Time does fly when one is having fun. Given the rate of business travel, I’m not sure that I’d call this the year of settling in. Certainly my husband was settling in and adjusting to the cultural differences between the US headquarters of his company, and their UK operations. He was also learning first-hand the differences in how things are done in the US versus in the UK – including how to Google ‘common’ terms and translate them to British English.My third year started off with some work travel, and then a quick visit to the States for my cousin’s daughter to be married in Texas. My son, daughter and son-in-law tagged along to keep me company and spend a nice weekend together with my cousins and sisters. Then, my daughter and son-in-law accompanied me home for a week in the UK. It was so much fun to show off London and even have an opportunity to try some places I hadn’t been yet (the famous Borough Market). Being a part of my SiL’s first visit to Europe was also great.
In early May, we took advantage of the Bank holiday weekend to explore the Lake District. We were told that it rains every bank holiday weekend, and true to form, it did. However, we had a nice visit and took a cruise on Lake Windermere (in the rain) as well as a visit to a car museum and Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop House. We did the ‘American thing’ and drove, which turned out to be a mistake when a 4 hour drive turned into 6. Between the two Bank Holidays in May, there was more work travel as I checked in on my various sites. At the end of the month, the Bank Holiday that corresponds with Memorial Day weekend, we caught a concert in London (Mark Knopfler) and then headed to Portsmouth to visit the Naval museums there and spend some time near the water. This weekend turned out to be more pleasant and we took full advantage of the offerings on hand. There was a small production of ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ which was great fun in a small, intimate setting.Over the past year, I’ve been reading a lot of St. Teresa of Avila, and had an opportunity to do a retreat weekend at a Carmelite monastery in Oxford. The topic was her book ‘Way of Perfection,’ and the Brother that led the exploration of the text made it so much more understandable. I was disappointed that I couldn’t attend more of the weekends during the 500th celebration of the year of her birth. I didn’t let on that I am not Catholic during the weekend, however one of the gentlemen there noticed that I didn’t go up for communion during one of the many services over the weekend. He slyly came up to me during that part of the service, and whispered ‘I’m Anglican too, and they don’t care – you should go up.’ I laughed, thanked him and made my way up to communion.June and July were another mix of business and personal travel. We had a wedding in Maine, then a wonderful weekend in Stratford on Avon to see my favorite Shakespearean play (Merchant of Venice). Even though it’s my favorite, it was actually the first time I’d seen it produced – absolutely perfect. While my travel doesn’t always allow for fitting things together, I had a the chance to combine a visit to Philadelphia with one to Montreal, which meant stopping off in Boston for a weekend – because, that just makes sense, right? This particular weekend was for a 60th birthday party for friends of ours whose daughters were in my kids’ classes in high school. We made it a family trip, and they both flew up to go to the party and have time to catch up in person. This year, I’ve been trying to coordinate these types of business trips – sometimes it works, and other times I can’t bring it together. However, it’s nice to have the option of melding work and family in this way. August brought my husband’s birthday and a special weekend trip to Ascot to see an airplane race. It was so much fun, and we had tickets to the higher level area that allowed us to be inside, if we wanted, or go to reserved seating to watch the planes at any time. The weather was perfect – thankfully, since England at any time of the year can be cold, wet and raining. After having enough of watching airplanes zooming around, we visited Windsor Palace. The tour was amazing, and the scenery perfect. Definitely worth a return visit, especially since we went on the Sunday and didn’t get to see the chapel.
At the end of August, we took advantage of the Eurostar train and went across to France to visit Brittany and the setting for a lovely book, ‘All the Light We Cannot See.’ The trip to Saint Malo was combined with a quick trip to Guernsey Island, and was fantastic! Everything was perfect, and we had such a fun time touring around, learning about the area and even getting in a visit to Mount St. Michel. Our trip home was delayed by issues with the tunnel and the chilling reminder of the refugees coming from war torn areas who are desperately seeking entry to the UK – and even trying to walk through a tunnel where trains are traveling at high speed.
After all the business travel, and delays to ‘biting the bullet,’ I finally settled down to getting my UK driver’s license in September. I was, technically speaking, overdue and knew it was just a matter of time before something happened and that became a problem. Since the UK doesn’t allow ‘right-hand’ drivers to automatically switch over, I had to do the entire test – theory, driving and ‘hazard perception.’ Per the recommendation of another American expat, I took a few lessons with an instructor and spent several hours studying the theory books. Even though several of my work colleagues had horror stories of how many times it took them to pass the various tests, I did end up passing on the first go. This was important, not just because I was overdue, but because work travel was pressing on. It meant that if I didn’t pass during the first attempt, it would take twice as long to get my license. I had applied for the ‘provisional license’ (the first step in the process) in November of 2014, so if one were to count that as the start of my year driving on a US license, I needed to get my full license by November of 2015. With a little bit of luck, and lots of praying, I did it – thank goodness it’s a one-time thing!In addition to studying for that test, I also started Chinese (Mandarin) language lessons. During one of my trips to China, the managers were given an assignment to tell me about what trainings they had done, and how they were applying the training, entirely in English. It was so impressive to see how far some of them had come since I first met them. During our first meetings, a few of them were embarrassed about their English ability, and decided to take advantage of the employee I had helping me with translating. At the dinner, we talked mostly in English, and I realized that we truly do expect everyone to know our language, without attempting to communicate with them in theirs. Fortunately, our little town has a very nice language school that teaches many different languages, including Chinese. I haven’t used much of what I’ve learned yet, but it’s been fun getting back into a class and learning something new. The instructor was impressed that I can write the characters, but I reminder her that I did take two years of Japanese in college, and have done ‘a bit’ of writing Chinese characters in my time. I’m still nervous about using my newly learned Chinese, but am hoping to do so on my next visit, or perhaps in April when my Chinese HR Manager comes over to the UK for a meeting. At the end of September, we hosted my husband’s niece and her boyfriend for a few days while they visited London. In addition to providing tour guide services, we were also pleased to be a part of a marriage proposal. We were able to toast them properly at our favorite British restaurant. After they departed for Ireland, we went to see the Battle of Britain air show at a nearby, retired military base. It is so interesting to see how ‘recent’ World War II is here – the sense of history is so strong, especially when it comes to WWI and WWII. The show really brought home the realities of living in a war zone where bombing was a fact of life. In the US, our relationship with the World Wars is so distant, with the only real experience being Pearl Harbor, which was still a remote and geographically distant event.
October brought our new tradition of going on ‘summer holidays’ in the autumn. This time, it was to Tuscany since that’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go and it’s another popular European destination. We stayed at an Agriturisimo – which is basically a working farm that has a guesthouse with separate ‘apartments.’ The one we chose was conveniently located between the Chianti and Montepulciano regions, so we took full advantage of the vineyards. In order to ensure we had the full experience, we did the obligatory visit to Florence to see ‘the’ David, as well as to Pisa to see ‘the’ Tower. The best part was doing a wine festival event at one of the vineyards, where the entire tour was a group from Sweden and us. They were kind enough to stay with English for the most part, and welcome us into their group for the day.November brought more visitors, including my brother-in-law, who came for a couple days of business meetings and met up with us for dinner in London. my step-daughter and her soon-to-be fiancé also visited, with an unexpected full week in the UK after the unfortunate terrorist attacks in Paris canceled that end of their trip. While Thanksgiving is not a UK holiday, this year we traveled back for the holiday. I met up with my kids in Texas. We signed up to run a Turkey Trot so that my son could finally officially beat me in a race – he did, but only by 2 minutes, so there will be a re-match at an as-yet unannounced date. . . After a wonderful Thanksgiving with me playing Sous Chef in my daughter’s kitchen, my husband and I rendezvous’d in New York City to see Garrison Keillor for his farewell tour of Prairie Home Companion.December was busy with work, but also more travel. We went off to Stockholm for the Christmas markets and to enjoy more Swedish hospitality. Then, the highlight of the personal travel was a trip to Paris just before Christmas for a mommy-daughter trek to finally answer the perennial question, ‘où est la bibliothèque?’ We did indeed find the library, but also much much more, including an amazing day at Versailles and three days of laughing, talking, reminiscing and just enjoying the time together. We then returned for a quiet Christmas at home.The ‘boys’ joined us the weekend before New Year’s and we enjoyed some pretty classical British holiday activities including shopping at a major outlet mall, Afternoon Tea, the Panto, a visit to Windsor Castle and more eating, drinking, laughing and catching up. On New Year’s Eve, we headed to London, for a very fancy Gatsby themed party. Given the increased sensitivity to security following the issues in Paris, tickets were required for entry to the area on the Thames to watch the fireworks. The party included them, so we had front row ‘seats’ for the most amazing show. We took the opportunity to spend an extra day in London and see the Churchill War Rooms as well as a very moving performance of War Horse.The ‘kids’ departed for Texas and work picked up again.
Once again, I was able to combine business travel with a weekend in Boston and had a chance to spend time with my son and his new girlfriend. Over the course of this year, my work has evolved into more divisional level activities, but still very heavy on high-touch, local support to my businesses. While I keep saying that the travel will slow down, I’m actually enjoying this opportunity to meet new people, travel to new places and experience such great opportunities. I keep reflecting on the fact that the first time I went to Scotland (in 1987), I would write a letter that took 7 days to cross the world to Minnesota, and then it took 7 days for a response to come back to me. I called home once a week, on a Sunday, and had a short call with my Mom and Dad – collect, with a beep every 30 seconds to let them know they were paying for it. Now, I am in pretty much constant contact with everyone. In October, when we were driving around Italy, we had a face-to-face conversation with Cameron about a job offer he was considering. The mobile Wi-Fi and our iPhones made it possible to really talk to him. Truly amazing how far communication and travel has come since the late ‘80’s. . .On to the next year in this grand adventure!