My Greek Destination Wedding in Hydra

It's been a long time since I last wrote an article for this blog, over seven years in fact, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.

I'm still living in Florida but there have been a lot of changes in my life. I came to America nearly thirteen years ago to marry but that partnership didn't work out and we split in 2016. 

I got into a new relationship a year or so after the finalization of the divorce and this new relationship has been far happier.

After living together for six years or so, we decided to tie the knot earlier this summer. The ceremony was on the Greek island of Hydra and we spent our honeymoon on Corfu and driving around the Peloponnese.

It was a marvelous wedding and vacation and something that I'll remember for the rest of my life!

Boats moored in the harbor area in Hydra, Greece

Hydra is such a beautiful little island. We originally visited in 2021 because I wanted to see where the writer and singer Leonard Cohen lived but we fell in love with the island straightaway and decided that we would married there.

Vehicles are banned on the island, so walking and mule are the main transport.

Mules on Hydra

My wife and I arrived a few days early and there was some time to relax before our wedding day.

My wife and I relaxing in the sun.

The wedding was wonderful and the photographer captured some beautiful shots. That said, Hydra is a photogenic place with lots of sunshine and beautiful scenery.

Wedding day. The cat looks on!

Kissing on the steps.

The ceremony was outside on the roof of the town museum. There were some worries that it might rain but the weather was perfect on the day and everything ran smoothly.

We married on the roof of the Hydra museum

With all the guests outside the front of the museum

One of the fun Hydra traditions is that the groom leads the bride on a horse from the site of the wedding ceremony to the reception venue.

We went through the busy port area which is full of restaurants and people eating outdoors. There was a lot of cheering and clapping, as well as a few witty heckles as we passed by!

Hydra tradition is that the bride rides a horse to the wedding reception

Leading the horse through the cobbled streets

Joyful at the wedding reception

Kendal, Lewes, London, Leeds, and Hamburg!

After all the drama of flying into North West England at the peak of the floods (see previous), the rest of December was generally pretty quiet for me.

Kendal Town Hall viewed from Allhallows Lane

I more or less stayed in the old home town of Kendal for a month.  I grew up and went to school there until I was 18, but now I know virtually nobody there anymore apart from my older relatives.  Pretty much all my old friends and contemporaries have moved away over the years, lured away by colleges or job opportunities.

It’s a little strange, to be honest, I know the streets and buildings so well, and the whole place has large amounts of personal history for me, but I am essentially a stranger here now in many respects.

Lower Fellside, Kendal

I did manage to track down a couple of old friends whilst in Kendal, however, who had been away and come back.  I got to chew the fat and catch up with the news about people from school that I’d lost touch with for thirty years or so, which was great!

I had a fairly quiet Christmas and New Year period with the family.  The furthest I traveled was a couple of trips into the Lake District.

The Bridge House in Ambelside - I did managed to make a couple of trips into the Lake District during December.

January was a complete contrast to Deceber, as I started some of my English/European traveling in earnest.

First on the list was a trip down to the South Coast to see my brother and his family in the Brighton/Lewes area.  The South of England has a different feel and culture to the North, for such a small place England manages to have a host of accents, dialects, geography, and cultures.

The narrow streets of Lewes

It was great to see my young nephew.  He’s currently losing his baby teeth and getting his adult ones

.

My nephew

I also managed to Squeeze in a  day trip to London.  I visited the National Portrait Gallery (mind-blowing!), The National Gallery and the Tate Modern.  As well as a couple of super old pubs on Fleet Street.

Approaching St Paul's Cathedral on Millennium Bridge

Looking down the Thames from Millennium Bridge

Selfie with Van Gogh's Sunflowers behind me

The National Gallery

My second journey was to Leeds, a city I lived in (or thereabouts) for about twenty years.  I met up with friends for a curry and then drinks in the pub.  You don’t really get snow in Florida, so I always hope for a little when I visit colder climes.  Amazingly it snowed that very night, making the meet-up all a little extra magical.

A snowy Chemic pub in Leeds

Towards the end of January I flew to Hamburg, Germany for a few days.  I was getting a bit blasé about traveling by this point so didn’t do a lot of preparation.  Consequently I arrived in the evening with just a crap map that I’d printed off the internet and it took me some time to find the right train and then walk to my friends from the station.

Hamburg was excellent.  My favourite part was the evening spent in the Reeperbahn district with an old German friend, seeing some of the old Beatles haunts, the famous redlight area, and the lively dive bars that never sleep.  Hamburg has definitely joined my (long and growing) list of favourite cities.

The Reeperbahn in Hamburg

Outside the /Star Club, and old Beatles hangout

Birds skating on the ice in central Hamburg

Docks area of the Elbe River

It was a great month with some unforgettable traveling but by the end I felt a little worn out and a rest was in order.  If anything, I knew that February was likely to be just as busy, if not more so!

So I laid low at my parents’ house for ten days or so.

I had Liverpool, Chester, Cornwall, London, Lewes, and at least one trip into the Lake District on the schedule for February.

American Christmas vs British Christmas: My Top 10 Differences

It's the same holiday and the same festive season, but there are differences in the experience according to which country you are in.

Myself, drinking a pint of Christmas cheer in a pub in Skipton, Yorkshire, during the festive season.

Below is a list of the main things that I've noticed:

1. For sure, Thanksgiving steals the thunder of Christmas in the U.S. to some extent.  Relatives often make a long journey to meet up for Thanksgiving and don't repeat it for Christmas.  In Britain, there are no nearby festivals to rival Christmas (November 5th is a very different sort of event) and so it is usually the only big meet up point for families during the Autumn and Winter months, perhaps even the entire year.
2. Maybe surprisingly, given that America is a much more religious place, most of the public holidays tend to be secular, presumably due to the separation of church and state.  In the U.K. the longest and most important holidays of the year are Christmas and Easter, when the country closes down for at least two or three days.
3. In the U.S. workers maybe get to leave work early on Christmas eve, then they have Christmas Day, but it is straight back to work on December 26th.  In Britain there is Boxing Day straight after Christmas Day, so the holiday is automatically longer.
4. On top of that, the work culture is much more laid back, so Britain effectively semi-shuts down for the entire period between Christmas and New Year, making the holiday period feel much longer.  I also suspect that the Christmas period generally  involves more work social events, extended lunches, and finishing early, than the more work-intensive U.S.A.
5. For better or worse, a British Christmas tends to involve more alcohol.
6. Perhaps linked to the above, Brits generally tend to be more reserved in everyday life, but they go a little crazy when they party and really let themselves go.  Americans tend to be more balanced in that they are more outgoing in general life and less crazy when it comes to partying.  
7. Most of the connotations of Christmas tend to be Wintry: reindeer, snow, etc.  This fits in well with Britain and the Northern U.S., but it can seem incongruous in the Southern states where the Winters are much milder.  Sorry, but seeing a snowman displayed next to a palm tree in Florida just looks wrong.
8. Americans are way more outgoing, and even brash (according to British tastes) in their decorations than the more conservative folks across the pond.  It is not uncommon to see entire houses, even streets lit up for the festive season in the U.S., which is much rarer in the U.K.  There often even appears to be a competitive element, with American neighbours attempting to outdo each other.
9. The U.S. "Culture Wars" often play out in the festive season, with high profile constitutional disputes over nativity scenes at public buildings etc.  In the U.K., where religion is less powerful/controversial and there is no legal separation of church and state, such disputes don't generally exist.  Although there is to some extent a politically correct movement in the U.K. that sometimes challenges the dominant role of Christianity, especially in non-Christian areas of the inner cities.  The disputes are minor in comparison, however, and not on the same scale as the U.S.
10. America has produced some of the great classic Christmas movies: It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, etc. but there is not quite the same tradition of T.V. Christmas specials which go on for about a month in the U.K.  Generally speaking, the modern U.S. tends to be a more movie orientated country, and the U.K. is more focused on T.V. and radio.

A pair of Christmas crackers.  Source: Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons

Finally, one tradition that you won't find in the U.S. is the pulling of Christmas crackers, which is done in the U.K. usually during the festive dinner. The cracker is pulled by two people, one at each end, it makes a crack/bang, and then the central cardboard chamber is ripped open to reveal a small present or puzzle, a festive paper hat in the shape of a crown, and a written joke that is traditionally read out to the other guests.

Back in the UK: Culture Shock!

So I am back in the UK for a few months, after spending a week in New York en route from Florida. 
I also managed to get caught up in the Storm Desmond drama when I eventually arrived back in the North of England (more on that later.)

I had a great time in New York, staying with my old friend Ed at East Northport, near Huntington, on the north coast of Long Island.

Northport, Long Island, New York.

I arrived on a Saturday morning and we had a quiet day eating, drinking, and catching up on people and events since the last time I was in New York, seven years ago.

We went into Manhattan the following day and did poetry readings in the city and then Brooklyn, which as fun.

Ed and I on the F Train.

 

Me and Ed with poetry host, George Wallace outside the Parkside.

Me reading my cheese poem in Brooklyn (photo thanks to Dasha Bazanova)

I had some great time exploring Long Island with Ed, and met up with my old friend, Lorraine, who showed me around the last time I was in New York, as well as hosting a poetry event in Valley Stream.

With Lorraine in Sip This, Valley Stream, NY

I also went into the city on my own and visited the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, I loved the dinosaurs and there was a Jackson Pollock exhibition.

Me with Ed.  He had lost a lot of weight by this point and was becoming increasingly aggressive(!)  ;)

I walked through Central Park from the Natural History Museum to the MOMA

Jackson Pollock painting at the MOMA

It's difficult to cover everything during my action-packed week in New York and all the folks I met, but it was wonderful.

All good things come to an end, however, and the time came for me to journey to my next destination, dear old Blighty.  I was travelling to the northwest of England, Kendal, Cumbria, to be exact.
 
Due to heavy traffic, I arrived late for my flight check-in at JFK.  The lady at the desk saw that as personal insult, and was consequently a cow, but I survived (she made me jump through numerous extra hoops just to show her displeasure).  

The subsequent flight to Iceland went pretty smoothly, however.  I was impressed by all the improvements they've made to Reykjavik airport.  It used to look like an old (I think it is a former hangar), now it's like something from an IKEA catalogue.

My flight from Reykjavik to the UK was delayed by 45 mins but nothing remarkable otherwise.

I arrived in Manchester the following morning feeling tired and hungry, but pretty good.  Then I found out that due to Storm Desmond and the intense flooding in the North West of England, there were no trains running north of Preston, Lancashire.  It was a similar story with the coach/bus service.

The storm had flooded out whole areas of some towns, including Kendal, knocked out the power, damaged bridges, roads, and caused mini-landslides.  I was stranded just one and a half hours from my destination.

The options for me were to stay in a hotel in Manchester or Preston; stay with a friend in the area; or get a ride home by car from Preston.

After talking to my parents, I caught the train to Preston.  The station cafe bar was full of stranded people: families; mountaineers; students; businessmen; old people, young people, and others.  I consoled myself with a couple of quality pints of draught dry cider (a relative rarity in the US).

In the end, I was lucky enough to get a lift from my parents from Preston to Kendal, but the journey took twice as long as normal, thanks to the flooded roads.

"The Auld Grey Town" of Kendal at dusk

Culture Shock

A few things I've needed to adjust to since arriving back, both good and bad:

• I got confused by British coins initially, I thought the 5 pence was worth ten, because it is a similar size to a dime.  Kind of embarrassing.
• The roads were unnerving for a while, as I thought we were driving on the wrong side.
• Pleasantly reminded of the low prices of beer in the pubs.  In the US you have to take out a bank loan to go out for a night of beers(!)  Prices are less than half here in the UK and you're not expected to tip on top for every beer too. (Liquor is cheaper in the US, including Scotch whiskey, but that's another story!)
• The English seem so quiet, gentle, and reserved, when you are used to Americans.
•  English customer service continues to improve, although it is still not always great.  America is still the king of customer service.
• Americans think the English are super-polite, but the truth is that it is very variable here.  You can go into a shop or stand at a bus stop and chat to some super polite person, then walk down the street and hear young children call each other f**king c*nts.  Courtesy and rudeness tend to rub shoulders much more.
• Drivers here are almost always way more sane and courteous than Florida, however.
• I'm still a little jet-lagged, my sleep patterns can be erratic at the best of times, but throw in a five hour time shift and things get interesting.

The trip is on!

“For a long while- for many years, in fact- he had not thought of how it was before he came to the farm. His memory of those times was like a house where no one lives and where the furniture has rotted away. But tonight it was as if lamps had been lighted through all the gloomy dead rooms. It had begun to happen when he saw Tico Feo coming through the dusk with his splendid guitar. Until that moment he had not been lonesome. Now, recognizing his loneliness, he felt alive. He had not wanted to be alive. To be alive was to remember brown rivers where the fish run, and sunlight on a lady's hair.”  

― Truman Capote, A Diamond Guitar 

After a particularly challenging period in my personal life, I have decided to embark upon a major trip at the end of November. There may well be a few more legs to the experience but currently only the first two are planned. 

On the first leg, I am going to spend a week in the New York area. I am going to meet up with old friends on Long Island and do a couple of poetry readings, as well as see some sights in Manhattan (I've been there before but there is always lots more to do!). I am looking forward to it. 

I am flying up there. I did seriously consider renting a car and driving up to New York. It would have been great to visit friends in North Carolina and Pennsylvania en route, but in the end I decided that the expense and hassle were a little too much for my budget - part of the problem being making the journey during the Thanksgiving period (I've still not got fully used to the American calendar). 

The second leg of the journey will be an Atlantic flight from JFK over to Blighty (that's an affectionate name for England/Britain, if you're not familiar with it!). 

I'm going to spend some time with my family in the English Lake District, hopefully scale at least one mountain (maybe England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike this time? Although that might be a little optimistic in the middle of Winter, I don't know?). 

 I also want to spend time with my brother and his family down on the south coast of England in the Brighton area. It would be great to visit others too, and maybe even go over to continental Europe if my finances allow. 

 I will be heading back to the USA at some point in the new year. 

Things that I have missed about the UK 

 • Friends and family, of course. 

 • Fish and chips with mushy peas. 

• World class Indian food at very low prices. 

• Cheese and onion pasties. 

 • A creamy, foamy pint of real ale in a centuries old pub. 

• The sweeping hills, mountains, lakes, and dales of Cumbria and Yorkshire. 

 • The dry English sense of humour. It sometimes feels like every other person you meet is a quality comedian in the UK, and the perception that life is more than a little absurd is common. Americans in general take life more seriously and the humour can be less subtle. 

Things I will miss about Florida/the USA 

• All my friends here, who have become as important to me as my old friends back in England. 

• The openness, warmth and friendliness of Americans generally. The English, as we all know, are more reserved. 

• The Florida sunshine and beaches. 

 • The exotic wildlife. 

• My tennis exploits and my tennis comrades. 

 • The space. Lots of space in the US. Everything can seem a little cramped in Europe when you return. Driving is a completely different experience, not so much because of the driving on the left hand side thing in the UK, more that everything feels more pushed in, busier, and narrower. 

• Last but not least, the cafe bar at Lucky's Market, my peaceful little port in a stormy world.

A Fistful of Cents: British Money vs US Money

One thing that any foreigner has to contend with when moving to another country is the currency.

Back in England, we use pounds and pence (not the Euro, as some Americans seem to believe), but in the USA it is dollars and cents, of course.

After living here for three years, I am at home with the notes, or "bills" as they say here, but (probably to my shame) I can still find the coins a little confusing at times.

US Dollars: Public Domain Image via Pixabay

Bills and Notes

I think the biggest difference in paper money is the preponderance of the dollar bill.  Back in the UK, the lowest paper note has a value of 5 pounds, the equivalent to around $8.50 at the time of writing.  A dollar bill is worth about 60 pence in Brit money.

The British pound note, which was around for most of the twentieth century, disappeared in the late 1980s, mainly because its value had decreased and it was far less durable than a coin equivalent.  The bottom line was that it was deemed too uneconomic to produce by the Bank of England. 

The demise of the pound note caused an uproar at the time in England, in large part because the new pound coins were heavier on the pocket than the old notes and you couldn't carry around large amounts of them easily.

Coming to America felt like going back to the old pound note days.  I have to say that the dollar notes are good in that respect.  They are light on the pocket and slot into the wallet easily, making them user friendly.

Designs and Construction

Both countries' notes are pretty conservative in their design, but the American notes are probably more traditional than British ones, in fact, my research tells me that the images on US notes haven't changed since 1929.

That means that the images reflect older values, there are no women on US notes - neither are there any great American figures from the middle or late twentieth century.

The best thing about US "paper" money, however, is its resilience.  That's because although it looks like paper, it is actually made from cotton.  This effectively means that if you accidentally leave your money in your pocket on a wash day, it can go through the laundry and come out the other side with virtually no sign of damage or wear and tear!

A random handful of US coins

Coins

The downside of US money is that there are lots of small and low value coins.  The one cent coin, for instance, is worth barely more than half a pence.  Dropped coins can be found all over the place, because the effort of picking them up is not seen as worth it.

As a Brit, I can find the design of US coins counter-intuitive.  The quarter (25c) is the biggest, next comes the nickel (5c), followed by the dime (10c) - why a nickel is bigger than a dime, I have no idea!  They are all circular with no variation in shape, which doesn't help, although the one cents (pennies) are a different colour.

The long and the short of it is that in practical terms, I tend to avoid counting out the coins whenever possible and stick to using the notes/bills.  That isn't actually all that strange, as many Americans don't use coins much either. 

On more than one occasion, I have received comments about  my (English) wallet, which has a separate little pouch for storing coins.  That is pretty normal where I am from, but apparently a quaint eccentricity for some Americans, who are more likely to store their coins in pockets, or loose in hand bags (or "purses" as they are typically called here!).

Dollar Coins

Despite the bill being the norm, every now and then, you will come across a dollar coin.  These have an emotional, nostalgic value, as "silver dollars" were the norm before paper money in the US and are far less common.

I actually got given an old dollar coin as a gift one time, which was a nice thought.

There is also apparently a two dollar note, which was issued for the bicentennial in 1976, but I have yet to encounter one.

The Future?

In some ways, a comparison of money seems like a moot point in that paper and coins are inevitably giving way to credit and debit cards and other forms of electronic transaction.

Electronic payments, as well as credit and bank cards work a little differently to the UK, the security is a lot slacker, for instance, but I guess that's another story! 

Rediscovering Cumbria and Yorkshire

After my arduous flight, it was a relief to reach my mother’s house in Kendal, Cumbria.

 

I was sure that it would seem freezing in the north of England after Florida, but it didn’t seem too bad (although later on, the cold did seem to seep into my bones!).  I also had some winter weather clothing stashed at my mother’s place, which I dug out from the loft – woolly hat, raincoat, fleece, Doc Martyns, walking/running shoes... 

What impressed me most initially was all the Autumnal colors in northern England (Florida doesn’t really have a great deal of seasonal change), as well as the dramatic and attractive Lake District scenery.

I spent the first couple of days acclimatising and indulging in some of the things that are impossible or difficult to do in Florida.  I ate cheese and onion pasties and fish and ships, drank cider, and bought some North of England ale.

After the weekend, I went to a folk music club in Kendal on the Monday night, which was fun, listening to some traditional British and Irish music.

I bumped into an American singer from Nashville whilst I was there.  Rod Picott had just finished a European tour and stopped off for a night in Kendal on his way from Scotland to London, where he was due to catch his flight back to Tennessee. He told me that he wanted to experience some traditional music and this was his first time at a UK folk club

He was a lone American in a room full of Brits.  I am used to being a lone Brit in a crowd of Americans, so I felt a connection.  He was a really nice guy and I would highly recommend his music.

Having found my Blighty feet, I set off on my first major jaunt.

I worked and lived for many years in the Leeds area, so I embarked on a trip over to Yorkshire to see my old friends.  To get there meant driving through the narrow, winding country roads of Cumbria and North Yorkshire (my mother had kindly insured her car for me and offered me its use).  It was great fun and a definite contrast from the broad, straight highways of Florida.

I visited a few old work friends from the time I spent working for Leeds Libraries.

I drank with some old friends in the pub (I do sometimes miss the cosiness of the traditional British pub, living in the US).

I also went for some excellent walks with old friends through the parkland and woods of north Leeds.

Meanwood Park was visited by J R R Tolkein when he lived in the area and some scholars believe that it influenced his vision of Middle Earth that he used when he wrote The Hobbit.

My weekend in Yorkshire seemed to go by too quickly, but it was a great first trip.  

 I headed back to my base in Kendal and made plans to head down to the Brighton area, Sussex (south coast of England) next, and also Edinburgh, Scotland.   

I also drew up some plans for some more forays into Yorkshire and a mountain climb in the English Lake District.  

 My trip was off to a great start.