My fifth year as an American living in the UK began with a major milestone. My 27-year-old son and I ran a half marathon in Barcelona. This was a first for both of us, and we ran the race together as a team just before my 51st birthday (so I could say that I did my first half marathon when I was 50). While he pulled ahead a bit in the finish, it was truly a team effort and we finished at our target time of 2 hours. We’re looking forward to other races in the future, but this one will be special as we checked off a physical challenge on our bucket lists. We agreed that neither of us have a desire to do a full marathon, so the future holds improving our time on the half, or perhaps doing other shorter distances.
Another major event this year was the selection of a new company car. While the thought of going fully electric was too daunting, I chose a BMW i3 – officially, an electric car with ‘range extender.’ This is also known as a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV in the industry) where I have the option of using petrol / gasoline should my battery charge not take me far enough. When she arrived in July, I named her Mia, and we’ve had such fun zipping around the English country side. I also discovered that my affinity for the Prius had stopped me really considering other options. The BMW driving experience is so much better! (And, I’ll stop there as this is an update on my 5th year, and not an advert for the BMW).
As my search for unique Easter experiences continues, we branched out this year and went to Spain. This was somewhat a pilgrimage to the cities where St. Teresa of Avila spent her time (my favourite Christian Mystic), mixed with a desire to go somewhere warm. Easter in Spain is definitely unique and we learned a lot about how the lead up to the event is experienced through amazing daily parades where pilgrims walk barefoot through the streets with large crosses to re-enact the passion, and brass bands play an odd, melodic mix of a dirge or funeral procession music. While I’m not one to repeat holidays (until I’ve been everywhere, why would I go back to someplace?), I can definitely see another Easter in Spain in the future. We ended the holiday in Madrid and attended the British Expat church where we had a rather traditional British (aka Church of England) celebration.
Exploring the theatre in the UK also continued with another season of tickets at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, with some West End shows sprinkled in. Seeing David Tennant in ‘Don Juan in Soho’ was a highlight – amazing! I’m not a Doctor Who fan, per se, but he was fantastic in this show.
Early in the year, my husband got word that a fantastic job opportunity had opened in his company’s US headquarters. It was the ideal pre-retirement job, and the perfect prospect to wind up his career back in the Boston area. An ideal opportunity that was too good to pass up. After several changes in my visa status during my assignment, the immigration lawyer had most recently added me as a dependent on his visa. This now had to be undone as his return to the US meant that I needed my own status to remain in my position. Similar to the H1B process in the US, I had to go through advertising my job and ‘applying’ to the position. It was stressful to do this, but given I’d been in the job for so long, I was pretty much fully qualified for it – lol. Fortunately for me, they didn’t find anyone more qualified.
In May, I had the pleasure of traveling to Italy for a week with my daughter and son-in-law as they came over for a visit to Rome, Venice and Florence. We had a great time exploring the cities, and seeing all the amazing sites in these places. While I’ve heard many people say that they fell in love with Venice, I didn’t find it as compelling. Given all the water, most of the buildings were worn down from years of rising tides and it was a bit mouldy feeling. The gelato was fantastic, but the city itself wasn’t great. We enjoyed a boat trip out to Morano and Burano, but I’d have to say my favourite part of the trip was exploring the Roman ruins in Rome and having a history lesson from a wonderful and energetic local guide. The guide was completely blown away by the fact that I was the mother, and that we were on vacation together.
At the end of May, during my husband’s last holiday in the UK, we travelled to Jersey (the original one in the Channel Islands) for a few days with our dear friends from Edinburgh. We had a great time exploring the islands and learning about the occupation of the islands during WWII. The main museum was in the tunnels that the Germans had used, and each room was set up to reflect a date in the history of the occupation. It was very moving and in some ways, a scary experience to relive what took place there all those years ago. Fortunately, the weather was really nice for most of the time and we had a very relaxing time.
After the vacation, we then proceeded to pack up the big house in Hitchin so that my husband could move back to the US, and I could decamp to a smaller place. My new house is on the outskirts of Hitchin in the park surrounding an old Victorian hospital. It’s a planned community where they replicated the architectural style of the hospital (which is now a 200+ unit apartment building) and built a very traditional looking English village. It’s just over 10 years old as a community, so still very new (though the style looks old). I took a place in a ‘terraced house’ which is basically a 4-plex. It’s small, but perfect for me since I’m not there all that much, and I have neighbours nearby that I can call on should I need any help. While I have a garage, it was clearly not built for cars since Mia can’t fit, and I figure that she’s so small that they’re really meant for storage. At least I have my own off-street parking place and somewhere for seasonal storage, so it’s all good. Since it’s an English size house, I procured some English sized furniture, and the US furniture went back to the US.
My visa process wrapped up in June. So as not to have to spend 3 weeks in Boston, my company agreed to pay extra for expedited service so that I could get my visa within 3 days. Of course, the application had to be accepted by the British Consulate, so there was still a question whether all the time and effort to advertise and recruit was going to be enough. As it turned out, I drove 2 hours from Westford to Cambridge (a trip that should have taken about 45 minutes, but for the terrible commuter traffic) for a 10-minute appointment that was mostly explaining the various emails and timing for review of my application, and receipt of my visa. That afternoon, I had an email saying my application had been received by the Consulate, and another about an hour later saying it was accepted. So much for a thorough screening, eh? I then had to spend another 2 hours driving back to Cambridge to spend 10 minutes picking up my passport with my shiny new visa. This one required me to then go to the original Cambridge (in the UK) to get my new residence card. Lots of hassle, but my position was secure, so in the end, it was worth all the back and forth trips.
In the midst of all of this, the company decided to move two business units into my Sector. This is somewhat akin to doing an acquisition as these two had been parts of other businesses and needed to be integrated into how the ‘New Markets’ Sector operates. This meant that after leaving Boston, I got to go to San Diego and San Jose to meet some of my new team. It had been a long time since I’d been in California, so I enjoyed the opportunity for a brief visit before heading back to the UK to finish my visa process.
My oldest sister helped me out with using my extra tickets to see some Shakespeare and visit London in early July. We had a great visit and even went to a museum I had never been to in London. Over the summer, I also had the chance to see the International Athletics championships in London in July – one session with the Para-athletics, and another with those destined for the Olympics. My BFF from Edinburgh joined me for one session where Usain Bolt came to the closing. While we didn’t get to see him compete, it was amazing to see his final farewell to the crowds.
As a part of the integration of my new businesses, I travelled to China and Australia in August. It was nice to be back in China after such a long time (2 years and 4 months, according to my local HR Manager there – so nice that she missed me ☺), and meet the new members of my team. The trip to Australia was cold! Since it was their winter, we ended up having to pack two wardrobes. The men got off easy since they just had to bring a jacket or jumper to add layers, I had to bring two different sets of clothing. But, it was a great trip and I really enjoyed visiting both Melbourne and Sydney. I found Melbourne to be more welcoming and laid back. We did a bus tour of the city, and also had some time to walk around to explore. I went to Sunday service at the cathedral and was treated to an impassioned plea about voting your conscience on the topic of same-sex marriage. The priest was unhappy that churches in Sydney were telling people how to vote. There was applause after the sermon, and many positive comments about him. It was refreshing to hear someone not passing judgment one way or the other. The Sydney end of the trip was amazing for a different reason. We got to visit a customer (Cochlear) who makes the implants for hearing impaired people. JM makes the fine platinum wires that connect the electrodes to the device and are implanted into the person’s head. It was incredible to see how they are made, especially the mostly female workforce (you need small hands to do this work) working under clean-room conditions and using microscopes to make the device. During the tour, we also met a young woman who had two of the devices. She was at the site to test out the new transponders. She talked about how life-changing the devices have been for her since she received them at 9 years old. We also had an opportunity for a quick harbour cruise before returning to the UK (a long, drawn-out 23-hour journey).
After my return from Australia, my next trip was a retreat on Holy Isle off the southwest coast of Scotland. This was a week-long retreat with the head of a Christian contemplative centre in London. The island is now owned by Tibetan monks, but is used for various religious retreats. Getting there was a part of the journey as I had to fly to Glasgow first, spend the night, and then take a train to the western coast. From there, I took a larger ferry to Isle of Arran. This was followed by a bus across the island to a much smaller walk-on ferry that took us to the island. Somewhere during the travel, I lost my Kindle, which was disappointing as I had downloaded books I thought I’d read while there. As the lead monk told us about the island during our orientation, he mentioned that while there was no WiFi or cell signal at the centre, you could get a signal at the north end of the island – a 20 minute walk up the coast of the small island. My Kindle was on my mind, and the fact that my Amazon account was attached to it (along with credit card details), so I decided to send a quick email to my son to ask him to disable the account. This was when I found out that Hurricane Harvey had struck Houston, and that my daughter and son-in-law were stranded in the 2nd floor addition of their neighbour’s garage as 25 inches of water invaded their home. I hadn’t intended to connect to the outside world during the retreat, but this changed things and I had to keep one foot in the real world. The retreat was incredibly intense mentally as we explored different methods of contemplation and learned about Lectio Divinia. I also had a chance to work in the garden (a part of the experience) and do several hikes of the 4-mile circuit around the island.
My return to the real world in September brought my first visit to ‘Proms in the Park’ – the official end to the British summer at Hyde Park. It was interesting to see how unflappable people were during the long queues through security where the security team were most interested in just how many bottles of wine people had in their baskets. I guess the prospects of being safe meant that people didn’t fuss about how long it took. In mid-September, the Stearns girls (and some of the nieces) descended on New York City for another milestone birthday, this time for my younger sister. We had a great time seeing the sites and watching Bette Midler perform in ‘Hello Dolly.’ At the end of September, my son-in-law came over to see the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars play in London. We had a really nice time, even though the immigration officer was shocked that he was coming to spend a weekend with his mother-in-law (‘and, where is your wife??’). The fans around us – mostly Danish and British couldn’t understand why the American Ravens fans all started to leave in the middle of the third quarter. Even though the outcome was clear, they didn’t know that Americans tend to abandon ship if their team is losing.
A work trip to Albuquerque later in the autumn allowed me to make a stop in Houston to see the ‘kids’ and visit the flood damage. The rebuild hadn’t started, but the gutting had taken place. While it’s hard to rebuild from something like that, it was fun contemplating how to make it even better for the future. I got to weigh in on kitchen appliances and tiles, as well as visit the Houston Architects’ competition homes where many flood victims were coming through getting ideas for their own rebuilds.
It had been a very long time (not since Teradyne in the early 2000’s), but in November, I returned to India. This time, the trip was to Mumbai to visit my new team there. While the food was amazing, I had trouble adjusting to the time zone and for the first time ever, missed my morning alarm. My phone didn’t adjust, and the alarm failed to go off (with it somehow resetting my ‘night hours’ to be until 9:00). It was a good, if exhausting trip, and I had a chance to see some of the local sites in addition to planting a tree at the office (a tradition for visitors).
As has become traditional, my son came out for a visit over the US Thanksgiving holiday. This time, we decided to take the Eurostar and spend a couple days in Paris. This was his first time in France, and we had a great time eating, drinking and wandering around the city. We threw in a tour of the Louvre and to see ‘the lady’ (aka Mona Lisa), so that we could check off an educational aspect, but most of it was just wandering around and soaking up the French attitude. We then returned to London for two days, where we were treated to a British protest of the Canada Goose store (apparently they use real animal fur on the trim of their jackets). We laughed as we watched men and women in down coats and leather boots shouting ‘shame on you!’ and observed that the geese don’t survive having their down used for stuffing either. As has also become traditional, we both departed on the same day – me for China, and him for Dallas.
This trip to China included more customer visits and a side trip to Hong Kong. It wasn’t as well arranged as our other visits (clearly, this new team isn’t as organised) and my boss and I had plenty of time to talk about – just about everything. It’s a good thing we’re both Minnesotans and close in age, so we had plenty of topics we could explore as we killed time between meetings. We joked that we probably could have covered everything in 2 days, rather than stretch it out to 4, but that’s life.
Being adults, my son and I scrapped our plans to run another half marathon in Dallas in December. Neither of us had trained enough, and we thought it best to turn our long weekend in Dallas into a pre-Christmas celebration. My daughter and son-in-law drove up from Houston, and we had a really nice weekend spending time together in Dallas. So as not to make it totally non-physical, we did some rock climbing at the local gym as well. Somehow, ‘just let go’ at the top doesn’t work anymore for this ‘old’ lady, and I found myself climbing back down the wall (which, I am told, is much more difficult than just dropping).
Christmas saw a return to Acton and a week of various parties and gatherings for the holidays, a quick trip to Jackson, NH where it felt more like Minnesota in January than NH in December, as well as a reprise of ‘Pop Goes the New Year’ at the BSO. And, that about wraps up the 5th year. January held another trip to India as well as Philadelphia with plans for a repeat in March. So, as time marches on, the travel does as well. This has been such an amazing time, and I’m so grateful for a great job and company that gives me the opportunity to see and explore new places all the time.