Well, it’s been a while!
I don’t know if it’s Mercury being in retrograde or the summer weather or just a good old case of wanderlust. But I have been feeling NOSTALGIC AF recently! (Note: I’m publishing this in September, but I wrote this as a journal entry back in July!) I’ve been looking back at the exciting travels I’ve taken, cities I’ve lived in, experiences I’ve had, and people I’ve met along the way. I’ve started journaling this year, but recently I’ve had the urge to start blogging again. So I’m giving it a go!
So, where have I been the past 6-ish years?
After finishing my master’s degree in London, I had to return to the US for a bit when my visa ended. On February 29, 2020… And we all know what happened about two weeks later. So my original plans of spending the summer back in London, then a few months in France, and 2021 on a working holiday visa in Ireland had to be swapped for quiet days isolating with my parents and cockapoo in the small Massachusetts town that I grew up in. Looking back, it was amazing to spend so much quality time with them – it was probably the last extended period of time I’ll ever spend living with them which is actually so sad to think about.
I got to sneak in a few adventures along the way too. Once the travel regulations eased up a little (emphasis on little), I was able to spend a few months with my then-boyfriend (now husband!) Alex back in London after a strict two-week quarantine. Back in the US, my mom and I took a mental health trip to Miami when the Covid numbers were low, then I was able to get back over to the UK in summer 2021 (after another strict quarantine of course). That summer was spent mainly up north and also included a fun friends’ trip to Scotland and the Lake District!
Then in fall 2021 when I got back to the US, I felt like I needed a change and moved to Chicago for three months. I LOVED getting to know the city, and if we ever move back to the US, I can totally see us living there. And that was also when the travel restrictions to the US finally lifted a bit, and Alex was able to visit me in Chicago!
For my 30th birthday in December 2021, we went on a cute trip to Finland. We did Helsinki, took a day trip to Tallinn, Estonia, and we caught the “Santa Claus Express” train up to Lapland, which actually felt like a fairy tale. And that’s also the spot where we got engaged!
We had a small legal wedding ceremony in Plymouth, MA with our immediate families and then a bigger wedding celebration at a gorgeous manor house in Yorkshire. Some of my extended family came over from the US, and it was so fun introducing them to York, rural West Yorkshire, London, and Brighton.
Then Alex and I went on the ultimate honeymoon to Tanzania! We went to Zanzibar, a weeklong safari in mainland Tanzania, a hike on Mount Kilimanjaro, then a much-needed week of R&R at an all-inclusive back in Zanzibar. It was the perfect blend of adventure and relaxation, and I’ve been itching to go on another safari ever since!
I won’t even get into how complicated, long, and expensive the visa process was for me to move back over to the UK. (Even once we were married, I still had to go back to the US to sort out my visa.) Alongside my freelance writing, I did some dog walking and dog sitting (the actual dream job!) and fit in a solo getaway to New Orleans.
Once my visa finally got approved, I moved back to the UK in March 2023!
We live on the outskirts of London now, and I’ve been absolutely loving being back in one of my favourite cities in the world!
And I’ve also loved how easy it is to travel around Europe! Our first flat was a £2 bus ride away from Stansted Airport, so we took lots of trips. Bordeaux, Warsaw, Eindhoven and Amsterdam, Gothenburg, a couple Greek islands and Athens, a solo trip to Budapest, Dubrovnik, Bremen, Pisa and Florence, a girls’ trip to the Algarve with a friend. And last spring we took an epic three-week trip to Australia and New Zealand, and it was absolutely amazing introducing Alex to a part of the world that is so special to me. (If you didn’t know, I lived in Melbourne between 2015-2017 and absolutely fell in love with it. Honestly, I would move back there in a heartbeat if we had the opportunity, and it was great to see that Alex loved it too!)
I’ve also gotten to explore even more of the UK, and I’m always finding somewhere new and exciting in London.
So what can you expect from this blog going forward?
Well, first off, I think it’s desperately in need of a redesign! I’ve been learning more coding skills over the past year, so I want to challenge myself to create a cool and exciting design for the website. But I’m not rushing that, and for now just want to focus on writing and photography on here. I’ll be writing plenty of articles about things to do in London, guides of places I’ve visited in recent years, the trials and tribulations of life abroad, and plenty of stories and anecdotes from my travels. Cue that nostalgia I mentioned earlier.
Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d be interested in reading about. And welcome to Girl Sees The World 2.0 – I’m excited to be back!
