ACV Abroad

Apple cider vinegar, if you haven't already heard from all the numerous sources proclaiming its usefulness, is a wonder-substance. It can help with acne; it can apparently make your hair shinier (I've never tried that...); and most importantly, it can help to you avoid getting sick or, if you're already there, it can help you get better faster. These facts are nothing earth-shattering. Type "apple cider vinegar" into a Pinterest search bar and you'll be scrolling infinitely.

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My family has always used apple cider vinegar when we have a cold. My parents would always just add it to water, but as kids that offended our tongue's sensibilities, and so we added it to apple juice. Ideally, you don't want to take it with anything with sugar, since that counteracts the benefits of the vinegar, but it helped nonetheless. We'd find ourselves better in no time!

And so, whilst in England and finding myself coming down with cold-like symptoms, I knew I needed to find some. I took to Google and searched for the nearest grocery store. It was 0.8 miles, and despite my only available transportation method being my own two feet, I headed out.

I picked up some apple juice boxes (with no added sugar!), a bottle of apple cider vinegar, and of course some "dinner" of a small baguette, a block of extra-sharp cheddar, and a Lindt chocolate bar for dessert. I also threw in some cough drops for good measure, since instant gratification is sometimes useful.

After heading back to the hotel, I realized I was a little short on necessary supplies - a cup, for example. And so...here is how to consume your apple cider vinegar as if you were in the woods.

Step 1: Open your juice box, drink a little so it doesn't spill, and then rip open the top:

Step 2: Once you have your juice box opened, pour some amount of ACV directly into the hold you created, ignoring the fact that it feels like you're spiking your juice:

Step 3: Drink up!

When I woke up the next morning, I felt great! It worked its magic, but I did it again the next night with my remaining juice, since I didn't want to waste the bottle of vinegar. Curse those small liquid limit TSA regulations.

There you have it: how to stay healthy in a foreignish country.

London at a (Shallow) Glance

I have three individual posts about London for this week, so if you don't like to read about traveling...either brace yourself or just don't read. Maybe - just maybe - I'll try to intersperse them with other things, but I can't promise anything!

Since almost all of my traveling these days is business travel, any time that I have for sight-seeing is extremely limited. As a result, I've developed what I think could be most accurately called "walk-by tourism." In other words, I make a dent on the surface of the city, covering as many things as possible in the shortest amount of time. I did a similar thing back when I traveled to Norway in May. On this trip, I finished working on Thursday evening and then got dinner in a charming little pub called the Rose and Crown. Chaz said that it was a must-do on my trip, because he ate there any time he traveled to the same location.

On Friday, I woke up very early so that I could make my way into London. My flight wasn't until 7:15 that evening, so by the time I finally made it into the city at 10:30, I had approximately 5 or 5.5 hours until I needed to start making my way to the airport. Naturally, I decided to cram as many things as were humanly possible into those five hours, and I think I succeeded!  In total, I walked almost exactly 5 miles. Here's the pictorial evidence:

Stop 1: Victoria and Albert Museum

This was the only stop where I actually spent a significant amount of time. It's a beautiful museum and it's free, which is always a plus! It's full of magnificent artwork, including sculptures, which are my favorite. This time they also had an exhibit about fashion through the ages, and they had examples of dresses from each decade starting in the 70s and going back to about 1750. After about an hour and a half, I started walking. First, I walked through Harrods, because when in London...

It was far too luxurious for my taste, so I stopped at H&M immediately after that. Who needs Prada when you can get a dress for $15? 

I also passed one of these guys on the way:

After Harrods/H&M, I continued on to Buckingham Palace:

I made a special note to include the collection of mysterious royal music stands in the photo.

After that, I hopped on the tube and made my way to St. Paul's Cathedral. I had every intention of going inside to look around, but after entering the foyer and discovering that it cost £18, I decided to be satisfied with the view I could get from the line and then a perusal of the outside, which is also impressive.

Can you tell that I like that angle...?

At this point, it was 2:30 and I had covered all the things that I definitely wanted to get into my trip. But I still had an hour and a half, so I found a nearby map of London and plotted my continuing route: cross the Thames by way of the Millennium Bridge (you know...the one you see the dementors fly over in Harry Potter 5, 6, 7, or maybe 8), walk along the river and pass the Globe Theater, walk until finding the Tower Bridge (the big fancy one), and pass by the Tower of London. And so that's what I did, along with some additional things I stumbled across along the way:

From the other side of the Millennium Bridge.

A bad picture of the Globe.

The London Bridge, which was not actually falling down.

The remains of Winchester Palace, a 12th century palace for bishops and their guests.

A cheesy selfie with the Tower Bridge...

The Tower of London (where I'll spend much more time if I get to go again).

After that, I bought myself a sweatshirt and headed back to the airport with rather sore feet.

To summarize:

1) It is entirely possible to see a lot of a city in five hours if you're willing to go quickly. Now I feel like if I go back, I can check out a couple of things in greater depth and not feel like I'll miss out on the other major attractions.

2) You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a good overview of London. My most expensive purchase (other than the sweatshirt...) was a £17.50 travelcard pass that let me go on any bus or tube for the entire day. That saved me a lot, since I took the train from all the way outside the city in the beginning of the day, between areas of the city in the middle of the day, and all the way back out to the airport at the end.

3) London has a lot of really cool stuff! 

And there you have it.

Travel Hazards

I had every intention of blogging both on Tuesday and Wednesday. Really, I did! But traveling thwarted the very best of my intentions, and now here we are on Thursday, finally catching up.

I did indeed manage to fit everything into my backpack. I'm rather proud of that feat. However, this trip represents the closest I have ever come to missing a flight. I left with what I thought was plenty of time, but what happened was this:

What you're beholding in this photo is me at an absolutely complete stop on the road 35 minutes prior to when I was supposed to be done boarding the plane. It had been like this for the last hour, and I was freaking out. Calmly. Because I don't externally panic. But you'd better believe I was panicked on the inside.

It was at this point that I canceled my off-site parking reservation, because I realized I'd never make it in time if I had to stop, park my car, hop on a shuttle, and dive right back into the fray. The man on the other end of the phone said, "Well, no problem, I can cancel it for you...I just hope the garage at the airport isn't full!" I almost laughed, because it's never been full when I parked before.

Guess what. It was full. I believe the actual words that went through my head were, "WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS?!?" and yes, my mind both bolded and italicized all of it. Convinced the universe was conspiring against me, I drove in regardless, where they were valet parking everyone that was required to park. I'm just hoping that I don't have an even more than ordinary exorbitant fee when I get back to Logan, since it was unavoidable.

After literally running all the way to the terminal, I stood in line while the world's slowest TSA agent took a full minute to check everyone's ticket and ID ahead of mine. At long last, they called any remaining passengers on my flight forward to the front of the line (which meant going ahead of the one single person left before me), and I made it on to the flight as the very last passenger boarding before they shut the door. 

I have never been quite as relieved as I was when I was finally settled into my seat.

Everything after the mad dash/slow crawl to the flight has been marvelous. I'm currently outside of London in a small town called Chertsey, and I'm internally narrating this blog post in an involuntary British accent that I'm incapable of muting. Now that the business part of the trip is finished, I'll be heading into the city tomorrow to explore. More on that later, provided I get to the airport prior to my plane departing! In the meantime, I'm curling up with a lovely bar of chocolate, the likes of which accompany me on every business trip if I can help it.

Packing Light

Normally, work trips take me somewhat boring places, like Columbus, Ohio or Bethesda, Maryland. That's not to say that I don't find cool things to do there (although that's not really the point of a business trip), but if I had a choice as to where I got to jet off to, it probably wouldn't be there. Well...this time I lucked out, and I'm heading to London tomorrow.

It's a quick trip: fly on Tuesday, arriving at 7:15 pm. Work for two days. Fly back on Friday. But on Friday, my flight isn't until 7:00 pm, which means that I have all day to scoot around London and act like a tourist. 

I learned from my Oslo trip that if you're going to be going around a city, it's best to not have to lug around a suitcase. I'm a light packer - last time I just had one rolling bag - but even with that, it's not fun to have extra baggage along for the ride.

So this time, I'm going even lighter. London, I'm coming to you...with only a backpack. 

I'm pretty sure I can do it, but I'll report from the airport tomorrow, and we'll see then how it worked out...

The Hike

Well, the wedding was about as glorious as could be expected. The weather completely cooperated - picture the perfect Vermont fall day, and you have it exactly right. Perfectly clear blue sky, vibrant leaves, crisp air, you name it, and it was there. I will recap it in the near future, but it won't be today! Instead, I'm going to reverse the order and talk about Sunday first.

We were heathens. We skipped church. But I might argue that once in a great while, spending your Sunday morning out in nature is just a little bit like church. 

Since we were on a bit of a limited time budget, we decided to spend time outside with the family. Christopher, the only remaining child at home, will no longer be at home as of Wednesday as he's flying out to California to spend 10 months working with AmeriCorps. That, combined with the fact that we were visiting, gave us the perfect excuse to go for a hike and soak in the extraordinary beauty that is Vermont in the fall. 

And thus we found ourselves on our way to Sterling Pond on Sunday, following an attempt to eat breakfast that had us stop at three different places before getting a seat. Leaf peepers...they're the worst.

This particular trail leads the average-paced hiker on a 45-minute trek uphill to a pond, and if you tack on an extra five minutes you can get to the top of a ski trail with an amazing view. (We did both.) The first 10 minutes of the hike are essentially stone steps, and it is hilarious to people-watch. As my dad said, "Well...you can tell just at a glance who's going to make it to the top and who isn't!" We passed:

• A girl wearing sparkly Ugg boots
• A girl wearing ankle boots, a dress coat, and a scarf
• A guy going barefoot
• The real hikers

We can't really judge as we weren't really fully prepared either, but we at least had reasonable footwear. And I guess you can't really tell for sure, because the barefoot guy was actually heading down instead of up.

After a spell, we made it to the pond.

Despite the seeming calm of the picture, the place was actually a bit crowded, so we didn't stay there long. However, it's worth noting that a girl wearing leather riding boots had made it that far. Mad props, riding boot girl. Continuing on the extra five minutes, we made it to the top.

I call this picture "The Hair-Do, the Lack of Muscles, and Usain Bolt."

Behold. Pictures from the peak. 

I expect to see this picture on my parents' Christmas card this year. #photocredits.

After having our fill of both clambering over ski lift equipment and munching some Swedish Fish I'd squirreled into my bag, we turned around and headed home.

All in all, I think it was a fitting parting adventure. On the way back to Massachusetts that evening I thought about Vermont and how lucky I was to grow up there. Being surrounded by that much beauty all the time can't help but encourage folks to get outside and explore, and having a strongly instilled longing for exploration is not a bad thing to claim as my own. I miss living there. MA does have a lot to offer in terms of pre-built attractions - I'll give it that much - but the ever-present sense of wildness at your doorstep is something that can't exist in a place where the land is mostly flat and the houses are a little more squished together. 

We're back at home now (in MA), but thinking fondly of a place where breathtaking beauty is a part of everyday life.

Portrait of a Business Trip

By this time, it's a generally known fact that I take a lot of business trips over the summer.  Thus, because I'm totally positive that you must be interested in every second of what happens on one of those trips, here's a recap. 

There are three things to arrange ahead of time: plane ticket, hotel, and transportation. Normally, transportation means a rental car, but that might be either a train (if in Europe) or other public transportation (if anywhere else near a city) depending on where you're going. At my best, I'll arrange that a month or two before the trip. At my worst, well...let's just say I've booked a rental car while flying on a plane with wi-fi. That's never a good idea though, because they have absolutely no incentive to give you a good rate. 

Three quick recommendations: for flights, sign up to get miles from a couple different airlines. I try to always fly JetBlue in the US and American outside the US, because miles have pretty great benefits if you stock up over time.

For hotels, Hotels.com is also really good. They have a lot of hotels to pick from, and for every 10 nights you stay at a hotel booked through them, you get a free night! 

For rental cars, I recently discovered Sixt. Their cars were new and clean, I got a better car for the amount paid each time, their customer service is really friendly, and most importantly, their lines move about 50% faster than all the others. What more could you want from a rental car company?

I usually pack the morning of the trip, because I'm a procrastinator. Fact of life. I'm also a pretty minimalist packer, so a carry on + a personal item is more than enough room. I'll get to the airport around 1.5 hours before leaving, where I'll often meet up with anyone else who's going on the trip. 

Obviously, flying on a plane is flying on a plane. Nothing earth-shattering to report there. Except! JetBlue has FREE wi-fi on some of their planes. Best perk of all time.

Eventually, we get to the hotel and I usually collapse before getting ready for bed.

Doing this is always a bad idea, because it takes me about 30 extra minutes to motivate myself to get myself back up again and ready for bed. 

Eventually I'll get myself there though, and the next morning, we'll head to the school, where we'll train all day long. I looooove having co-workers along with me, because it makes the day go so much faster when you get to share training with someone else. At the very least, it's nice to not end the day with a sore throat!

Explaining a database is just that exciting. Let me tell you ALL about it!

Depending on the school, the time we finish varies. If I'm by myself, I'll usually go somewhere else, spend an hour or two catching up on the other things that have happened during the day, find some food, go back to the hotel and watch junk tv (I watch the Bachelor on business trips - don't judge), and fall asleep. If I'm with someone else, we'll try to go see some of the sights. 

Usually we'll be wherever we are for two or three days, and when that's all over, we'll fly home.

And now you know how I spend a lot of time in the summer. Your life will never be the same.

Catching Up with Common Sense

Believe or not, but the TSA has invented something that just might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don't think that's an exaggeration, because let's be honest...most of the best inventions came before sliced bread. The wheel? Toothbrushes? Keys? All before sliced bread.

Two words: TSA Precheck. Or TSA Pre✓, if you want to be totally literal.

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I discovered the magic this summer while traveling for work...but it wasn't because I had it myself. No, why would I take the easy route? Instead, I was stuck going through normal security while my two coworkers breezed through in five minutes or less with their own special line.

This picture was actually taken before we went through security at the Reagan airport in DC, but this is exactly how they felt afterward while they were waiting for me.

Here's what happens. You fill out an application online and then schedule an appointment for an in-person interview of sorts. On the day of your appointment, you go to wherever that appointment is, answer a couple of questions, pay a fee, and you're good to go through security for the next five years with a special line, no need to take your shoes off, no need to take your computer out of your bag, no need to remove your jacket, and five extra springs in your step PER TRIP because you just saved yourself time and the humiliation of someone patting you down because you had a few bobby pins in your hair. Because that happens and it's way awkward.

So finally, Chaz and I came to our senses and filled out the application on Monday. Our in-person appointment was this morning, and now, or at least within 45 days, we will officially each have a Known Traveler Number and can enjoy all the benefits of the government being aware of the fact that we aren't bent on destroying things en route to a school to train them on how to use software. Or vacation, I suppose.

Heading in...

They don't let you have a phone out while you're doing the short interview (for obvious reasons), so I can't give you any fantastically enthralling images of the nice lady taking my fingerprints or me filling out a survey, but that's pretty much all it takes. Aside from the fee and the slight inconvenience of the fact that the TSA Precheck booth is only open during regular business hours, there no reason not to do it. I mean, look how happy we were walking out! Don't you want to experience that kind of joy when traveling?

Arguably, I can't really profess the full benefits until we actually get the number and try it out for the first time, but you can count on getting an update when that day comes. Won't that be the most interesting blog post? Don't get too excited.