know some Americans find this phrase rather mingy (unpleasant) but I began to like its lilting cadence, and now, somehow, it feels perfectly natural to respond to the query with a simple, "Yeah, you?". And I find myself greeting others with this same easy expression - it rolls off the tongue to say it as I swing my groceries up on the counter or walk in to a doctor's office. It's not the same as mastering the pluperfect tense in French, but upon realizing that I've adopted this quirky pleasantry, I was pretty chuffed (pleased). I felt bloody dench (damn cool).

Open Eyes

“In your first few hours in a new place, while you’re still dazed, before you can even really believe you’ve arrived, you see it more vividly and clearly than you ever will again.”

-- Michael Frayn, Sweet Dreams

This quote evoked a strong, visceral remembrance of my first few days in England back in August. (I got it from one of Gretchen Rubin's daily Moment of Happiness emails.)

That first day, while the four YAGMs I had traveled with were all met one-by-one by their host families or host site coordinators at the Heathrow airport, I lugged two heavy suitcases on the tube through London to King's Cross. There, I sat in a stupor watching tourists take their pictures at the Harry Potter trolley cart waiting for my train up to York. The only notable thought I recall from that hazyhour was, "Uuughhhh....what was I thinking?!?!".

Even though I was tired and overwhelmed and had no idea what was in store for me, I also remember the first few weeks of being in England as being a time where I noticed everything with fresh eyes and it was thrilling. I got a little frisson of pleasure whenever I discovered a quirk of British culture. I can't describe it any other way than that my eyes felt very wide open. I was soaking in the world around me. I wonder if there is a word in another language for this sensation - or an English word I don't know. If you do, send it to me!

I felt that the littlest, most mundane things were incredibly exciting - the double yellow lines on no-parking zones, driving on the left side of the road, the way that that signs had "please" and "thank you", the on-off switch at electrical outlets, and the 5p cost of every shopping bag.

It was enchanting to see ancient stone structures next door to the library, the ruins of an abbey in a public garden, to live only steps from the famed city walls.

And I really liked seeing waterfowl all over the place - York is on the water and renowned for having geese and ducks wandering about the city.

Like these dudes who were strutting through the Sainsbury's parking early one morning.

Growing personally in relation to the city was delightful, too. I loved slowly but surely getting a sense of my surroundings and not getting lost so much (but I also kind of loved getting lost, too). I loved finally finding "my" places - the library, the bookstores, the cafes, and the parks that I'd go to when I wanted comfort and solace.

And I loved the walkability and friendliness of the streets of York. I rejoiced in the tiny triumphs of making friends and getting to know people, of getting involved with something at work, and relished a little bit of extra alone time. I felt - and still feel - like my eyes were wide open, soaking in everything new and different.

This is a joyous reflection on what makes living here wonderful, but it's also been one of the hardest years of my life, and it's easy to forget how lucky I am to be in York. When I realize I'm starting to take this year for granted, I try to capture that open-eyed feeling again and look around my temporary home and appreciate all the little fascinating details that make England unique.

I try to remember the feeling of freshness of living in a new place I had when I first arrived. The sensation of boundless appreciation for newness, captured perfectly by this quote, helps me remember what a privilege it is be living here.