The last eight months since curtailing from Guinea have been a mix of wrestling with disappointment at what led to our departure and adjusting to being back in the U.S. and relief. One big plus with returning to the U.S. for work though was being able to plan and take a long summer vacation. Had I stayed in Guinea, I expect that between the summer transfer season turnover and continuing staffing gaps, I would have had difficulty taking much time, if any, off.

Yet back in the U.S., in an office flush with staff and work/life balance, the request was approved quickly and very early. A week after starting my new job in January, my boss had signed off on my 3.5 weeks of leave in July. Frankly, I was a little stunned but extremely pleased. Time off overseas has often required a great deal of coordination between myself, my colleagues, and bosses. Here it was just a matter of asking and then receiving. I could then begin planning for all the moving parts of this incredible trip that would include a planes, trains, automobiles, and a cruise, coordination with my friend CZ and my sister and brother-in-law CH1 and CH2, summer camp, some solo time, and six countries.

Although I have been in the U.S. several significant chunks of time for language and/or functional training (July 2011-July 2012; July 2014-January 2015; April 2017-August 2017; August 2021-June 2022), the only vacationing has been during home leave, which must be taken in the U.S. The leave policy during training is strict and does not allow for time off except in very few circumstances (maybe your own wedding, and even that is not guaranteed). During summers we have either been arriving for training or departing for Post, or I was at Post and time off tended to be maximum two weeks to accommodate the travel and transfer schedules of colleagues. This summer has been the first summer where I have been based in the U.S. since 2008!

I was determined to make the most of it.

We flew out the early evening of July 5. In preparation, I had worked to get my daughter C and I to bed early on the two evenings before. This involves some melatonin and another light sleeping draught. My rather dramatic pre-teen proclaimed loudly to anyone who would listen that I had drugged her. We may have been in bed before the fireworks started on July 4th, but we were plenty tired to sleep on our red-eye flight and adjusted to European time a sight easier.

We landed at 6 AM and after collecting our bags and going through immigration we caught a Bolt (like an Uber) from Heathrow to CZ and her son Little CZ’s hotel on the Albert Embankment. Initially, the plan had been to stay a night in London and then make our way down to the cruise ship port the following morning, but the logistics and cost of booking a car transport or the possibility of a train strike on the day of made me wary and it just felt better to go down to Southampton the day before. My friend and her son had arrived a few days before us and were settled into a nice room with a late checkout, so we would meet them, have a bit of a stroll around, and then catch a southbound train.

We had advance booked a flexi-fast pass ticket for the London Eye that allowed us to not only skip the line but ride the wheel whenever we wanted on a given day. It was much pricier, but gave us a lot of flexibility. One thing that was paramount on our trip was advance bookings, as we had heard that tourist numbers in Europe would be very high and we wanted to be sure to get into the venues and see the attractions on our must-see lists. The few times we failed to do this during the trip resulted in us missing out.

We walked along the embankment, alongside the National COVID Memorial Wall, a stark reminder of the pandemic that we were only starting to put in the rearview mirror. In the space of our stroll’s beginning and our arrival at the London Eye, the grey clouds had scattered and the sun had come out in force, and C and Little CZ had been reacquainted as if little time had passed since they had last seen one another a little more than a year before. We enjoyed our turn on the wheel, at least CZ and I did; the kids may have been rather blasé about it, though happy enough with some food truck eats and time on the playground by the Eye.

We took the long way back to the hotel crossing over Westminster Bridge then passing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Parliament buildings, to cross back over Lambeth Bridge. We took a little rest in the hotel room and then, in one of the roomy black traditional-looking cabs, arrived at London Waterloo station to catch our just over an hour train to Southampton.

We arrived just before 5 PM and then walked the short distance to the Novotel, where we would stay the night. With a cruise ship in port, we had not had a lot of lodging options and had worried a little about the lack of air conditioning, common enough in England, at the hotel, but it was cool enough and we were all jet lagged, so after some dinner we all turned in early.

I woke up around 3:30 in the morning. I was wide awake and hungry.

There are times when I quite enjoy a little jet lag. Not when I have to be awake for a meeting or get through a full day of work, no, but when I am in a place where it is nice to see the sunrise or there may be something to do in the middle of the night (from trying on feather boas in a 24/7 Walmart or visiting the top of the Burj Khalifa at 5 AM), it can be rather fun. But lying awake in the dark while the other three people in the room sleep? Not all that jolly. As soon as breakfast started at 6 AM, I was there, reading my book. I was not sure how long the rest of my party would sleep, but CZ had mentioned waking around 9 AM so we could visit a local museum that opened at 10. I did not want to sit around that long.

Southampton is perhaps most famous as the departure point for the RMS Titanic. I knew there was the museum, but wondered if there were any where else in town that commemorated the historic tragedy? I checked my phone and saw there was a memorial to the ship’s musicians just 15 minutes from the hotel and another memorial to the Titanic’s engineers just a minute from there across the street. I looked at my watch, I had more than two hours to go for a stroll…

It was a beautiful Friday morning before the businesses and shops opened and it felt like I had the city almost to myself. After finding the musician and engineers memorials, I realized it was not even 7 AM and the map showed there were several more heritage and historic landmarks not far away. Off I went! The 12th century Norman Bargate, smack dab in the shopping street, was used to collect local taxes from those entering or leaving the town. Further down the street stood the atmospheric ruins of the Holyrood church, which was built in 1320 and then destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. In the base of the clock tower stands a stone ornamental fountain, with a small relief of the Titanic at its top, dedicated to the ship’s crew, most of whom came from Southampton. I also passed the God’s House Tower, a 13th century gatehouse, a medieval merchant’s home, and parts of the town’s original walls. It was such a joy to walk for so long in the quiet morning seeing the sights, but I ran out of time and had to head back.

Back at the hotel the rest of the party was roused and had breakfast and we headed to the see the Titanic exhibition at the SeaCity Museum. It was a really spectacular! There was information and photos (those that had them done) of the crew living in Southampton, mementos from the ship, recreations of the ship’s interior, and audio of survivors’ stories and transcripts from the Senate hearings on the disaster.

Unfortunately, we had only an hour at the museum as we needed to get back to the hotel to check out and then head to the City Cruise Ship Terminal to begin the next phase of our vacation.