In which Layla and Roz spend Christmas viewing Roman ruins and Boxing Day in the Dead Sea

By Layla

A short plane ride (punctuated by an excellent re-watching of the film Spy), an impressive whiz through customs, and hey presto: our European wintery holiday had been transformed into a Middle Eastern extravaganza. (Albeit the weather had not changed as much as we’d hoped...) Having checked in to the very pleasant Heritage House Hotel near the First Circle in Amman, we popped round the corner to Books@Cafe. Only hours after looking at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, we were ensconced in a charming, busy little bar/restaurant over an English-language bookshop tucking into our first dose of hummus. Afterwards we strolled around Rainbow Street, enjoying a rather pathetic but well-meant Christmas tree, and young boys in the square doing some crazy synchronised dance and being impressed at how nobody hassled us at all. An excellent first evening in Amman.

It was unfortunate to start Christmas Day with an alarm, but holidays, of course, are no time for relaxing. And we clearly had to wake especially early to exchange presents. I was delighted with my extravagant array of books from Roz (including a newly translated Haruki Murakami – my favourite author!) not to mention a selection of top Japanese animated films. In turn I gave her some cool jewellery, various silly nonsense, and best of all, a domino game about the geography of Europe. Well pleased, we had a quick breakfast and then hopped in a car (with driver) and headed north, destination: Jerash. Jerash is an old Roman provincial town and quite delightfully (a) it is impressively preserved, so we could imagine people going about their business in Roman times, (b) there were hardly any other visitors, and certainly hardly any non-Jordanians, and (c) the sun came out and it was delightfully warm. What an excellent, if off-beat, way to spend Christmas! We roamed all over the ruins, climbing into temples, and strolling along market streets, and sitting in the hippodrome, and the local theatre. Fabulous. From there it was off to Aljoun, a Muslim Castle whose purpose was to defend against the Crusaders. A cool castle, and we walked all over it, finishing in a brilliant view from the top.

Back in Amman, we headed to a fancy café, Wild Jordan, for a very late Christmas lunch of halloumi sandwiches and a few games of Europe Mapominoes. I won. Just saying… Afterwards we went for a stroll to find the art house cinema but since it wasn’t open, we had tea in a hipster coffeeshop (the area abounded with these, rather unexpectedly!). Then we stuck our head in at an art opening, before going back to our hotel to watch the first of my anime film Christmas gifts: Summer Wars. Quite mad, but most enjoyable. It finished just in time for our reservation at a fancy local Jordanian restaurant where we finished Christmas in fine style with a spread of delicious mezze and even a little Christmas décor.

The following morning we embarked on a walk through Amman’s downtown, and up a giant hill to visit the ruins of the Citadel, then down to the Roman Theatre, and finally we wheezed our way back up a thousand steps to our hotel. Amman is a really nice city but there is something unpleasantly San Francisco-ish about its many hills! We bid farewell to said hills in a taxi bound for much lower climes: the Dead Sea!

Strange how 45 minutes of driving can bring about such a change in weather. Suddenly, below sea level, we were warm and ready to float! The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest seas in the world. I sampled its floaty fun back in 1999, from the Israel side. I remember it being chaotic and a bit dirty and not as magical as I’d hoped. Turned out I’d just done it wrong. This time we checked into a fancy (but not especially expensive) hotel, and entered the water from their private beach. And what fun! Beautiful, serene, pearly vistas. Hilariously floaty water – not really possible to swim, but entirely possible to read the paper while floating. We applied the Dead Sea to make our skin extra-beautiful. And then took a little golf cart to bring us back up to the hotel when we had had our fill of floaty fun. We finished our water fun in an outdoor Jacuzzi, followed by a quick swim. What a fun day! That evening we read our books in the bar, had dinner at a disappointing Italian restaurant, and finished off watching 21 Jump Street at the hotel’s cinema. And feeling very positive indeed about the Dead Sea.

This morning we were up far too early because whenever you book anyone to take you anywhere, they always want to start early. We had a delicious breakfast from the hotel’s extravagant spread, then bitterly waited for a slightly late driver. He eventually turned up, accompanied by his small daughter, ready to drive us anywhere we wished.

Today’s plan was to go down Jordan’s famous King’s Highway, a road that winds past all sorts of interesting sights. Our first stop was Mount Nebo. This is allegedly the spot from which Moses first saw the Promised Land. Quite fun to be there, with the same view (albeit a tad obscured by mist). We also saw a church, and the first of what would become a theme of today: ancient mosaics.

If you’re in the market for ancient mosaics the place to go, of course, is the Christian town of Madaba. We took a walk around the town, visiting all the key mosaic sites. There was a little church with a full floor of mosaic tiles, the centrepiece of which was a woman representing the sea, surrounded by imaginary sea creatures. There was a vibrant floor mosaic depicting a topless Aphrodite spanking Eros, and some rather good ancient wall mosaics of townhouses. And of course, the most famous mosaic, housed in a Greek Orthodox Church: the first known map of Palestine. We also enjoyed the nearby café… and then headed to Wadi Mujib, Jordan’s answer to the Grand Canyon, for some fabulous views.

Soon we were off again, this time to Kerak to see the finest example of a Crusader castle in the desert. After a quick but tasty lunch in a local place where our driver seemed to have friends, we headed up to the massive castle. And proceeded to get fairly lost in its labyrinthine corridors. Still not sure whether we saw any of the main sights of the castle, but we walked around it for an hour, climbed the turrets and had lots of fun. And then, after some more amazing views of otherworldly desert cliffs and rolling landscapes, we arrived at this evening’s destination: Dana!

When we told our Jerash driver we were doing to Dana Nature Reserve, he laughed at us. “But it’s one of the best nature places in Jordan!” we told him. “But it’s cold,” he responded. Our driver was not lying. Having had a pleasant, if chilly dinner, we are currently huddled by an old gas heater in an otherwise unheated and flimsy hostel pseudo living room. The hotel workers are wearing ankle-length sheepskin cloaks. Roz and I are wearing seven layers of clothing including four jumper layers, listening to the wind literally whistling and hoping that our planned 6 hour hike in Dana Nature Reserve tomorrow is worth it all! 

In which Roz and Layla go in search of Christmas in Berlin (and find art, cheesecake and Syrian refugees)

By Roz

We touched down in Berlin late, neither of us sure what to expect – both of us have been to Berlin before, separately, and neither of us had loved it. But everyone we speak to seems enchanted by Berlin and we were ready to follow suit – and particularly ready to succumb to the Christmas vibe of the city.  Throwing caution to the wind (a tiny bit) we hopped into a taxi from the airport to try and make up for some of the time we’d lost through our plane being late.  Relatively swiftly we were in our tiny AirBnB flat on the outskirts of an area called Kreuzberg – a locale about which we’d read vehement descriptions as hip (though their very vehemence rather reminded me about how I used to describe the area of London I lived in before – Camberwell – which was more aspirationally hip than absolutely hip…).

Having dumped our stuff in our new home, we hesitated over the right plan for the night, feeling a bit intimidated by the depressing vibe of our street… and then decided to leap on a train and head straight into the centre of the city to visit a Christmas market and drink Gluwein (which is rather like mulled wine if you haven’t had it – if you have, please forgive what I’m sure is heresy).  It was very cheery meandering around the festive stalls, watching a little ice skating and listening to Christmas music.  We then headed back in the direction of Kreuzberg to have Italian food in a cool place called the Gorgonzola Club.  (The irony of coming straight from Venice to have Italian food in Germany does not escape me.  However, German food isn’t absolutely vegetarian-friendly…)  Candles twinkled and hipsters abounded: phew! We then wandered home via a cocktail bar in a basement where they served terrific concoctions (if so strong that I am ashamed to say that Layla had to conveniently spill some of hers to avoid the shame of leaving a drink that the bartender was clearly very proud of). 

Next morning, we were up relatively bright and early for a free walking tour of Berlin.  Our tour guide did a nice job of taking us through German history in an interesting way (starting in the 12^th century!)  and showing us the standard tourist sites from the Brandenburg Gate to the Holocaust Memorial to the spot of Hitler’s bunker and Checkpoint Charlie.  Not exactly cheery but it was an interesting and efficient way to see them.  We were more than ready for lunch at the end of the tour and were delighted to find a mainly vegetarian but otherwise wholly chic place nearby.  As I debated salad sizes with the waitress (ah, some traits from America will never leave me I suspect!), I unfortunately came up with the peculiar question “which do most middle-aged ladies order?”.  Ah, I have never embraced middle age or going with the norm before, and yet I managed to do both in one sentence. Layla cried with laughter. (The waitress later asked me whether the size had been right and I have a vision of her giving future customers kindly advice “well, I understand the medium salad is about right for most middle aged ladies…”) 

Our plan for the afternoon was to explore a couple of different northern areas of the city by foot.  Unfortunately, Berlin turns out to be the opposite of Venice – there you look at the map and think the destination must be far, far away, and then find you get there in a couple of minutes, whilst in Berlin places look close and then you find the opposite is true.  Nonetheless, we had fun walking up in the direction of the Jewish area (including past the British Embassy which I waved hello to) and to the Hamburger Bahnhofstrasse Museum, which is a modern art museum housed in a former railway station.  We fortified ourselves with coffee and cake first in a cool little museum cafe, and then enjoyed meandering round the first part of the museum, which had mainly Warhols and Lichtensteins.  We mused that the museum had turned out to be smaller than we had expected as we left these galleries – and then found that we’d only touched the surface of the museum and found lots of experimental works in what looked like old railway sidings.  We had fun walking through the endless galleries and playing on video games (something I always find both fun and surprisingly hard since it wasn’t part of my childhood), which were inexplicably one of the exhibits. 

We continued on with our walking route (though by this time my legs were pointing out that this wasn’t absolutely what they were accustomed to in London) and eventually ended up in a posh and apparently tourist-filled area which turned out to have very cool linked brick buildings full of galleries and shops and even a cinema, but though they were open, the whole area was somewhat disconcertingly deserted and grim.  We meandered through, picking up some fortifying chocolate for Layla, and then scrapped any plans to linger and headed back into the centre of Berlin. 

Our plan for the evening was dinner and then Star Wars.  Layla is not at all a Star Wars fan, and I’m only moderately enthusiastic (by which I mean I’ve seen the first film numerous times, the second and third once and the newer films not at all).  But this film has had such glowing reviews and there’s been much chat about it having the first properly feminist lead, that I wanted to jump on the bandwagon.  There was an awesome-sounding old East Berlin cinema, Kino International, which had it on at the right time, and I was foolishly confident that we’d find somewhere nice to eat close by. It took so long to walk there that our legs were wailing and our teeth were chattering by the time the cinema finally came into view. Then we found there was absolutely nowhere to eat, nice or otherwise, in the vicinity (but we walked another mile just to make sure).  We ended up in a flap and then in the unfortunate position of pretty much missing out on dinner (bar some random snacks).  On the plus side, however, the cinema was beautiful – the inside was a little like the Royal Festival Hall in London (despite having been built 15 years later) and there was delicious Reisling to sustain us too.  We both thought the film was excellent and the cheery vibe of being there with a lot of very excited people more or less made up for the lack of dinner (especially the guy behind us brandishing his own light sabre…). 

We woke up the next morning feeling rather hungry (even hungrier than usual, I mean).  This was the perfect justification for us to walk in the direction of one of Kreuzberg’s cool cafes, Five Elephant (said to have the best coffee and the best cheesecakes in Berlin) along the lovely Landwehrkanal (you might be able to guess that this is a canal).  Despite the time of year (or do I mean because of it?) it was a lovely walk with a blue sky and austere looking trees lining the canal and various locals walking their dogs.  The café lived up to its reputation and their banana bread was also excellent, so we enjoyed our stop there, including spending much time trying to lure a small dog, also in the café, to be friendly.  Whilst there, we concocted the slightly odd plan of walking to a nearby, somewhat dodgy park to play indoor mini-golf.  We were frustrated in this plan by the fact that the mini-golf was closed for the winter (Berliners have inadequate devotion to mini-golf it seems), so we summoned our remaining walking muscles and continued across the river, past some cool buildings, and on to the East Side Gallery – an outdoor display of murals painted by artists along a remaining piece of the Berlin Wall to capture their thoughts about it coming down. Interesting stuff.

I was fearful that we’d end up in another scenario where we walked so far that my legs wanted to fall off.  And so when Layla, after some urgent research to find ideas for somewhere to pass a delightful afternoon, announced that our next destination (and lunch) was a mere hour’s walk away, I determinedly steered us onto a bus.  Stepping off the bus in posh west Kreutzberg, I feared the plan might have been flawed when first the place we’d had in mind for lunch proved to be closed for Christmas and the streets seemed deserted. Happily we’d just walked down a disappointing street. Which made it all the more glorious when we turned the corner and unexpectedly found ourselves in a delightful indoor food market, reminiscent of Union Market (Washingtonians) or Borough Market (Londoners).  We had a delicious lunch of quiche and salad and such like and then meandered around, stopping for coffee and Turkish tea. 

From here we headed to Templehof park.  This is a defunct airport, used during the Berlin blockade, which has now been turned into a park. For a change, this destination was close by, and my legs rejoiced.  It’s not hard to find an airport entrance and so once spotted, we headed towards it confidently.  We were soon stopped by some bemused looking police and after a while realised that the former airport terminal building is now being used to process Syrian refugees and that this was what we were trying to barge our way into.  Oops.  We eventually found the airport-turned-park entrance.  Unsurprisingly, tons of Syrian refugees were kicking around the area, including hanging out in the park and after it dawned on me that they’d take us for German locals I felt it incumbent on me to smile enthusiastically at each one in an encouraging and welcoming fashion.  I fear the end result was more maniacal than would have been optimal.  But I meant well.  As we meandered round the airfield, watched people flying kites and pretended to be planes on the runway (did I really just confess this?), we mused on how handy it would be for the authorities to have such a large building in the centre of the city (it’s the civil servant in me) but we also mused that it seemed most odd that such a big building had remained basically empty and unused for such a long time. Is it wrong to think: that would make amazing flats!

Afterwards we wandered back to the food market for some gluwein before hopping on a metro to go bowling.  This proved a very cheery experience, and I say that even though Layla won both games.  But it felt like our bowling balls had some magic about them, since neither of us have played so well – with numerous strikes – in years (for which read ever).  From bowling it was a surprisingly short walk home when we had a quick rest before dinner at a really excellent Italian place (I know, again not German) for some delicious small plates.  They played pretty much every Christmas song I know (cheery) and we entertained ourselves by musing on New Year resolutions and eavesdropping on a nearby table where a German boy was introducing his non-German-speaking English girlfriend to his not-enthusiastic-about-speaking-English family. 

Our plane to Jordan was early afternoon the next day, so our morning was composed of quickly packing and then a lovely walk round Tiergarten (Berlin’s answer to Central Park the philistine would say).  It’s a beautiful and interesting park, with a only a few locals and seemingly no tourists.  It felt a cheery way to spend the morning of Christmas Eve and we skipped with joy at the thought of a whole 10 more days of holiday. I felt a bit sheepish at not feeling sorrier at leaving Berlin… I had expected to fall in love with its quirky, hipster, arty vibe, but while I enjoyed the art museum and the cool cinema and the lovely parks, somehow it all felt a bit flat and utilitarian and uncharming, and somehow so ensnared in its dreadful history that it seems to be struggling to write new chapters, as though doing so would unacceptably distract from the horrors. We were left seeking the city’s 21^st century personality in vain. It didn’t even feel all that festive, despite a hundred Christmas markets. But with everyone else raving about Berlin, we must be doing it wrong, somehow. Maybe it’s a city you need to spend more time in if it’s to grow on you… or maybe Layla and I are just Philistines… at any rate we’ll be there for a final day at the end of the holiday, so we’ll give it one more chance… But for now, goodbye Berlin and hello Amman!

In which Layla and Roz explore the canals and alleys and pastry shops of wintery Venice

by Layla

Who would have ever guessed that being a language student would rob Roz and me of our fabulously frequent holidays in a way that even our most intense jobs have never managed? Poor Roz has been in class every day for seventeen weeks with only one paltry weekend in Rome during that time to give her a taste of what might be, while I've done thirteen weeks. But at last: my class has a 2-week break over Christmas and the moment the clock struck 1pm on my last day, we were both en route to the airport like addicts with our addictive substance in sight. In our case a glorious two-week holiday to Venice, Berlin and Jordan.

An odd combination? Well the flights from Berlin to Amman were cheap. And the Europe flights were the price of a glass of wine or two. And I'd never seen Venice - and given our imminent move, I knew it was either now or wait at least 5 years!

Apparently in summer you can hardly walk for the crowds in Venice. Everything is expensive and stressful. Not so in December. We came in from the airport on a waterbus and as I stepped out onto the misty pier, gondolas bobbing and ornate churches illuminated around me, I realised that everything I knew about Venice came almost exclusively from the books Miss Garnett's Angel and What Katy Did Next. For instance, I had no idea there are genuinely no roads for cars in Venice! 

As we stood in the dark mist, our AirBnB host not appearing, I began to feel a little anxious. But then we splashed out on a phonecall and found there had been a miscommunication. Five minutes later someone had rescued us and was leading us through gloriously atmospheric cobblestoned lanes to our very own Venetian apartment. And having dumped our luggage in what was potentially our nicest-ever AirBnB abode, we ventured forth into the night. First stop: prosecco and fabulous pizza and a toast to this long-awaited holiday. Second stop: a walk over our first of ten million little Venetian bridges over canals to reach St Mark's Square, only 5 minutes away. This is the huge central square of Venice, and it was a delight to walk through it at night, admiring the amazing church that flanks it, the huge Christmas tree, and the brilliant architecture. We strolled home, shivering just a little, and feeling quite delighted with the first stop in our Christmas holiday extravaganza.

The next day we breakfasted at a cute local bar and got properly acquainted with Venetian pastry skills. Delicious. Then we thanked goodness for Google maps as we made our way to the starting point of our Free Walking Tour, just a 20 minute walk from our flat, but across about 20 bridges, through 10 charming squares, and with about 75 twists and turns through narrow cobbled alleyways featuring cute little shops and restaurants and other such sights that felt like they had surely fallen out of a book about a fairytale place. 

Our tour was fun: it gave us a real feel for how Venice had grown on these tiny islands in a lagoon, how each one was its own neighbourhood even though they were only metres apart, and the unique way of life of Venetians today. We wove past churches (popped into one with a painting on the largest roof canvas in the world), stopped for a spritz (alcoholic drink that most Venetians seem to drink most days in cute little bars on their way home from work - a key social tradition in the city), and heard about high tide, when the waters rise so much that the streets are routinely flooded and everyone goes around in wellies. Afterwards we wandered in desperate search of lunch, found somewhere with sandwiches, got a bit lost and eventually found our afternoon target: Fortuny Palace. This art gallery had the double benefits of being (1) housed in an old Venetian palace (just like the one I was currently reading about in The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins), and (2) having new exhibitions opening that very day, notably one by lesbian artist Romaine Brooks (plus another intriguing exhibition of the works of Ida Barbarigo). We had a hilarious and delightful time exploring the nooks and crannies of this huge, dark, quirky building and its cool art, before we extracted ourselves reluctantly and put the coordinates of one of Venice's top chocolate shops into Google maps. We spent the rest of the afternoon winding our way through yet more charming, complicated cobblestone mazes until, hooray, there it was! I indulged accordingly... We popped home, then out to a vegetarian restaurant that we had read about, a significant trek across the Rialto bridge and copious other little bridges and corners and alleys until our great triumph at finding the restaurant was staunched by the sad fact that they were fully booked. Huffily we retraced our steps and then veered off in another direction to find Roz's plan B restaurant, a very quaint, typical Venetian place that whipped up butternut squash lasagne for us, and a cheese plate, and was entirely delightful until I had some weird allergic reaction to, probably, cheese (the horror! I refuse to be developing an allergy to cheese!), and we had to flee homewards for antihistamines... duly dosed, we went out again to stroll in St Mark's square, eerily/atmospherically cloaked in mist this evening, before bed. 

The next day we had concocted a scheme to visit one of the further-away Venetian islands, thus enjoying a boat ride and getting to see a little village. Our choice was the lace-making island of Burano (because Roz had visited the closer island of Murano, where they make glass, when she was 11, and the boat didn't stop at the more obscure Torcello in winter). The morning was hilariously misty, so we found ourselves cruising through water that was entirely cloaked in mist - all we could see was the pearly surface of the water next to the boat and an occasional duck. Entirely surreal. Burano, also deeply shrouded in mist, was charming: lots of tiny houses painted in every colour, lots of lace shops, and a hot chocolate for me. Much needed: it was chilly! On our return we walked north and grabbed some tapas-y lunch and prosecco at a delightful little canalside bar before heading to an obscure dock for our extravagance of the holiday: a rowing lesson! We met a cheery Texan girl and she took us on board what looked like a gondola but was technically something slightly more stable, and before long, we were rowing our way through the canals of Venice, waving to passers by and executing slightly expert turns (well, Roz was...) while not even shrieking as we balanced on the top of the boat while doing so (well, Roz didn't...). The sky turned unexpectedly blue, and we had an entirely delightful time, smugly wondering why anyone would take a gondola ride when they could propel their own sort-of-gondola instead! 

After our lesson, feeling very proud of ourselves, we walked to the Jewish ghetto (apparently the first Jewish ghetto - the word comes from the Italian word for a foundry that was previously on that island) and soon found ourselves in the much-needed warmth of a fantastic pastry shop. We demolished several while reading our books and musing on how we felt totally exhausted. 

Finally sated, we stepped out of the shop, planning to head to a boat stop on the Grand Canal and do the requisite touristy cruise down the Grand Canal. While we ate cake, the weather had changed from a chilly, sunny day to the mistiest day in the world. Undeterred, we got on the boat. Turned out it was heading not down the Grand Canal, but to the lagoon and various unscenic locations. Off the boat, onto another one, thanking goodness for our 24-hour pass, and soon we were indeed cruising down the beauty of the Grand Canal. Well, what we could see of it beyond the mist. We chose to find it charmingly atmospheric. And huddled together for warmth... and decided to ditch our plan of getting a boat to an island with a bell tower from which we could see all of Venice, since in fact we could only see about 2 metres in front of us! 

We warmed up at home with tea and the giant box of Quality Street chocolates that were technically part of my Christmas present from Roz... then went out to a nice bar for pre-dinner drinks, and onwards for a final evening's delicious pizza. And of course Roz made me do a final evening's stroll around St Mark's square, undeterred by my chattering teeth and chilly wails. It was mistier than ever, and very lovely.

On our final day we eked out the last value from our 24 hour ferry passes by hopping over the water first to a cafe, and then to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. A really attractive building with some great modern art, though my greatest amusements came from looking out to the Grand Canal from its windows, and laughing vigorously as Roz whacked her forehead off the glass while doing so. After our fill of Picasso and Warhol and the like, we did one final expedition, this time weaving and winding our way to one of the top pastry shops in Venice. Where I indulged appropriately. We dashed back to our flat, grabbed our bags, dragged them through various cobbled mazes, and over various giant bridges, and eventually we were on the boat to the airport. I have never taken a more surreal conveyance out of a city. It was so misty it felt that we were in some strange post-apocalyptic world, bobbing along in the pearly obscurity. It felt quite surprising when, after a significant walk at the other side, we entered a perfectly normal airport. Back to reality. Next stop: Berlin!

In which Layla and Roz celebrate marriage conversion on a Rome mini-moon

By Layla

Exactly six years after our civil partnership and the start of this blog, Roz and I were finally able to do the paperwork to convert it to a legal marriage. I got her a necklace to mark the occasion. She has always been better than me at gifts… and got me a surprise mini-moon to Rome. So on Friday afternoon we were Italy-bound. The last time I was in Rome was with my parents for a few days over Christmas 2004, directly after I had worked a traumatic set of seven 13-hour nightshifts in my first year as a junior doctor. My memories of Rome were hazy. And Roz had never been at all. What fun explorations awaited!

Having installed ourselves in our cheap but very nice hotel in Prati, we strolled past the impressive-looking Supreme Court and over the bridge to Plaza Navonna, a beautiful old square teeming with cobbled backstreets of restaurants and cocktail bars. Having eaten on the plane, we opted for cocktails and Roz took me to a fabulous hipster cocktail bar (Bar de Fico, I think) overlooking the cobbled streets, where after celebratory glasses of fizz and an outstanding Belle Epoque cocktail, Roz persuaded the waitress to give us crisps, and thus launched the weekend in perfect style.

The next day we breakfasted in a cute little Italian coffeeshop. After our coffee and juice and croissants, we hopped onto the Metro. First stop: the Colosseum! We strolled around the upper and lower levels of this really amazing building, imagined grizzly entertainments of yore, and what it must have looked like when covered with marble, and made disparaging asides about the lacklustre attempts of the people who’d dressed as gladiators and stood around smoking and using their phones rather than staging a gladiator fight or the like… then headed across the road to the Roman Forum for fabulous views and more clambering over ruins, these ones old enough to make the Colosseum feel almost brand new.

At this point, I expressed an urgent desire for lunch, but Roz made me walk for it, wanting to explore the cool Trastevere district. We eventually got there, found a cute local pizza lunch spot and dined happily on margarita and artichoke pizza. Soon it was off again, this time with a doomed promise of a coffeeshop and cake for me. Alas it was not to be. The road veered steeply upward, through tiny lanes, and atmospheric Roman architecture, to… a forest? Or at least a very overgrown section of park. As Roz and I vigorously hiked up, hacking our way through the overgrowth, delightfully encountering random Roman arches and suchlike, I did muse that this sort of activity was not the hallmark of a typical first day in Rome…

Eventually we popped out at a great lookout point (Rome is full of places with good views, it seems), and having peered appropriately, I was promised a bus. It did not come to pass. Instead, my fitness bracelet buzzed with increasing kudos as we hiked all the way to the Spanish Steps, and installed ourselves in the literary café we had found in our guidebook. Alas the guidebook had failed to make clear that said cafe was on one of the most glamorous shopping streets in Rome – and the coffeeshop had prices to match! A coffee was 12 euros, Roz abstemiously bought tea for a bargain 10 euros. And I thought well, if we’re spending 10 euros, it should clearly be spent on a big slice of pavlova cake. Delicious. We lingered there for a while, then relocated to a cheaper café for coffee and cake ahead of our 5:30pm free walking tour.

We both really like free walking tours, where you sign up in advance and pay the person a tip at the end. This one was full of interest and history and character. We walked around the streets of the historical centre of the city, through parts that are the Vatican, past the President speaking to news cameras about the weekend’s terrible shootings in Paris, into churches with amazing sculptures and paintings and a fake, optical-illusion dome. We learned about Margarita, after whom the Margarita pizza is named. We went into the Pantheon, and finished up at the Trevi Fountain which has been closed for two years and only opened again last week. What luck. It was swarming with tourists, but still looked beautiful.

One nice thing about Rome is that the tourist areas are claustrophobically busy, but turn a corner and it’s gloriously serene and cool and atmospheric, and all of it felt like we were walking the streets of history. But for now, it was time to flee the touristy centre. We headed back to Prati for dinner and after a little hunting, finished our action-packed day at a hipster restaurant with one of the best cheeseboards we have ever had! (the spaghetti wasn’t bad either…).

The following day we embarked upon a slightly less trodden-path for a Rome weekend, with a bike tour of the Appian Way, one of the great Roman roads that ran 600 miles from Rome to the coast, and still exists. We had the glorious luck of beautiful sunshine. And so, after breakfast, we set off, atop a glorious innovation that has officially spoilt me for cycling forever: electric bikes! I’d always imagined an electric bike would be a bit like a motorbike, but not at all! It essentially captures all the niceness of cycling and just removes the unpleasantness associated with going up hills by making each pedal revolution much more effective than it would otherwise be. There are several settings. ‘Turbo’ is the setting of my dreams. We viewed the Colosseum from the angle of one of Rome’s seven hills, and heard all about the history of it. We passed through gates in the ancient Roman walls. We cycled past the catacombs where the early Christians buried their dead, and had a slightly creepy but interesting tour through the underground tunnels. We bumped along the Appian Way itself, once lined with beautiful, extravagant family memorial structures, juxtaposed with lots of dead criminals, left there as a warning to those approaching Rome by this route. It was a delightful cycle, with no cars and loads of Romans out for strolls and cycles along this amazingly old road. Then, not satisfied with this little piece of infrastructure tourism, we proceeded to a pretty park to view aqueducts – an engineering miracle. We cycled all through that park, past locals sunbathing, local boy scouts playing football, and the like, through another park, and stopped for wine and cheese at a local farm (maker of said cheese), before returning to Rome via the Roman baths. What a spectacular bike tour! We grudgingly trudged back to the hotel to grab our bags and head to the airport. So cruel that our holiday is over so soon – but it was a perfect mini-moon.

In which Roz and Layla finish their long goodbye holiday extravaganza in Oslo

by Roz

I can’t quite remember how we chose Oslo as the destination for the final weekend of our five week holiday extravaganza, also known as #wivesontour #thelonggoodbye to our life in America – and hello to London.  But I do know that we had some anxiety about how this weekend would work out – there’s nothing like the end of a holiday and the imminent start of a whole new chapter to produce some stressful moments.  But a few months back we came up with the novel (for us) plan of inviting our friends, Lee and Alan, to join us in Oslo as a distraction technique (and of course because they are fun company!) and so here begins the first Travelling Wives blog where the wives are not alone…

We arrived at the hotel to find Lee and Alan awaiting us (keen!). Having deposited our bags, we all walked in the sunshine to the nearby modern art museum.  This entailed walking down to the harbour and along the waterfront in the beautiful sunshine, and Layla and I began to muse that perhaps we ought to move to Oslo.  We’re so fickle…  The museum contained the art collection of a former explorer (who’d been to the North and South Poles and up Everest) and was not exactly to my taste but quite good anyway.  We spent quite a while musing whether a discarded banana peel was the work of a reprobate child or was art (and later established it was art) and that probably gives you a reasonable vision of the museum.  But it was fun to see some Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin out of their natural habitats and, with a delightful stop in the middle for a cup of afternoon tea and a cake on the museum’s stylish patio overlooking an urban beach, we deemed this a good start to the weekend…

We returned to the hotel to acquire cardigans and the like before our evening walk to Vulkan and Grunelokka, two adjacent cool areas of Oslo filled with hip shops with an array of enticing things, including furniture (Layla and I are particularly alive to the allure of nice furniture, given that we are currently furnishing our new London flat from scratch).  But our actual destination was the Mathallen Hall food market (a la Union Market for those who know DC).  This proved to be all high ceilings, steam punk lighting, exposed brick work and delicious food. We meandered around before settling on dinner from a terrific Asian place where you could customise your meal in a delightful fashion.  Noodled up, we headed deeper into the area in search of mini-golf.  Many of you will know that Layla and I are avid (if not especially talented) mini-golfers.  But Lee and Alan hadn’t played since childhood.  I felt internally gleeful and looked forward to victory (or at least coming only second to Layla, who always seems to win).  But this course was somewhat different from that which we were used to.  It was very definitely not for tourists, not least since the course was very home-made in what seemed to have once been a children’s playground.  Nonetheless, I was confident that Layla and I would be victorious…and then suddenly we were defeated by a couple of tricky holes at the end.  I took 15 strokes on one insanely hard hole (which Alan did in 1).  And Layla went on a crazed rampage to try and batter her golf ball into the hole through a weird construction on the last hole after she started to fail (this didn’t work out well).  And so, Layla came last, and I came second.  But any smugness that I might have hoped to feel was entirely tempered by the fact that it shouldn’t have been thus…

We meandered home through the streets afterwards and then went to bed.  Next morning, we had a nice breakfast in a nearby café before heading back to the marina – but this time, to get a ferry to an Oslo fjord island called Hovedoya. Alas for Layla (who loves a boat ride) it was a brief trip – only ten minutes or so.  But it felt delightfully local with very few other tourists in sight (we were, in fact, surrounded by Norwegians who’d all clearly thought through their plan for the day very well since they all carried very large picnic baskets, blankets and the like).   After admiring the view back to Oslo, we hopped off and found ourselves on a clearly well worn path that took us to the ruins of an old monastery (and past a delightful café) and then onto a path round the island.  We set off enthusiastically.  We sat in the sun on rocks at the water’s edge, watching the tide lap the shore and musing on rock formations. After a while though, once we started walking again, my enthusiasm turned to envy when I suddenly realised that our trip had become a hike and my Birkenstocks were really not absolutely up to the task – in contrast to the hardcore hiking shoes that Alan was wearing.  It’s always disappointing to find that someone else has read your plans for the weekend – and then planned / dressed appropriately when you haven’t!  Nonetheless, we had a very cheery time scrambling over rocks with beautiful views of Oslo and the surrounding islands and only getting a bit lost.  We eventually made it back to where we started (which was harder than it should have been) and then settled down in the delightful café for a very tasty lunch (including waffles) and then a read of our books on the grass.  Eventually, we felt the need to continue on with our sightseeing and we caught the ferry back to the mainland and then hopped on a tram to Vigeland Park. 

The park is famous for having numerous sculptures, including one of a small London child stamping its foot in a temper tantrum.  But I loved the park even before I saw its sculptures for its European feel: it was big, but it felt organised if you know what I mean.  The sculptures themselves turned out to be more fun than I’d have guessed, including the highlight (for Layla and me) of a couple of lesbian statues (which we decided we’d happily have in our garden in Tokyo when we move there… if only the Norwegians fancy lending them to us).  We pottered around for a while and then resolved that it was time for tea and so headed back to a cool area of town we’d seen on the tram as we’d gone past.  We settled ourselves happily in another stylish café, the type of which Oslo is obviously adept at producing, and then presented Lee and Alan with their options for the evening.  We did a blind vote (I was in a minority of one – humph) and so then made our way back to the hotel for a short rest before our evening’s delights began. 

Emerging from the hotel, we headed to the nearby metro (which is delightfully efficient) to have dinner before going to see a 3D version of the film Inside Out at Europe’s largest cinema.  Dinner – Indian food – was very nice indeed (though Alan and Lee showed themselves not up to our levels of greediness and shared a meal…).  We then headed to the largest cinema in Europe to print out our tickets.  The machine only communicated in Norwegian (not unreasonably) but seemed very clear it didn’t want to give us tickets.  We eventually asked for help from the kindly kiosk girl.  She pityingly pointed out we were at the wrong cinema.  It turned out that the cinema we were actually booked to see the film at was not Europe’s largest cinema at all, but instead was a somewhat smaller affair 100 feet from our hotel… Ah well, you win some you lose some!  We headed to the other cinema, grateful for the efficient metro and then settled ourselves down for the film (which was very good, though Layla and I were both upset that there were no Norwegian subtitles – is everyone in the rest of the world other than us really that good at languages?!).  And then, to bed. 

Next morning was Sunday.  In other words, our very last day of holiday.  It’s an odd feeling after thirty seven days.  I feel sad not to be on holiday any longer (and also sad at the realisation that this must mean we definitely aren’t from Washington any more), excited about our new life in London (and our home) and scared of learning Japanese (my course starts tomorrow).  Fortunately, having Lee and Alan around, Layla and I weren’t able to indulge in any unhelpful agonies on this combination of feelings – all the more so since we’d persuaded them into booking a 3 hour kayaking trip (for which we got the last laugh as they hadn’t been warned in advance so couldn’t dress 100% appropriately).  So we all had a brief breakfast in our room with rather good options foraged from the foyer before getting the train to the marina. 

The marina was entirely deserted when we arrived.  This was – we assured ourselves nervously – because we were ridiculously early.  So we retreated to a hipster bakery for tea and such like (this means we ate more food but are a little shamefaced about it).  When we returned, there was more life around and we found the kayaking place without difficulty.  The owner and tour guide was a nice German lady who gave us the best instruction I’ve ever received on how to be good at kayaking (and for once I implemented it) and we soon we were in the beautifully clear waters of the Oslo fjord.  We passed by a number of houseboats and I enjoyed imagining the lives of those living on them (surely the lives of the beautiful contents of the flowerpots could only be brief?!) before heading into the fjord properly.  It was just beautiful to pass by swimmers, naked sunbathers (ah Scandinavia, so liberal!), one hardcore paddleboarder (who was impressive in her ability to stay upright notwithstanding some alarming waves) and the like.  We stopped for strawberries and water on a beach and I mused that it seemed exceptionally unlikely that at that very moment 24 hours hence I would be having a Japanese lesson in rainy London…  Alan challenged me to a race at the end of our trip.  This would have worked out better if either of us had absolutely known where we’d been meant to be docking…  But I don’t think I shall ever recover from his suggestion we consider it a draw (I’m not that kind of a girl).  But just in case I’d had any worries that he might have won the race, I was amused to see him managing to fall completely into the water as he tried to get out of his kayak at the end (nothing to do with me, honest!).  Slightly dripping, we headed back to the area where our hotel is – for Alan to change and for lunch in yet another delightful and stylish café. 

And that’s it.  The end of #thelonggoodbye and #wivesontour.  After lunch we went straight to the airport, and I’m typing this from our plane.  Our plane home, I guess I should say.  Odd to think that this doesn’t mean I’ll be landing in Dulles.  Five weeks of holiday has been glorious.  It has gone by in a flash… 

Time to book our next holiday, I think – don’t you?

BOOKS READ ON HOLIDAY

ROZ: Life as we knew it (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The Dead and the Gone (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The World We Live In (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The Shade of the Moon (Susan Beth Pfeffer), Wonder (RJ Palacio), The Book of Strange New Things (Michael Faber), Landfall (Nevil Shute), Auggie and Me (RJ Palacio), Ruined City (Nevil Shute), The Mirror World of Melody Black (Gavin Extence), The Crimson Petal and the White (Michael Faber), Landline (Rainbow Rowell), A Possible Life (Sebastian Faulks), A Man Called Ove (Frederik Backman), The Revolving Door of Life (Alexander McCall Smith), Some Luck (Jane Smiley), Early Warning (Jane Smiley), and some of Great Expectations (Charles Dickens).

LAYLA: The Fever (Megan Abbot), The House of the Scorpion (Nancy Farmer), Fudgeamania (Judy Blume), Family Life (Akhil Sharma), An Abundance of Katherines (John Green), My Salinger Year (Joanna Rakoff), Belzhar (Mog Wolitzer), Auggie and Me (RJ Palacio), An Old-Fashioned Girl (Louisa May Alcott), Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), The Affinities (Robert Charles Wilson), The Storied Life of AJ Fikry (Gabrielle Zevin), Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) and Landline (Rainbow Rowell).

In which Layla and Roz fall in love with Reykjavik and do some Arctic paddleboarding

By Layla

We were delighted upon late arrival in Reykjavik to find that our AirBnB apartment was fabulous – spacious, stylish, and central. And then even more delighted to find that Reykjavik was also fabulous. When I visited 13 years ago it felt a bit of a backwater whose claim to fame was its penis museum. It now has beautiful streets lines with quirky boutiques, cool cafes, stylish bars and restaurants, street art everywhere, a fancy concert hall, an entire road painted in rainbow stripes in celebration of LGBT pride, and of course delightful views out over the water to the volcanic skyline. We dashed up and down the street joyfully, popping into a grocery store to stock up on self-catering supplies, and finished the evening in a gloriously cool coffeeshop round the corner from our flat, drinking Icelandic beers by candlelight and wondering if in fact we should move to Reykjavik.

We dragged ourselves out of bed early the next day, wondering why we’d booked an all-day hike for our first day. Then got into a grump when they were late picking us up after our efforts. But pick us up they did, and our little minibus zoomed for a couple of hours across the Icelandic terrain, which essentially consists of one road and a lot of black lava rocks, very flat land, lots of sheep and horses, and of course the huge, looming volcanic rocks, formations and mountains. We stopped at one place where there was a very tall waterfall, picked up more people, then proceeded along what could charitably be called a dirt path, except the dirt was in fact big lava stones, and the whole thing regularly plunged into rivers, through which our four-wheel drive bus stoically bounced while we shrieked and grabbed things. We stopped off at a glacier, then got to the bottom of Fimmvorduhal, one of the most popular Iceland mountains/volcanoes for hiking. But wait: the bottom? We had explicitly booked a trip to hike across a pass along the top of the mountain and then down. Instead we were faced with up, up, up and I was wrathful. The guide from the company (Arctic Adventures) vaguely said they’d changed the itinerary due to snow on the pass when I queried it, then set off at a march. I growled bitterly and started climbing.

The walk was beautiful, with huge jagged peaks, crazy rock formations, lots of glaciers, a scattering of flowers, and a decent amount of sun. But when the shallow incline was about to become an unpleasantly steep ascent, and we became aware that we wouldn’t get home til 9:30pm, Roz and I decided that this was not what we had signed up for and took matters into our own hands. We smiled sweetly at a guide from another company and asked if we could hitch a lift home with his group. He sort of said yes, or something, in vague Icelandic tones. Then he and his group proceeded to leap down the mountain like athletic mountain goats while Roz and I stumbled and dashed to keep up, though now in a good mood at the prospect of getting home in time for dinner.

At the bottom of the mountain our lift turned out to be in the back of a covered pick-up truck, and our destination the waterfall. Thus proceeded a nerve-wracking, extremely bouncy ride on the bottom of the trailer, flying in the air and clinging on for dear life as lava stones zoomed past and water sprayed. Whenever the driver went through a river, it came in the windows. Still, it was fun and silly, but I was relieved when we got to the waterfall, just in time to catch the alleged public bus. Oh wait, no bus for 2 hours? Oh dear… We started smiling sweetly at tourists: “Are you by chance returning to Reykjavik?” “No.” Until finally I struck gold by approaching three Chinese people who didn’t seem to speak much English. My question seemed to confuse them into agreeing to drive us home, in a fancy, comfortable minibus. It soon transpired that they were Chinese diplomats. Hilarious.

The Chinese diplomats got us back to Reykjavik in record time and took us right to our apartment, so we delightedly had dinner at home, then popped into a cool little bar for happy hour wine and a cheese board, and thereafter to Bio Paradis, the coolest cinema in town, where we bought a giant bag of popcorn and settled down to watch an excellent film called “Red Army”. Then we had cocktails in a very cool bar.  An excellent evening, made all the sweeter by knowing we salvaged it from the prospect of no evening at all. Thanks random guide and Chinese diplomats!

The next day was our Reykjavik day and we started it with coffee/hot chocolate in a nice little coffeeshop, followed by a scenic walk around three downtown lakes on an attractive path lines with cool sculptures. We then had delicious soup and salad and bread I still dream of for lunch at Bergsson Mathus – an outstanding and very hip café. From there to the photography museum for various photo exhibits by Icelandic photographers – pleasant, and nice that it was on the top floor of the library. And then to the Icelandic Museum of Art, in a cool old warehouse building. They had some bizarre contemporary art exhibitions, the most disturbing of which was a teddy bear room where teddies were stuck together with wax in various shapes, their stuffing removed, etc.

We popped home to grab swimming costumes, then strolled along the sea wall path and up to another branch of the art museum, focused on an Icelandic sculptor who had built an architecturally exciting studio and left it and its contents to the city of Reykjavik. We were the only visitors and the staff member was plainly quite excited to see us and went to some lengths to ensure we had every bit of information we could possibly want.  He was adorable and it was jolly. And from there to Laugardalur swimming pool. Given the plethora of geothermal activity in Iceland, naturally heated outdoor pools are exceptionally popular. Alas for Roz, I’d vetoed the most famous touristy one, the Blue Lagoon, for being expensive and far away, and instead we went to the city’s public pool. This was very much fun – there were several swimming pools and hot tubs of different temperatures, so we swam laps in the slightly warm one, luxuriated in the 38 degrees one, sampled 40 degrees, looked in horror at people lowering themselves into 4 degrees, and went on the rather good waterslide. Not bad for about $5.

We failed to get a bus home and had to walk the 3km somewhat unwillingly, but got home quickly, cooked up a quick dinner, then returned to the lovely Bio Paradis cinema to see an Icelandic film called Virgin Mountain. They have a cool initiative to subtitle local films in English, and Virgin Mountain was great – funny, subtle, great performances. Oh, and more popcorn… Afterwards, cocktails and cheeriness.

The following day it was time for another tour, but Iceland weirdly starts its day tours in the afternoon, so we spent the morning doing a big list of chores (moving country, buying a new home, and furnishing it are more effort than you might suspect… actually, maybe less effort than you might suspect, but nevertheless, some effort has been required!). At any rate, we finished, went for a walk round the lakes in the opposite direction to add some thrill to our stroll, and returned to that delicious café for lunch. And then to the Old Harbour, to meet the Reykjavik bike tour people.

The standard tour in Iceland is called the ‘Golden Circle’ tour – a several-hour drive that takes you to a big waterfall (Iceland’s Niagara Falls), geysers (indeed the one after which all others are named), and the site of the ancient Icelandic parliament, where the EurAsian tectonic plate meets the American tectonic plate. Usually this is done by bus, but we had signed up to cycle. Luckily, given this involves several hours of driving, we didn’t have to cycle the whole thing. Instead our really excellent guide drove us most of the way, with two 15km stretches of glorious downhill cycling. The first was across farmland, with the ubiquitous volcanic backdrop – really fun. Then we walked around the big waterfall, which was lots of fun. And then watched the geyser erupting which was exceptionally cool – huge blasts of water about 20 metres into the air, every few minutes. We ate our packed dinner on a bench directly opposite – maybe the coolest ever dinnertime scenery. After the geyser fun, we drove to a backroad that went along a lake that exists between the two tectonic plates – these plates are moving apart an inch per year, and our next activity was to cycle between them. Having waved goodbye to America, we rather liked the idea of cycling back. And it was highly satisfactory: the lake was exceptionally pretty, the cycle was gloriously downhill, and it finished at a very clear demarcation of the plates, and the site of the ancient parliament. We got back quite late but still popped out to our local hipster coffeeshop for Icelandic beer (and a big slice of chocolate cake).

The next day heralded news of the successful purchase of our London flat, and a celebratory return to our favourite lunch spot – with a thrill when we spotted the female star of the Virgin Mountain film eating lunch next to us! Star struck, we finished our soup and dashed home for our third and final Icelandic tour: a paddleboarding adventure. Everyone who knows us knows that we love to paddleboard and try to do it wherever we travel. Iceland was a challenge… but then we found Arctic Surfers and paid an unpleasantly large sum of money for a day of adventure paddleboarding. In reality this turned out to be an afternoon of driving all over the place in a truck, peering at the water in a shivery gale, trying to find a fjord that was sufficiently non-wavy to facilitate paddleboarding. After a couple of false starts, an appropriate location was identified and we began the hilarious pursuit of donning wetsuits – much trickier than I’d imagined, but rewarding once suited up, and it protected from the freezing wind. Roz found it less rewarding, being allergic to the material. But off we went. The waves might have been smaller than the others but they were still very vigorous. I spent much of the first part shrieking and envisioning a plummet from my board into the freezing jellyfish-infested waters. Roz was incapacitated by itching from the suit. We were so busy trying to stay afloat that we barely even looked at the sweeping volcanic hills. It was all a bit unfortunate. Then, thankfully, the wind calmed down, Roz managed to wrestle herself partly out of her wetsuit, we ate our dinner sandwich perched on our boards, and then much more serenely paddled back to shore. Not sure we’d do that again, to be honest, but in retrospect, it was very cool. Back home in time for cheese and wine at a cool little French restaurant, before an early bedtime: we had to get up before the crack of dawn the next day to get to the airport for our final destination: Oslo! It is hard to believe our glorious mammoth trip is almost at an end. But not quite yet.

In which Layla and Roz meet their new Brixton home, and do the Edinburgh Festival

By Layla

It feels like a thousand years since I lay in bed watching the British coastline drift into view, and at least 800 years since we stepped off the glory that was the Queen Mary 2 and down into the grey reality of Southampton. But soon we were on the train and hurtling into London for a new adventure, and a misguided plan involving pulling numerous giant suitcases around the London Underground. But at last we wrangled them successfully, dropped them off in various locations, and emerged unscathed from Brixton Station into our new home neighbourhood, where our estate agent greeted us in relief to find that we were real people rather than finding he had sold a flat to participants in an elaborate ruse. And so we proceeded to view our new home. Somewhat belatedly, some might say…

There is something disconcerting about going to view a flat that you’ve already committed to buying, that you have never seen before. In fact we had done our flat-hunting long-distance, from Washington. Having witnessed various London friends having a prolonged and horrible time trying to buy properties in person, we opted for the exciting tactic of sending various friends round to view good prospects on our behalf with a view to securing one to live in on our return. After rejecting one for mice, one for a dodgy lease, and one for being dank and joyless, we hit upon success with flat number four, and put in an offer. Success! But also trepidation… A few months after Gaby first viewed it for us, we entered, holding our breath… what would it be like? And then we breathed. Phew: it’s fine. We dashed around taking photos and measurements.  We spotted the tip of the Shard and Southwark Cathedral over the rooftops from our living room window… and then in a state of excited shock, we retired to the gloriously hipster Brixton Village, a hop, skip and jump away, for an organic sandwich and a pretentious coffee and a little jig of delight: we did have somewhere to live!

But of course it was certainly not time to move in: we still had almost two weeks of holiday to go, and the first part was to be spent in Edinburgh. So off we went on the train, to be met by Iain and Gary at Waverley Station and escorted to their house where they kicked off a delightful few days of Edinburgh Festival fun by bestowing champagne and Tunnock’s teacakes. What could be better?!

Edinburgh is always a delight. The castle provides a gloriously scenic backdrop to proceedings. Arthur’s Seat (a big hill) pokes temptingly through gaps in the charming old buildings. In the other direction, the water glints. Cool coffee shops lure us in. And in August, the city bustles and sparkles with thousands of performances, with every space transformed into a theatre. We aim to go every year.  Roz, who has a very clear (some might say obsessive) festival technique, was perturbed that due to lack of wifi while crossing the Atlantic, she had been forced to buy tickets before reading the shows’ reviews, so our timetable was riskier than usual…

But it was of course all proved to be fine. Over the course of almost 5 days we saw around 15 shows including at the Fringe Festival, Film Festival and Book Festival, plus two art shows. We also got to spend time with our lovely hosts Iain and Gary, plus David, Lee, Alan, Rebecca, Kenny, Jill, and Phil (plus their children). We drank wine in Ecco Vino. We ate ice cream in the sun. We admired the new flat rented by recent London exports, Lee and Alan. We drank much coffee in hipster cafes, became convinced that steam punk light fittings are essential for our new flat and had numerous avocado dishes for breakfast. We walked around Arthur’s Seat in the sunshine (and Roz also ran around it while I stayed in bed…). We arranged a painter to go into our new flat. We unlocked one of our phones, procured a new phone number, and set up wifi for Brixton and thus regained our Britishness – at least from a telecommunications perspective. It’s so much fun to roam around cool festival hubs where everyone is sitting on benches between shows, drinking gin and pimms and being cheery. And working our way between venues, we get to enjoy lots of the city. We don’t usually go to art during the festival, but we loved an exhibition about Lee Miller and Pablo Picasso, and enjoyed dressing up in Victorian garb for a photo exhibition. The best play we saw was Every Brilliant Thing and the best comedy was Robin Ince, though we also enjoyed several others. The most lovely author was Jackie Kay, the coolest was the mathematician Cedric Villani, and the whole book festival had a delightful vibe that made us happy. The most rubbish thing we saw was probably Chicken, an ill-conceived dystopia. The most rubbish audience member was me, falling asleep in the front row of what was a rather excellent show in a small but exceptionally ill air-conditioned theatre… oops! I’m just saying: we were quite busy! I also won the prize for least committed audience member: I strongly wanted to see Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, but could anyone want something strongly enough to stay up til 1am? Certainly not me!

Today we dragged our giant suitcases to the book festival, made a spectacle of ourselves by pulling them into a lecture with Matt Haig, and then headed to the airport, where we oddly encountered my ex-girlfriend of about 11 years ago getting the same flight as us. What a lovely Edinburgh interlude. But onwards: our Icelandic adventures await!

In which Layla and Roz fall in love with the Queen Mary 2

By Layla

I never thought we would become ‘cruise people’. In fact I confess I have never thought or uttered the term ‘cruise people’ with a tone of admiration or envy. And yet. And YET. After just one week’s voyage from New York to Southampton on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 has given me the insight: horror or glory… I think I might be a cruise person. Or at least a voyage person. On our last day I can only think: this is a travesty! When is my next cruise? Can I make it a thirty-day voyage? Is there a boat from Southampton to Tokyo?

In one of my favourite children’s books, The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild, the Winter family travel by boat from England to New York. One of the children muses that if days could be thought of as beads on a string, there are dull beads for schooldays and colourful beads for birthdays, but days at sea have such a different quality that they needed a separate string all of their own. They were right. And thus, here are some of the ways in which the Queen Mary 2 has charmed me. 

I have never been busier, with things I really want to do

Roz and I spent the day before we boarded manically loading books onto our Kindles. Despite the ‘largest floating library in the world’, we were terrified of running out of reading material and being bored. Chance would be a fine thing! Every night, the next day’s programme is delivered to our comfy little cabin, a shiny and yet charming four-page document listing our entertainment options from dawn until well after dusk. It rapidly became a thrill to pounce upon it (always delivered complete with two chocolates with the Cunard logo, of course) and we would read it together, marking the things we wanted to do. Remarkably, there were so many things we wanted to do that we had to skip some of them. Not just ‘oh, I suppose we could do that,’ but ‘hmm, if we were at home, we’d have paid for a ticket and travelled an hour to do that.’ We have loved the RADA poetry readings set to live music – not to mention their performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pride and Prejudice (and their drama class… sadly I’ve been too busy to attend the other two and get my RADA certificate). We delighted in an ITN cameraman’s four outstanding and truly compelling talks on different experiences in the course of his job on the ten o’clock news. We smiled at another talk by a trainspotter about the history of the railway in Britain. We went to two excellent planetarium shows. I went to two art classes. Roz took a yoga class. We heard world-class singers. We watched award-winning ballroom dancers (and had a jive class with them). We hopped into the pool. We played shuffleboard and ping pong and watched a film. And every night we saw music and dancing in the theatre, then went to a beautiful dance, where we sipped cocktails, watched outstanding dancers spin around the ballroom, and even got up ourselves, including with dance hosts paid to make us feel cool and happy on the dance floor. Again and again as the days rolled by, I resolved to go and curl up in the library and read. Or kick back on our balcony. Or grab one of the tempting deck loungers. In fact I’ve got through less than three books in a week – much fewer than usual! I feel anxious that our seven days at sea are not nearly enough!

It is a genuinely Downton Abbey experience

My delight at this voyage extends far beyond the activities. The ship is beautiful. It is sumptuous and stylish and charming and spotless and has a very attractive 1920s look to it, and stairways down which to sweep in a ballgown. There is pretty much nothing crass or neon or flashing or 21^st century to sully the view on the Queen Mary 2. People dress smartly and attractively for the most part, absolutely in the spirit of things. When we want tea, we call for it, at any hour of the day, and it arrives promptly on a silver platter amidst smiles and politeness. At 3:30 we descend to the Queen’s Room to partake of a formal afternoon tea. Live music plays in the servers, whose procession is applauded politely and delightedly, as they fan out around the room, distributing tea and impeccable crustless sandwiches, glorious cakes, and gorgeous scones. Of course we dress for dinner, whether the night is designated informal or formal. Of course we stroll around the deck, nodding polite hellos to each other (with a special hello to the ‘friends of Dorothy’ we met on the first night). Of course we dance, elegant ball dancing as much as we can achieve. The children on board are polite, quiet, smiling and restrained. And on formal evenings, every man dons a bow tie. The highlight of the day is the captain’s message at noon, giving us our location, speed, temperature, distance from land, and – on most days – a time change of an hour. It all feels ceremonial and romantic and charming.

A technology holiday

We bought one of their expensive satellite internet packages and certainly we have used it but there is something refreshing about being so restricted in our phonetime. We find ourselves reading rather than checking Facebook or our emails. And when we do get a few moments to log in, we find that few of our emails were urgent, and few of the Facebook posts on our newsfeed were actually the sort of personal news from our friends that we care about. It may not last, but it drove home to us that we don’t necessarily receive much added value from checking Facebook, email and the like on a ten-minutely basis. What is also nice is that for the most part, nobody else is using screens either. Our eyes are largely unsullied by the trappings of the 21^st century. Other than different fashions, it feels surprisingly similar to some of the black and white films of such voyages. I’m on the look out for card sharks and heiresses.

It is rather delightful to find everything a hop, skip and a jump away

One might think it dull to be constrained to one ship for a whole week. In fact it is delightful. There are so many places to sit, so many entertainment venues, so many restaurants… and the surprising convenience of popping up to our room to grab a cardigan, or a glass of fizz on the balcony (or sneak a look at the next day’s program). Of course our room is always sparkling clean and beautifully tidy, so it’s always nice to return. But it’s not a hassle to go anywhere. And it means you can fit in more fun too: in a single morning I can go for a swim, have breakfast, attend a class, a talk, some live music, and still have time for a game of Scrabble in a cosy corner overlooking the water.

The scenery is glorious

Speaking of overlooking the water, it is neverendingly lovely to look out over the Atlantic. The waves from the vantage point of our eleventh floor balcony seem smooth and hypnotic, while from down on the second floor Scrabble nook, they’re thrilling. The decks are full of tasteful loungers and there is a surprising amount of sun. I was sad to not see dolphins but the water is fun in itself.

The food is rather excellent

Given our tickets, we were assigned to the ‘cheap’ restaurant, the Britannia, and braced ourselves for the worst . Wrong. The dinners have been delicious, and served with all the pomp and circumstance one could wish. The vegetarian enthusiasm has been impressive, with at least two starter and main course options… and an entire other menu we can order in advance if we don’t like the sound of these selections. There is also an almost-constant buffet, which is rather good. And the afternoon teas… the stuff of dreams. And last night’s 10:30pm ‘chocolate and ice buffet’ (choux pastry, chocolate, and ice sculptures) could only be dubbed divine decadence.

The people are remarkably friendly

I am sure that people who take a voyage on the Queen Mary 2 come from all sorts of life (and noting that you can actually do this trip for very little money if you get a good deal), and yet there is a lovely non-judgmental vibe to the boat. There seem to be very few gay couples on board and we had to summon our courage to get up and dance, but once we did, we felt far less shy than we would on a dance floor on land. We knew our dancing skills left something to be desired, but people were smiling and non-judgmental (or not obviously so). People seemed to get less irritated with each other. When we encountered a sparring pair of young siblings, they felt crass and out of place. The order of the day seems to be to embody charm to match our surroundings and bizarrely it seems to work. I can’t remember feeling more serene.

I have just spotted the first sign of land as we near the UK. There is seaweed floating past. I’ve seen the only other ship since we set off, and some seagulls. The signs are there: tomorrow our voyage ends. It’s hard to explain, but it HAS felt as though these seven days need a special necklace string all to themselves. It has been glorious. I wish it wasn’t ending yet. But there is the thrill of a return to London… and the possibility of another cruise sometime soon!

In which Roz and Layla become cruise people aboard the Queen Mary 2

By Roz

I’d never really had cause to go to the British Embassy Post Office until this year.  But my mother’s death brought with it a raft of paperwork and I found our Post Office to be almost identical to one in Britain, right down to the pen chained to the counter.  But the posters on the wall were slightly different, and one day I noticed a poster saying “Finishing your tour? Why not return by boat?”  I paid little attention to this curiosity at the time, but mentioned it to Layla more or less in passing at breakfast at the Blue Duck Tavern on her birthday.  She paused, after I said this. And then said: “well, why not indeed – shall we?”.  And so it was that on her birthday morning I found myself walking to work and googling transatlantic crossings. 

In the run-up to the trip, I had a number of anxieties. Layla and I aren’t really cruise people, I told myself. We are known for our energetic and rather less-than-comfortable travel plans, preferably to obscure post-war zones and the like. Surely we should really be devoting the week to doing something suitably intrepid? There was also a little bit of guilt – this was the kind of trip which my mother would have wholeheartedly approved of and it seemed wrong to do it and not be able to tell her about it.  But underneath all of these emotions was a feeling of pure excitement that was sparked by all the books I’ve read over the years about emigrating to the US in the late 19^th and early 20^th century and all the glamorous Hollywood films set on board transatlantic liners I’ve seen.

Arriving at the cruise terminal in Brooklyn, we giggled with delight at the sight of the very beautiful Queen Mary 2 and at the improbable idea that we were about to board it. Or rather, Her. We’d assumed that security and so forth would be a dreary and drawn-out process (as it is in airports).  But nothing could have been further from the truth. I can’t remember the last time we travelled romantically but as our bags were swept away, we were swooped along a gangway and before long found ourselves stepping onto a plush carpet in the lobby and gazing up at the chandelier in some bemusement – it isn’t often, after all, that you feel as though you’ve stepped onto a movie set. 

We got the lift up to our cabin and congratulated ourselves on taking our friend’s advice to get a cabin with a see-through balcony – it made the room feel gloriously light and let us look out over well, Brooklyn pier, but soon to be the ocean waves. We noted a big bed, a desk and chair, a little sofa, our balcony seating, en suite bathroom… and a bottle of champagne from the captain chilling on the coffee table. We stared disconcertedly at the room service menu that stated everything was free of charge, and could be promptly summoned on a whim, 24 hours a day. Seeing a wicked flash in Layla’s eyes, I instituted an executive rule: no summoning of hot apple pie and custard after midnight…

We then went off to explore, starting at the bottom of the boat and working our way up. It feels a bit like a huge, beautiful old hotel. The décor is a fabulous mix of sumptuous extravagance and old-movie elegance. We poked our noses into the lovely theatre, meandered round the various cocktail rooms and restaurants (in addition to the room service, there’s a buffet available all day and meals in restaurants and a pub, all included – in fact there’s nothing to stop us having three of each type of meal each day). In view of this, following my pleading (despite reluctance from Layla), we identified the gym. That all done, we marched round the deck of the boat, took photos, and generally did a jump of glee. This was to be a whole new travel adventure.

Back in our room we unpacked, contemplated that we really ought to do washing in their free laundrette… and then determinedly put that thought out of our minds and instead settled down to read the day’s meticulously detailed programme which had been left on our bed, advising us of our many entertainment options for every hour of the day. But before we could act on that, we were summoned to the emergency drill and practised putting on life jackets and the like. And then we headed off to the Commodore Club for an official meeting of “Friends of Dorothy”, as per the daily programme’s instructions. It was quite cheery to meet some of the other gays on the boat but we didn’t linger too long, since we were keen to be in the perfect spot on the boat to appreciate our departure from New York at 6pm. 

We ended up settling for a spot on the 8^th deck at the back of the boat which had champagne and cheery music. And soon enough, we were off! I have to say that our departure from New York really wasn’t cheery at all. Like pulling off a plaster very slowly, we inched our way further and further from the shore and the skyline and our adopted home while the live band played ‘We Are Sailing’ and ‘New York, New York’ and we all waved US flags and drank champagne. It felt momentous and heart-breaking and we both wept.  But it was fun to see random passers-by waving at the boat.  And passing the Statue of Liberty felt suitably like one of the many books I’ve read about the crossing. Then we went under a bridge and into the open water, the Statue of Liberty receded into the horizon… and we were truly off.

And so we headed down to dinner (having changed, first, naturally) in the Britannia Restaurant.  Dinner was elegant and excellent (and has been excellent every night subsequently) with much surprising enthusiasm for pleasing vegetarian guests.  After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show with the Queen Mary’s singers and dancers which was perfectly good and thereafter we went to the Queen’s ballroom where a live band played and we drank cocktails and envied the dancing skills of other passengers – til we were both asked to dance a foxtrot by the official dance hosts, which was certainly painful for them but quite fun for us. And then to bed!

I slept beautifully. Layla, however, was awoken by a huge thunderstorm, which she claims lit up the whole room with lightening.  Ah well, my ability to sleep through loud noises and bright lights will serve us well when we are soon living next door to Brixton Police Station…  Next morning, I persuaded Layla that she should come to the gym with me. She reluctantly agreed, but not before summoning (free) room service to bring us coffee and juice. As you do. We went for a brief run once around the deck (a third of a mile) before going inside and getting into the gym which I found to be exactly like every other gym I’ve ever been to (dull) but which Layla seemed more enthusiastic than usual about because she was able to complete a soduku puzzle whilst on an elliptical… I have to say I’ve never seen anyone moving slower on an elliptical machine…

After breakfast, I intended to go to see fruit carving whilst Layla went to a drama class run by RADA.  But I got sidetracked by the lure of the largest floating library in the world and had a very pleasant time sitting in a brilliant library seat looking out over the front of the ship, reading my book and slightly imagining I was captaining it.  We then reconvened at a lecture by an ITN cameraman called Phil Bye (where I confessed shamefacedly to Layla that I’d skipped my fruit carving whilst she told me I’d been an idiot for not coming to the excellent drama class).  I’m not sure what I expected from the talk…but Phil Bye was lively and absorbing and it’s one of the best of that kind of talks I’ve heard – I’d have been very happy had I paid to attend. It was then lunch (delicious).  After which Layla headed to a watercolour class whilst I returned to my book (feeling happy but guilty).  Layla reappeared cheerily enough, having joined a subversive movement in the watercolour class and painted something completely different to what they’d been told to do (glad I wasn’t her teacher) and we headed to afternoon tea. On the Queen Mary 2, afternoon tea is the most elegant of institutions, involving a live band, delightful scones, cucumber sandwiches and tiny, beautiful cakes… and of course, really good tea. The waiters offered us an infinite amount of each. We mused on how many scones it was legitimate for one person to eat in a day and then decided that it was best to gloss over this for fear of setting ourselves a rule we wouldn’t / couldn’t keep to on subsequent days.  We then sat and read our books before the “formal” dinner, Layla lamenting her lack of reading time due to so many good activities.  The formal refers, of course, to formalwear (three of the evenings are thus designated) and we were interested to see how others would interpret this.  We’d brought two cocktail dresses each (taking up far too much space in our luggage!) and worried that everyone would either look more glamorous than us – or less.  But it turned out we were just about right, and it was super fun to come down to dinner to find everyone in white tie and fancy dresses. 

After dinner, we were a little bemused about what to do, since the next entertainment wasn’t for a while (and it seems we have become people who are very enthusiastic about being entertained at all times!).  We ended up going on a wander round the boat.  On the top deck we found a ping pong table, which was lots of fun until children came to claim it from us.  But by this time the sun had started to set and so we went out and found ourselves on a deserted top deck and watched then sunset in a ridiculously picturesque movie moment. Thereafter we went to the theatre to listen to a really terrific singer from New Zealand perform a range of songs from opera to Broadway and then headed to the Winter Garden, where the RADA troupe did a good staged reading of the history of Cunard. Finally, we headed to the ballroom to watch the dancing. We mused that the combination of being the only visibly gay people and the only really terrible dancers was an unfortunate one – if only one had been true, then it would have been so much easier to get on to the dance floor.  However, we eventually got up our nerve for one dance before bed. 

The next morning, I persuaded Layla to come to the gym for a second time (such a thing has never been heard of before but the infinite scones were striking anxiety in her dieting aspirations).  The day delivered a good combination of engaging speakers (one on Howard Hughes), a planetarium show, afternoon tea (again the existential question: is there such a thing as too many scones?), walking round the boat and reading on our balcony and in the library.  We also saw a terrific production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the RADA troupe (the only time I’ve ever found the play within a play interesting, which is no mean feat).  After dinner, we played ping pong (I won many times – ha!) before heading down to the evening’s show “Crazy in Love”.  This was fine, but the real excitement of the evening was the big band concert – back in the ballroom, bringing together both of the ship’s orchestras.  We again had a debate about the merits of dancing or not, but then decided that talentless though we are, we find it jolly and thus we should bite the bullet.  And so we did, dancing away to a variety of numbers from Glenn Miller to Frank Sinatra alongside some outstanding ballroom dancers. When we got up, we were the only gays on the dancefloor, but when the last song played, two other same sex couples had joined us, and we felt we had staged a mini-revolution… 

And then to bed.  We would never have seen ourselves as cruise people before now.  But for once I’m very glad to have been proved wrong.