On Traditions

And updates from the last few weeks.

Hello friends,

How are you? What’s happening in your part of the world?

I've been on the road again, so this email is a grab bag from the last few weeks. I’m writing this from a slightly bumpy and turbulent plane ride from Dublin en route to Lyon. It's an older plane, one where the humanity hasn’t quite been stripped away yet, so there's enough room to scribble a few thoughts.

This is my 7th straight Thanksgiving spent abroad, and by far the oldest tradition I have to my name (I don't count COVID ruining my streak). It started back when I went to college in New York and traveling home to Washington for the holiday was too far, too expensive, and too fraught with potential flight delays. My family never had ties to Thanksgiving, at least nothing sticky enough to pull me home. Plus Thanksgiving food is overrated (yeah, I said it). So, starting sophomore year, I began making my own plans for the holiday.

In the first few years, I stuck around on the East Coast, either on campus or with friends kind enough to let me mooch off their family. But eventually, I found myself on a flight over to Europe in late November. Throughout the years, I've been to Ireland, France, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, and Bulgaria. Some years a mix of them, and some a few times over. They all tend to meet a few criteria - easy to get to (limiting vacation time usage), cold and rainy enough to deter most casual tourists, hearty food, and good drinking establishments to take refuge in during the dark nights.

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As I've grown older, traditions are starting to feel more salient. I’m old enough to have two handfuls of adult years under my belt. Old enough to have a sense of self that is just starting to feel more true. And more importantly, old enough to have just a modicum of hindsight.

I don’t remember having many traditions while growing up. There are moments, of course, but nothing strong enough to withstand moving, divorce, and a quickly changing family structure. Because of that, I never really cared for them either. But traditions can offer identity, something that’s always been elusive for me. That’s likely why, when I found something that felt right and unique to me I held it close.

Traditions can also offer perspective. They can show us how much has changed and what remains the same - a constant to assess life’s other variables. For me, I always thought of this tradition as my thing, but eventually I found someone to share it with. After six years, Stephanie been with me for the vast majority of those Thanksgivings - it’s our tradition now, and has been for a while (much to her family’s chagrin, I’m sure).

Without having many to my name, I’ve always been fascinated about how traditions start. The word suggests at some grand historical meaning or context, but maybe it’s more simple than that - one day we just start doing something, it feels right, we don’t stop, and eventually it becomes our own folklore.

Anyway, I think the cabin pressure has me all nostalgic or something. What are your traditions? How’d they start? I’d love to hear ‘em, both big and small.

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This year the itinerary was to Galway, Ireland, then over to France for Lyon, Eguisheim, and Paris. If it feels a bit random, that’s because it is. We started booking this trip on the heels of our trip through Yorkshire, so were a bit late on the planning front.

Flights were also expensive this November - did you feel that? At least from Seattle it took a little extra legwork to cobble together the bookings. With some conveniently timed transfer bonuses, we got flights into Dublin and out of Paris for 36,251 points and $140.70 roundtrip, which I'd say is pretty solid given the prices¹.

In some ways those flights dictated the destinations. But I had also set up a conversation with Pádraic Ó Griallais of Micil Distillery (more on that later), so that officially put Galway on the itinerary.

The French side of the itinerary? Well, that was mostly based on wine and cheese vibes.

Some images so far…

Galway

Lyon

One of my favorites from the trip - a little kid looking longingly at case full cheese at the market. Isn’t that all of us?

Eguisheim

Paris

We had to make a pilgrimage to a cafe featured in one of my favorite movies of all time - any guesses??

Looking through my camera roll, I feel like the randomness and variety of these pictures mirrors the itinerary itself?

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In-flight Entertainment

During my flights, between mini existential crises about traditions and the passage of time, I’ve been binging Slow Horses on Apple TV. It’s fun and light-hearted yet dramatic and intriguing enough to keep you hammering at the screen for the next episode. And Gary Oldman is superb. So if you have some more holiday travel coming up and need a good show for the plane, I highly recommend it. Plus there are four seasons, so plenty of material to work with if you’re doing some long-haul flights.

If you at all enjoyed reading about my walk through the Yorkshire Moors, you'll like The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane. On a related note, for all the great walks and public footpaths of England, they are under threat of privatization - “1% of the population owning 50% of the land while some 92% of land and 97% of rivers remain illegal for the public to access” - and a group of folks are campaigning for the right to roam.

This super nerdy (but interesting!) look at airport design (Youtube) will have you paying attention to your airport the next time you fly. Side note - I also have a tattoo of an airport chart on my left arm. The first person to correctly guess the airport in the comments wins a free 8x10 print of one of my photos (family and friends not included!).

I loved this introduction to the topic of hydro-nationalism and eager to read more. No doubt water commodification is, and will, be one of the biggest issues of our lifetime.

For the next time your teetotaling relative says you should put down the wine.

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Thanks for being here, I’ll back with you later this week.

Cheers,

Skylar

1. For the most part, I don’t use points on “aspirational travel” and go for sheer quantity of flights, which is not necessarily the best redemption value. This time around it was a combination of Chase UR and Amex MR to transfer to Aer Lingus and Air France.