It’s hard to believe that this was my first time in London since it’s one of those cities that everyone seems to have have stories about visiting or living there for what they’ve often described as one of the “best times of (their) lives”.

But before I share my own London tales, I have to begin with what was my most bizarre passport control situation to date.  I arrived in Standsted Airport, one of London’s smaller regional airports, which is often preferable especially when Heathrow is a notoriously challenging airport to navigate.  The line was short and there was only one baggage claim area, so I was feeling pretty great about Standsted.  That is, until I got to the passport control window and the immigration officer began asking me a series of personal questions that I found not only intrusive but downright ridiculous.  Here’s an annotated version of our exchange:

Officer:  “So, I see that you’ve been traveling the past few weeks.  What brings you to London?”

Me:  “Yes, I’m lucky enough to travel in Europe for the summer!”

Officer:  “I see.  What is your occupation?  Are you married?”

Me:  “Well, I worked for a media/entertainment company, but I don’t anymore.  Um…no not married.”

Officer:  “Why did you leave your job? Do you have a boyfriend? How long are you traveling?”

This interrogation  went on for about 10 more minutes until I found myself confessing to this officer about how hard it is to meet a good guy and that it was a really tough decision to leave my job but it felt right and as if that wasn’t enough, I also had to let her know how much money I had in my personal bank account.  WTF!! I realize that everyone is locking down on immigration, but this seemed over the top.

OK, back to the part where I love London.  Thanks to Facebook, my old high school friend Tuyen generously connected me with her sister and I stayed the first couple of nights with a wonderful couple named Jolie and Zack and their adorable baby girl Lavender.

It’s easy to see why so many people, especially New Yorkers, are obsessed with London.  There’s a familiar energy,  incredible ethnic diversity (in fact, I’m pretty sure I saw more interracial couples here than any place I’ve ever been), the hustle of people rushing through the streets, theater everywhere (side note:  if you’re wondering what The Game of Thrones cast does when they’re not shooting the show, they’re performing in London theater), restaurants and bars and yes, it’s expensive so it felt a bit like home, but much more scenic.  Sorry NYC, it’s just the truth.

Here are some visual highlights to my time in London Town.

I stayed a few days in Shoreditch, also recommended to me by many friends.  It’s a hip/happening neighborhood full of bars, street art, and as one friend described it “is bit more gritty” than other parts of the city.  I particularly enjoyed my lunch at Dishoom, an Indian restaurant that has an incredible local and US following and it did live up to the hype.  If anyone is visiting, I recommend you go to the one in Shoreditch for lunch where you’re less likely to deal with long lines.  I also made a new friend from Spain living in London and over a couple of beers we traded stories about work, travel, his love of Americans and our open/warm personalities, my love of Spain and what it’s like to live in London (not easy).

It’s impossible to see all of London in just five days, but I certainly got a good feel for the city thanks to new friends like Jolie and Zack who gave great recommendations, as well as so many of my friends from the U.S.  I’m excited to be part of the “I Love London” club and look forward to returning to this beautiful, big city.

I’m not referring to that awesome song by Queen, although that could be a fitting lead to the soundtrack of my time in Prague. Bohemia actually refers to the kingdom from the Holy Roman Empire that later becomes part of the Habsburg Empire.  However, I usually think about the word as defined by its adjective form Bohemian, “someone usually an artist, writer or intellect who lives an unconventional, wandering life.”  While I may not be an artist, writer or intellect, I can definitely relate to the unconventional, gypsy wandering part.  It’s week 3 of this insanely awesome adventure and I’ve been in 4 countries and traveled over 5000 miles, but it’s just now in Prague that it dawned on me that I’m not on vacation.  This is my actual life!

After spending a week here, I can fully understand the many reasons that Prague is on so many people’s list of favorite European cities.  Copenhagen set the bar so high that I wasn’t sure if I could enjoy the next city nearly as much and I am pleased to report that Prague is now also one of my favorite cities.  The architecture alone is just stunning with a combination of baroque, gothic and modern buildings living in harmony.  I was a super-Asian tourist in this city the first couple of days as I HAD to have my camera around my neck because there were simply too many beautiful things to take photos of here.  And each time I saw something that I was certain was the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen, around the corner something else would magically appear and be equally, if not more freaking gorgeous.

In addition to the incredible architectural delights, the city is full of parks, monuments, gardens, sculptures and bridges that are also simply jawdropping.  The central part of the city is broken into several different neighborhoods:

• Prazky Hrad A Hradcany – Prague Castle
• Mala Strana (“Little Quarter”)
• Stare Mesto (“Old Town”)
• Nove Mesto (“New Town”)
• Josefov (“Jewish Quarter”)

I stayed in a couple of different Airbnbs outside of the center.  That’s become my preference not only because it tends to be cheaper to stay away from the center of town, but I enjoy being away from the mayhem of tourists and pretending that I’m a local.  It also gives me an opportunity to also buy some food and cook simple stuff so I don’t have to eat all of my meals in cafes or restaurants.  There are aspects of CZ that remind me a bit of my time when I lived in Ukraine as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  The language, food and people are somewhat similar, but the Czech Republic is far more developed and in my opinion, vastly more beautiful than Ukraine (sorry Ukrainian friends!).

And like the other cities I’ve visited to date, these areas are well mapped with public transportation options with metro, buses and trams.  But despite the completely logical and convenient public transportation options, like with the other cities, I spent a good amount of my time lost, wandering around the city.  And here’s the thing, being lost in a city is one of my favorite things, not only because I’m really excellent in this area, but also it’s lead to some of my favorite discoveries whether they’re places or people.

On my 3rd day here, I met a woman from London named Annie who was traveling alone for the first time. We bonded for a bit before her group tour at a Starbucks in close proximity to Prague Castle.  She was really excited to have the opportunity to talk to someone because she felt quite alone and isolated and Czech people generally aren’t going to initiate conversation with you, many don’t speak English.  Annie and I laughed about being lost so frequently and while she was really frustrated with herself about it, I told her it’s actually a part of my travel repertoire that I’ve grown to love. And when I asked her about how she was enjoying her first solo trip, she replied with trepidation, “I’m not sure I like it.  It’s lonely and kind of hard.”  And I listened while she shared some of her stress with me.  After she finished, I told her that I agree that solo travel has its moments of loneliness, but that I bet when she’s done, she’ll find that she loves it.  I went on to say “it becomes kind of addictive.  Your schedule is all yours.  You wake up when you want, eat whatever you want, go wherever you’d like and when you’re on your own, every once in a while you meet some pretty great people who may not have approached you if you were with someone else.”  She smiled in reply and said, ” you know, you’re right.  And I feel kind of like a badass warrior doing it on my own, don’t you?”  Yes, Annie, I do.

Before I get into the magical land of Iceland, I’m going to start with the end.  The end of my time in the USA.  I left on July 5th, after a month of spending time in DC with my family and friends and a whirlwind week in New Orleans < Florida < DC. It’s been two months since I left my job and the question most often asked is “how do you feel?”  It’s a pretty simple question, but honestly I had trouble saying anything more than a generic “great” or “excited” when the truth was I didn’t feel much at all.  To recap, I quit my job at a company I worked for on and off for over 15 years, left NYC, a city that I loved and feared at the same time (but LOVE my NYC peeps), moved my worldly possessions into storage and was about to embark on a trip of unknown length and undetermined destinations.  You’d think these actions would result in a deluge of emotions and descriptions beyond “great” and “excited”right?  

I shed a few tears saying goodbye to mom and sister Sylvia at the airport, but not until they left and couldn’t see me, but it was still subdued.  It’s like my human feelings adapter was disconnected from my body.  That was until the aptly named WOW Airlines flight (cheap tickets to REK and other European cities. Many people I’ve met did layovers here on their way to Europe) took off and then the feelings came in like a TSUNAMI.  I’m not a nervous flyer, in fact, I often find that during take off, I feel a sense of relief and excitement about wherever I’m going.  Tears fell so hard down my face and I tried desperately to muffle my sobs as I could sense that I was freaking out my seatmates, but I literally could not stop myself from crying.  After months of suppressing my feelings about making such massive changes in my life, I could no longer hold it inside and as the plane ascended, my feelings did too.  So I put my sunglasses on, placed my Bose (thank you Bil!) headphones in and LET IT GO.  I cried about leaving my family and friends.  I cried about leaving my job and people that I care about.  I cried about not knowing where my prescription meds are in storage.  But mostly, I think I cried because I was actually doing this. 

And so I’m fortunate enough to be able to do it and as so many people have said, brave enough.  I kept hearing from  friends words like “brave” and “proud” to describe what I’m doing, and I don’t think it really connected until the plane lifted and I knew that I was leaving not just America behind, but everything and everyone I knew.  And for maybe the first time in my life, I was doing something that was purely for ME.  I wasn’t joining the Peace Corps (been there and done that in 2003 during my other non-break) to better the world.  I was choosing to seek pleasure and joy for myself and do something that was just for me.  And how rare is it that we do that?  So I think that’s why I cried so damn much.  

 Enough of the feelings stuff.  Let’s get Iceland!  I arrived July 5th and spent 5 days in Reykjavik.  I’ve had other friends come here and I’ve seen their photos and heard their stories, but it’s really something that if you can, you should experience yourself.  It’s an island of just 300k people, 70% of whom live in the capital area.  I arrived just two days after their soccer team’s triumphant return from Eurocup (damn!), but the feeling of pride and excitement is definitely still palpable.  And there are giant photos of the (HOT) soccer players all over the city.  I scored with weather as it was pretty warm and sunny up every day I was here!  Names of streets and people are pretty much unprounciable, but everyone is patient and quite friendly and thankfully many are fluent English speakers.  The women are gorgeous – fair, blonde/ginger supermodels with narrow faces and long, lean legs.  I obviously blended right in. The men are totally men, some serious Viking beards, non of that pretty hipster manicured facial hair here.  

I’m here at the height of tourist season, but it still isn’t crowded anywhere.  I stayed at two different places in the city, the first was Capt. Reykjavik’s Guesthouse, which was super low key and incredibly clean.  I had a small room and shared bathroom, which is honestly not an inconvenience since everyone’s out all day/night.  Connie who runs the place is smiley and polite and makes fresh bread for breakfast.  The second place is called the Kex Hostel, it’s trendy, social and there’s a huge restaurant/bar area where many locals come to hang out. I splurged for a private bathroom in this place.  For those planning to come here, yes it’s expensive.  The rooms where I stayed ranged from $180-$250/night and that’s for guest houses and hostels people.  But you don’t need a luxury hotel b/c you’ll want to be outside all of the time.  And with nearly 24 hours of daylight, it’s easy to be outside.  Less easy to sleep, but that’s OK because I’ll sleep in America.  

The city is small and clean and super easy to get around because everything is pretty walkable.  When I arrived sleep-deprived and delirious at 4:55am, I couldn’t check in to my place until 2pm so I walked around and checked out some of the local sites.  My favorite things in the city:

• Solfar, the “dreamboat” that faces the water and stands for undiscovered places, the promise of hope, progress and freedom.  I couldn’t have stated my current experience better than that.  
• Hallgrimskirkja – the church and tower which is the 3rd largest building in Iceland
• Icelandic Phallogical Museum – how could I possibly miss this? A museum collection of over 200 mammalian penises. That’s one of the things I love about this city, there’s a sense of humor and quirkiness here that’s so natural and inherent to the people and culture.  

The food is good here and yes also expensive.  You can’t get a sandwich and beer for less than $20.  I tried some Icelandic dishes including a breakfast of “mashed fish” on toast and it was delicious.  The name doesn’t do it justice.  And at Cafe Loki you can have their rye bread ice cream and also sounds weird but is super good. Seafood is obviously the mainstay, but don’t worry, there are burgers and fries too.  The lamb soup is also very delish.  

I could spend the next week talking about all of the incredible natural wonders of Iceland.  This place is truly magical and the Vikings who settled here picked one beautiful island in which to settle.  Here you can see rivers, lakes that look like mirrors, geysers, oceans with black sand, waterfalls, mountains, glaciers, fjords and volcanoes!  Some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  If you come here, you must do that GeoIceland South Coast Tour.  That’s where you’ll see the mountain, glaciers and waterfalls.  Avoid the bigger bus tours, especially Grayline.  Too many people and the guide was somber, muffled and not the best English speaker, which makes for a long 9 hour day.  A lot of people rent cars and DIY, but these guys are incredibly knowledgable, passionate and environmentally conscientious and keep the tours to small groups.  My guide Grousif (sp??) looked like a supermodel and had the brain of a PhD anthropologist, plus a great sense of humor.  She told us about the history, the geology and culture, including a hilarious account of how a couple of Icelandic guys created an app for locals to date and also avoid “awkward endings” in case they’re too closely related!  Like I said, only 300k people here and everyone’s pretty hot.  Must sees if you tour:

• Strokkur or the Great Geyser – the smell isn’t that bad and it’s worth seeing this big guy explode 
• Skogafoss and Seljaleandsfoss – the waterfalls including one you can walk behind! 
• Solheimajokull – GLACIERS!  My favorite and most incredible thing I’ve seen.  You can actually do a hike, but due to a lame ankle sprain, I settled for walking up to it and touching it and even that blew my mind.  
• Reynisfjara – a gorgeous black sand beach and cliffs that look like the Iron Throne also home to puffins but those guys are pretty tough to spot.  

I skipped the Blue Lagoon, which is one of the most famous sites in Iceland, but it was mostly booked up and from what I heard from locals, I’d be better off going to a local pool so I did.  And instead of $90, I spent $9 and avoided the crowds and got to enjoy the awesome geothermal pools.  There is still so much I haven’t seen in Iceland, including the Westfjords and north, but I’ll be back.  

So to come back to the question of “how do you feel?”.  I feel lucky, energized and exhausted, thrilled, content and like I’m starting live full-throttle.  

And next up, is Sweden!  

After a proper Fourth of July send off and celebrating America with BBQ, beer and Breaking Bad (mom’s current binge), it’s time to say goodbye to my family and friends and start this adventure. 

So many people have asked “what are you bringing? How big is your bag?” 

So to dispel the mystery, I’m bringing my carry on roller and a day pack.  The color matching was purely but fortuitously coincidental/kismet. I’ve limited myself to 3 pairs of shoes, t-shirts, a few pants, skirt, a couple of summer dresses, toiletries and some warmer items for Iceland.  And of course I’ve brought the many incredible gifts from friends who’ve given me phone cases, perfect pens, journals, self-addressed cards, bracelets and most importantly your love and support. 

Next stop, Reykjavik!