off to old Blighty

I decided to go to London for a few days in February. This would echo my 2006 trip in that I’d fly out on Thursday night and come back on Tuesday afternoon. “Who the hell goes to damp, dark England in the middle of February?” you may be asking. And the answer is: good fucking question. Why would I do such a thing?

Well, my friend Beck and I had a mammoth eight-country Europe trip planned in June 2010, but then we had to postpone it a year because she and her husband ended up buying a house. This was a smart move on their part; it’s still a buyer’s market and purchasing a house before November meant scoring Obama’s $8,000 tax break for first-time homebuyers. Not only that, they landed a beautiful and historic house for an unbelievable price. Like, so beautiful that I’m ready to kill them and wear suits made of their skin and assume their identities just so I can live there.

I’m very happy for them, but the delay gave me a mad case of travel blue balls. I was so revved up to take this trip that having to wait another year left me with a keening ache that would not be stilled. At the same time, I was looking for a way to reward myself for having survived five years of intense freelancing (I have begun giving up my freelancing jobs piecemeal, keeping only one for the purpose of generating disposable income). Yes, true, I’m planning to buy a Nikon D90—it’s not cheap and it would certainly qualify as a reward. But I really felt as though travel would be the best reward.

I set aside $1000 from my severance check this summer and decided to go to the Faroe Islands for a week next summer. I’ve wanted to go there for a long time, you see. And I asked Missy if she wanted to join me, since it seems like her cup of tea. She was very excited about the idea and asked if we could squeeze Iceland into the mix. Gradually the whole trip became too unwieldy—we realized we could in no way tackle the Faroe Islands and any substantial chunk of Iceland in one week. Meanwhile, I already had plans to go back to Iceland for my 40th birthday (in five years) and spend two weeks driving the entire Ring Road, checking out hot pots, glaciers, puffins, mountains, and geysers along the way. So I switched things around and decided to do the Faroe Islands on my birthday and hit Iceland next summer with Missy and her girlfriend Kat. We started doing some hardcore planning, but it was all for naught, as Missy ended up starting a new job that forbids her to take a vacation before the one-year mark, which means we’d have to push the trip back to September, when Kat is unable to go.

So I started thinking about London instead. I figured London would be cheap in the winter and easy to manage. It’s familiar and comforting and doesn’t carry the stressful weight that comes with traveling to a new country. I’ve always felt that London is my spiritual home and going there always makes me happy, so it seems like a smart trip to make. It’s bit like slipping on a comfortable old shoe that nestles against your foot just right. I realized that if I went there over a holiday weekend, I’d only have to use two days of PTO. This is a big consideration because I’ve only been at my new job for a few months, so PTO is still pretty scarce, and I need to hoard what I can for my 2011 trip. I looked at MLK Jr weekend and Presidents’ Day weekend and, finding their prices virtually indistinguishable, decided to make the latter my top contender. I don’t know why; it just felt right. The problem is the price; flights to London in the middle of winter aren’t as inexpensive as you might think. (Maybe my mindset is just trapped in the halcyon days of the ’90s when there were tickets to be had for $350.) However, the expense isn’t egregious enough to warrant me putting the kibosh on the whole thing.

An old Goldsmiths friend of mine, Mylene, is graciously allowing me to crash at her flat while there, which reduces my expenses even further. Huzzah!

I may end up going to Europe twice next year, as I’m thinking about using that aforementioned $1000 and going to the Faroe Islands after all. My research is showing that the best way of seeing the country is by car, although a substantial bus network does exist. I never rented or drove a car abroad, so I’m very nervous at this prospect. If I want to get the most bang for my buck, though, booking a holiday package that includes a car rental and then using that car to see as much of the country as possible during the week I’ll be there is surely the smartest move to make. I’ll probably ditch my ghetto TracFone in favor of an iPhone before that point so I have phone coverage overseas, in case of an emergency (I can see me getting stranded on some Faroese mountain or cliff!).

song heard most recently before posting:
We Three Kings—Liz Story