2017 Year in Review

2016 may have been my first complete year without graduate school but 2017 was my first complete year without graduate school and the proper time to plan trips. The result was several incredible journeys with friends and family and my most country-countingest year ever: 21!*

Before I re-hash some favorites, I’ve just come back from a trip with Dad to Honduras and Guatemala. We cruised Mayan ruins, saw Star Wars in Spanish, and visited a fort.** The trip trifecta, if you will. 

I also neglected to post about a lovely Thanksgiving week at Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia.*** The island was beautiful and it was incredible to be so close to home and feel so remote. We rode bikes, toured old homes, and were thankful for each other’s company. The Thanksgiving trifecta, if you still will.

Looking back at the many trips of 2017, I have a lot of favorite things beyond the amazing places I visited. In perhaps chronological order:

• In Lebanon I ate a magical dessert that was delicious and also was a giant chocolate ball that dissolved when a sauce was poured on it and revealed the gourmet equivalent of a Nestle’s Crunch bar inside. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think of it often.

• To fly to and from French Guiana/Suriname/Guyana, AT and I had a completely bonkers flight plan that included four different Caribbean countries. We got stuck in one and flew a completely empty plane out of it.****

• Teachers Summer was a reality in London with frolleagues in one of my all time favorite cities. 

• What “favorite things” list would be complete without a tribute to the queen of all things that are favorites?

• The accidental theme of riding bicycles places with fellow sporty people.*****

• Hamilton. 

• Friendships? More like friendTRIPS!

• 2018 needs more beaches, but St. Lucia came through after hurricanes canceled a few other plans. 

• And of course, these goofs. 

I can’t wait to see where 2018 will take me. I hope everyone has a wonderful start to the new year!

Love,

KT

*As always, country counting is designated by the Traveler’s Century Club. I continue to remind you that I did not make the list but I must now disclose that I am a local chapter advisor.******

**We now consider ourselves to be fort experts (Fortperts? Expforts?) and I can tell you this one was highly enjoyable due to: 1) no insane climb to get there, 2) abundant greenery and flowers, 3) no lectures about how people were tortured. The fort trifecta, if you must. 

***This was not a failure on the trip’s fault and was 100% a failure on December’s fault. December is a very busy time to be a musician, a teacher, or a music teacher, let alone all three. 

****Also I forgot to pack underwear so now whenever I pack for a trip someone in the family asks if I packed underwear this time and laughs. You’re welcome, family. 

*****Not pictured is bikes in Indianapolis with Robert. Probably because we were on actual roads and neither of us would have been coordinated enough to take a picture, ride a bike, and avoid crashing into traffic. 

******A completely separate story that I am happy to share in person about how improperly timed meals can lead you to make questionable life choices. 

13 Reasons Why . . .

. . . Train Travel is the Best Travel: An Incomplete List

Do I always travel by train? Of course not, I'm American.* But when I have the chance, I love to travel by train, especially European trains. On this trip I have a Eurail pass that allows me to travel on any train for five days in a month-long period. Some trains require a specific seat reservation, but none have been required on my routes so far. With the pass you can download an app that has all the train routes and lets you put in your to/from location and times.

In no particular order, here is why I think train travel is the best:

1. No security lines! No need to sort your liquids into baggies, you can keep your shoes on, and you don't need to feel awkward when you stand in the body scanner with your legs spread and hands up for what is definitely longer than five seconds. 
2. You don't need to be there hours early. This is probably because of reason #1 but since you can jump right on the train, there is absolutely no reason to be to the station more than ten minutes before departure. Do I still show up too early because my father** has made me paranoid? Of course I do, but I'm trying to make it only about 20 minutes early and then I buy a baked good to take on the train so it's all worth it.
   
3. There are reserved and unreserved seats. I enjoy the freedom of unreserved where you can pick your seat for best window view or whatever your pleasure is. Sometimes it's nice to have a reserved seat, though, so you don't have to hunt around and can just plop yourself down. 
4. The View!
   
5. You can walk around all the time. On a plane*** you're very limited. Sometimes the seatbelt sign is on, sometimes you're in the window and would need to trip over strangers, and sometimes you're faced with the fact that there's nowhere to walk to. Not on the train! You can walk to other cars and move around freely. 
6. Wide aisles and no seat belts. I mean, you're either moving forward or stopping so there's not too much to secure. As for the aisles, I don't know why this feels like such an absurd luxury, but it does.
7. You are often reminded of your favorite train songs. Mine include:
1. "Casey Junior" from Dumbo
2. "C'mon Ride the Train (Whoot Whoot)" from 1990s Jock Jams
3.  "This Train is Bound for Glory" (this train)
4. "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain"****
5. "Midnight Train to Georgia "(I got ta go, I got ta go) 
8. You can get on and off the train quickly. Ever feel like the plane is loading but everyone in front of you has simultaneously lost the ability to walk or function as a human? Not on the train. 
9. You can get food all the time! They have a car for that!*****
10. Want to get there at a different time? Take a different train, no bigs! You don't need to change your ticket or talk to a gate agent. Just get on a different train. 
11. Unlimited baggage. Sure, you have to carry it, but if you want to bring eight different bags, no one will stop you. 
12.  Free Wifi. It hasn't been on every train but when it has, it has, again, felt like a complete luxury.******
13. Finally! A chance to use all those vocab words from Spanish class! It was never explained to me in eighth grade Spanish why we learned all about the train station. Now I get it. 

Go ride a train and discover what living is really like. 

-KT

*Meaning I am not freight, there is an ocean between my departure and destination, or it's just really far, y'all. 

**Love you, Dad! Happy almost-Father's Day!

***Do not even get me started on road trips. 

****I don't think this song is even train specific but it really works. 

*****It feels wrong that this falls so late in the list. I remind you that these are in no order.

******This post is coming from inside the train.

Point Pickup

Earlier this week, I dropped the children and the responsible chaperones* at Heathrow airport and went to pick up some country points. I boarded a train for Paddington Station and then Cardiff, Wales.** The countryside quickly became lush rolling hills broken up with small villages. Cardiff has a super cute downtown area complete with a castle, a park, and museums, surrounded by a bigger city. I enjoyed the obligatory tourist attractions including the castle***, the national museum with an art floor and a natural history floor****, and a boat ride to Cardiff Bay. 

From Cardiff I took the train to Birmingham. Birmingham was shockingly hip and with it! I stayed downtown along the canals that originally transported goods to factories and that has now has been redone into a whole live-work-play metropolis. The hotel clerk specifically told me to check out the library and she was right!

The area around the library and obligatorily-attended art museum is being entirely redone to be a pedestrian-only green space. My accidental trip to Birmingham***** made me want to return in a few years when everything is fully done!

From Birmingham I flew to Guernsey****** for the day. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands and is everything you could ask for in a quaint British seaside. I toured a few places in St Peter's Port but the total highlight was Victor Hugo's house. He lived there for 15 years while politically exiled from France. He designed the house to have as much symbolism as his books.******* The house goes from dark to light as you go upstairs to represent the humanist ideal. An entire room was dedicated to the dead and was never actually used. Oh, and also, Hugo gave the house to France when he died and the house is still technically French property.********

The next day I flew to Zurich, Switzerland. The town is picture perfect and these Swiss do not mess around with their clocks. I don't know what is supposed to happen at 7pm on Fridays but the clocks chimed and rang for a solid fifteen minutes all through town. The National Museum had a giant working clock wheel and there was no thing to read about how cool it was.

A highlight for me was Frauminster Church with stained glass windows by Giacometti and Chagall. Aside from the windows, the church had a simple Reformationist style. 

I also day-tripped to Liechtenstein. The train ride went along Lake Zurich and through the Alps and was gorgeous. The town of Valduz was a short bus ride into Liechtenstein and was cute and clean and sunny- everything a gal could want!

I ended Zurich times with a walk along the lake and an opera. The true European experience must be seeing an opera in Italian set in Sweden with German subtitles in Switzerland next to French people.*********

Tomorrow, Salzburg!

-KT

*I got you next trip, Dream Team!

**Expect a later post on the sheer ridiculous ease of train travel

***British for "fort"

****I skipped the dinosaur floor, natch. 

*****Not truly accidental but planned only for its airport destinations

******A super solid country point counting experience. We flew with a stop in Jersey so it was a two-fer!

*******The next literature teacher that gets asked if all that symbolism is intentional deserves a class trip to Guernsey. 

********Bonus point???

*********#EU #strongertogether