Surviving Long-Haul Flights Part 1: What to Wear

Over the Alps and done with this plane

There are few feelings more exciting than take-off and landing, but the hours in between can be monotonous and uncomfortable.  For the purposes of this series, we're going to define "long haul" as flights longer than six hours, although of course, there are differences between an eight hour flight and a 15-hour flight.  Today: what to wear while you're stuck in the air.

There are two general schools of thought about long-haul fashion.  Adherents to the first believe that you should dress in nice, business casual clothes, claiming that airlines are more likely to give you an upgrade if you're well-dressed.  The other school advocates being comfortable and wears pajamas to the airport and into the city on arrival, fashion be damned. There is a small third school that believes in dressing nicely for boarding, changing into pajamas on the flight, then changing back into nice clothes before landing, but that approach a) calls for bringing lots of extras in your precious carry-on space, b) requires changing clothes in a tiny and potentially dirty airplane bathroom, and c) annoys the ever-loving hell out of the seatmates you crawl over to reach the bathroom.

I've never been given an upgrade on a flight regardless of my clothes, but I also prefer to look and feel more like I'm wearing real clothes, rather than pajamas.  My approach is to mix the philosophies of schools one and two- look put-together, but still be comfortable for ten hours of shifting around in an airplane seat.  A typical plane outfit for me includes:

Early morning, 30 minutes into 10 total flight hours

• Comfortable, quality, non-sheer leggings: I have done long-haul flights in jeans before, and invariably end up wanting to crawl out of my skin by the end of it.  After a few long-hauls in jeans, I started wearing leggings and haven't looked back.
• Comfortable sports bra or bralette: again, I've worn standard wired bras on long-haul flights before, and been phenomenally uncomfortable by landing.  I find sports bras or substantial and non-lacy bralettes much more comfortable when flying.  Plus, I don't feel as concerned about a bralette strap peeking out of my top on accident.
• Knit tunic or sweater dress: I wear something that makes the leggings look intentional to the outfit, rather than just comfortable.  The tunic is loose and comfortable in summer; in winter I prefer a cozier sweater dress.
• Cardigan: if I'm not wearing a sweater dress, I also wear a comfy cardigan.  I'm one of those perpetually cold people, and I always feel cold on planes.  Which brings me to...
• Scarf: even in summer, I wear a scarf on the plane.  It helps me stay warm on over-air conditioned planes, doubles as a blanket, and helps me feel more put-together without adding scratchy or otherwise annoying accessories.  Win-win-win.
• Shoes: this changes based on the season and my packing needs.  I either wear my heaviest shoes (usually boots) or a pair of shoes that easily slips off.  This also varies based on location: in Europe I'm more likely to wear my boots, as they don't make you take your shoes off at security as often there.  In the US, where removing shoes for security is still the norm, I try to wear slip-on shoes.  No matter what, though, my airplane shoes are flat and easy to walk in- this isn't the time for heels or flip-flops.
• Socks: I prefer not to wear my shoes while in the air, so I always make sure I have warm, clean socks to wear on the plane, even if I don't wear socks while in the airport or while boarding.  I haven't worn compression stockings in the past simply because I'm still pretty young, but I would absolutely wear them as I get older.
• Make-up:  as much as I love make-up, I usually don't wear it for long-haul flights.  I have pretty oily skin that goes into oil overdrive when I fly longer than a few hours; make-up in that situation melts down my face and clogs my already congested pores- not a good look.

What do you like to wear on a long flight?  Are you more appearance-focused or comfort-focused?  Have any other long-haul fashion tips?  Let me know in the comments!

Warsaw Tips

Looking into Warsaw's Old Town

I first went to Warsaw to apply for my business visa at the Czech embassy, and went back to pick it up a couple of months later.  Warsaw was left a pile of rubble at the end of World War II, and built up as a series of Soviet-style buildings (read: dreary) in the following years.  Now, the city has a rebuilt and restored Old Town, a lovely shopping district, and fascinating museums to discover.

What to Know

• Every time I went to Warsaw, I needed to buy a sweater because I hadn't packed warm enough clothing.  No matter what season it is, it will probably be colder than you think.  If you're not sure if you need a sweater, err on the side of bringing it.
• Warsaw's public transit is extremely easy to use.  Stops are well-labeled with the bus lines that stop there, and transit tickets can be bought at every stop or on buses themselves.  Remember to validate your ticket when you get on your bus or train.  Tickets operate on the honor system- if you're caught without a ticket you'll need to pay a fine, but you probably won't be checked.  That said, tickets are less than $1 American.  Buy the ticket and spare yourself the worry.
• Polish people tend to be devout Catholics, and thus there are churches with active communities throughout any Polish city.  If you plan to visit churches in Poland, follow the same rules you would follow for any church in a conservative country- if you're a woman, wear either long pants or a skirt (skirts are more acceptable than shorts if it's warm), cover your shoulders with a scarf or cardigan, and be quiet and respectful.  You probably won't be forced to leave if you enter a church wearing shorts, but you will get dirty looks.  If you're a man, remove your hat on entering the church if you're wearing one.  If a mass is happening, postpone your visit until later.
• There are a lot of new and modern-looking buildings in Warsaw outside of the Old Town and  Nowy Świat street.  When going to the Czech embassy or the museums, I felt that I could easily have been in any midwestern city in the US (if that city happened to have signs in Polish, of course).

What to See

• The reconstructed Old Town is charming and, despite being a reconstruction, looks authentic.  Adorable souvenir shops selling blue-painted pottery and colorful paper cuttings line the streets, and stalls selling waffles or zapiekanki are everywhere.  Be sure to walk around the back streets for picturesque lanes and views over the hill.
• As you walk through the Old Town square and through the streets behind, you get to the Barbican, where there are usually street musicians and artists selling their work.  Beyond the Barbican, there are more old-style streets, shops, and churches to explore.
• More shopping, at both European chains and local shops, can be found on Nowy Świat street.  Part of the historical Royal Route, the street now houses a mix of historic locations, shops, and restaurants.  Explore the side streets branching off of the main road, too; they have some of the most unique souvenir shops I found in Warsaw.
• The Warsaw Uprising Museum gives a great overview of the events leading up the the uprising, as well as a detailed history of the uprising itself.  The museum is well-designed and the exhibits are engaging, if sometimes confusing.  Walking through, I felt extremely proud to be of Polish descent myself.

What to Eat

Delicious mulled wine

•  Perhaps the most famous Polish food is pierogi, and they are abundant in Warsaw.  You'll find pierogi in almost any restaurant that caters to tourists, but the greatest variety I saw was at a chain called Zapiecek.  You can get a variety of sweet or savory pierogi either boiled or fried (personally I prefer fried, but both are great!).  If you go in winter, be sure to get the hot wine as well- it's served with its own warming candle, and cuts through the winter chill like nothing else.
• On the street, in addition to universal street food favorites like pizza and burgers, zapiekanki make a good snack or light meal.  Zapiekanki are open-faced sandwiches similar to a French bread pizza.
• For dessert, waffles ("gofry" in Polish) are available from many street food vendors with a range of different toppings.  I usually get Nutella because... it's Nutella.  You can also find pączki, which are Polish jam-filled donuts.  The most traditional among them (or at least the ones I grew up with) are plum-filled, but a variety of fillings are usually available, including flavors like rose.

Going Home

Hey everyone!  It's been a while!

Sunrise on the first flight home

When I got that new job in May, I got busy.  Way, way busier than I ever anticipated.  Lesson planning until 8 pm every day, going to bed at 9 pm, and then waking up at 5:30 am in order to make it to my school every morning.  It was a lot.

Which brings me to my next big move- the decision to move back to the US.

Around mid-June, my agency was asking if I wanted to teach at my school again next school year.  This sparked a debate in me, and ultimately called the question of what I wanted my life to look like in the short term.

On one hand, I loved the kids in my classroom.  Being in the classroom with my bright, funny, cheeky students made my day, and I still miss my kids.  On the other hand, I realized that I did not enjoy most of the aspects of teaching.  I spent evenings anxious over lessons, unable to join my friends for a beer in the evenings due to planning, unsure of whether I was creating worksheets at the difficulty level because math is taught differently in the Czech Republic.  I was exhausted, physically and mentally.

I also realized how much I missed feeling settled somewhere.  I wanted to be able to have my own apartment, my own cat, my own home.  I was nearing 28 years old and tired of the yearly moves that characterized the last 10 years of my life.  I realized that I wanted to lay down roots somewhere, and that it would be much easier to do that in the US than it would be in Europe.

So I ultimately decided to move back to the US.  About three weeks ago, I arrived back home.

Now, this doesn't mean I've given up travel.  One thing I've learned about myself over the past couple years is that I need to travel in order to maintain my motivation; without a trip to look forward to, I get bogged down in my routine.  I just want to travel from a home base somewhere in the US.

What does that mean for the blog?  Well, I'm still going to keep writing about travel (I did a lot of traveling around Europe after I finished my work commitments and I want to share it!), but I also want to explore the issues related to coming back, because the reverse culture shock is real.  And maybe I'll delve into some other subjects as well.  Like me, the blog will grow and evolve, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens next!

What do you want to be?

It's a question we constantly ask kids and teenagers as they advance through school: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I recently started a new teaching job, my second major one since obtaining my TEFL certificate.  Growing up, I never particularly wanted to be a teacher.  I'm still not sure that I do.

The first answer I remember giving to that question as a child was "scientist", motivated by both wonder at the way the natural forces of the world could be manipulated, as well as a fascination with The Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy.  As I got older and realized that science involved more math and fewer explosions than I realized, I re-evaluated.

As a teenager, confused and unsure and wishing people would stop asking me what I planned to do as an adult, I would answer that I wanted to be Emma Thompson, because Emma Thompson is awesome (hell, I'd still like to be Emma Thompson when I grow up).  But college approached, and the pressure put on me and my fellow high schoolers to choose a major and decide what you want to do with your life mounted ever greater.

No one ever told me you could change your mind.  No one told me that you could decide that you wanted to try something else later on, that your career decisions at age 18 weren't set in stone.

Taking off to a new life

Sometime during college I decided that I wanted to be a counselor, and I poured my soul into my psychology degree, in the process abandoning many of the other things I enjoyed doing, like choir and writing and reading.  The message from the culture was that, if you work hard in college, you'll get a good job and be successful in your field and you will be satisfied with it.  So I bought in, worked hard, did the internships, went to graduate school (because if one degree is good, two is better, right?), got the job, and worked all the hours.  I wore myself down and burned myself out.  By the time I was quitting my full-time counselor job, I felt like a shell of the person I used to be.

Fast-forward a year.  I'm trying different things, teaching part-time and knowing it isn't quite right for me, but feeling ok with that.  It's a stepping stone to where I want to be, rather than the final destination.  I'm traveling, writing, and seeing what feels right to me.  I feel like an adolescent again, getting reacquainted with myself, discovering interests, and developing hobbies.

Now I'm the adult asking myself, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

The truest answer is, "I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm on the right path.  Give me time."

Ghosts of Terezín

Modern Terezín is a ghost town.

I don't mean in the sense that it's barely inhabited, although that is true; when you arrive, there's an immediate sense that this potentially pretty little town was the site of great suffering, that Death visited this place a few too many times.  At least, that's the impression I have when my friend and roommate M and I get off the bus on a cold late-December day.

The former concentration camp and Nazi prison site has become a living museum and memorial to the suffering and loss that occurred here.  We walk around the museum galleries, seeing artwork and writing from the residents of the ghetto. Too many names are followed by the phrase "died at Auschwitz in (year)".

The overcrowded, inadequately fed, and disease-ridden ghetto was hardly safer than the most famous and deadly of concentration camps; a large number of people died here before they could be shipped to Auschwitz.  Although it wasn't designated as a death camp by the Nazis, over 33,000 people died in Terezín.

We make the walk from the town to the crematorium, about 10 minutes.  There's an eerie quiet over the whole town.  Chatting about light subjects feels wrong here.  When we arrive at the crematorium, a Jewish tour group is already there.  They move slowly through the long concrete building, stopping in the middle for prayer.  A man sings a beautiful, mournful-sounding prayer.  A few people are taking photos, but I can't bring myself to do so.  In this place where the Nazis attempted to hide evidence of their atrocities, silence and reflection seems the most appropriate.

Spartan bunk beds in the Terezín prison

M and I make our way back through the village in freezing rain, heading towards the old fort that served as a Nazi prison.  As we enter the compound, an arched entry proclaims the famous lie in bold letters, "ARBEIT MACHT FREI"; work makes you free.

Walking through the fortress, the flat images from history books spring into horrifying reality as the crowded wooden bunks, tiny solitary confinement cells, and communal showers that bear so much resemblance to the gas chambers appear in front of me.  I'm shivering.  I'm not sure it's all because of the cold.

Living in Europe, especially in central Europe, the Nazi genocide and the war become real.  They leave the realm of ancient history that only exists in a textbook and become tangible.  And the more I learn about the war and the rise of the Nazi party, the more I compare them to the things happening in our current political climate in the US, the more I worry.  No one group of people can account for our problems in the US- it isn't that simple, it never is.  We are all people, first and foremost, just as every one of the Nazis' victims was a person with a family and a story and desires and dreams and aspirations.  Although the future is daunting, we cannot let fear overtake our humanity.

What They Don't Tell You about Moving Abroad

When I first moved to Prague, I thought that I was relatively prepared.  I had lived in Europe before (in Italy) and I'd visited Prague, which was more than many aspiring English teachers could claim.  I also had the advantage of having some distant Czech relatives in Prague, which eased my mind.  Still, there were some things I learned in the first few months that nothing could have prepared me for.

When you try to pose for Instagram...

You will get sick at first, and it will happen often.

It makes sense if you think about it.  When you first move somewhere far away from home, you're not yet immune to the local nasties.  Perhaps because I moved in autumn, the local nasties took up residence in my respiratory system and hung around for quite some time.  I felt like I was in varying stages of  a cold for the first three to four months of living in Prague, which culminated in a highly unpleasant case of bronchitis.  On the plus side, you will likely learn about the workings of the local pharmacies (pro tip: pharmacies in the Czech Republic are separate from drug stores, and only open from 8 am-6 pm).

You will feel ignorant.

I like to consider myself a well-informed, global person.  Still, prior to moving to the Czech Republic, I couldn't have told you who the president of the country was, what the local attitudes towards sex/drugs/etc. were, or even that there was a debate on changing the official name of the country (on Google Maps the Czech Republic now appears as Czechia).  I was (and am) routinely impressed by the knowledge Czechs and other Europeans have about the US, but knew very little about their countries prior to moving.  The feeling of ignorance can bring you down- I felt that I was confirming an American stereotype that I thought I defied.  However, it also gave me the chance to learn and show that, even though I didn't know much, I was open to learning and enthusiastic about my adopted home.

People will try to take advantage of you for being American.

Due to the aforementioned "ignorant American" stereotype, several people will try to take advantage of you.  When I first moved, I found it very difficult to find an apartment due to several landlords insisting on having Czech-speaking tenants.  Add to this the fact that many people automatically equate being American with being wealthy and, well... there's a strong chance you're going to be charged more for an apartment than your Czech friends.  My rent is still quite a bit less expensive than it was in Chicago, but it's high by local standards.

You will miss strange, random things about home.

The other day, I found myself trying to describe Chicago deep-dish pizza to a European friend and suddenly missing it desperately.  I sometimes get a sudden longing to go for a walk or a run around my old neighborhood in Chicago, or go to my favorite frozen yogurt place, or smell the air in late spring right before a big thunderstorm.  Sometimes I get tired and miss seeing signs and labels in my language so I don't need to translate or guess at meanings.  Homesickness is real, and it comes up in some slightly bizarre ways.

Don't misunderstand me, I love living in Prague and don't regret moving for a moment.  There's little that can prepare you for being an immigrant in a new country.  There will be experiences and trials that you don't anticipate.  The best preparation is an open mind, a lot of courage, and a lot of faith in yourself that you can handle whatever comes at you.

Photo of the Week

I'm utterly in love with this photo I took of love locks on a fence overlooking a park on the outskirts of Stare Miasto in Warsaw.  I wanted a photo of the locks in any case, but when I saw the couple I just knew I needed to find a way to get them in the shot.

Why Prague?

How did I wind up in Prague, anyway?

Looking down the Vltava

Like so many stories, this one started with a boy.  We were in love and happy and, although life wasn't always easy, it was good.

It was good until, sometime after finishing graduate school, depression took over my brain.  I took care of myself, took medication, and took myself to a therapist.  Over time it got better in phases and got worse in phases until eventually, the stress of my job (intake counselor at an Employee Assistance Program/Behavioral Health Insurance company) rose so high that the TMJ disorder impacting my jaw caused it to lock.

I spent the next several months dealing with chronic pain, trying to work at a high-stress job that required an intense amount of talking, and becoming steadily more depressed.  Finally, one day I asked my then-fiance if he would support me as I quit my job and focused my energy on finding a new one.  He agreed, and two weeks later I left my office for the last time.

One week later, he left me.  We had been together for over five years.  Our wedding was two months away.  I was devastated.

I moved back home with my parents, unable to cope with living alone.  Almost immediately, I enrolled in an intensive outpatient therapy program at a nearby hospital.  It's not an exaggeration to say that it saved my life.  Therapy gave me something to do with my time, people to think about outside of myself, and hope that maybe, just maybe, my life could move forward.

Catch you later, USA!

One of the first thoughts that made me hope a future was possible was the thought that, without a partner keeping me in one place, I could travel, and maybe even live abroad.  Life in Europe had been a dream of mine ever since a study-abroad stint in college.  A trip to London and some time with my dear friends there confirmed that I wanted to try to make my life somewhere outside of the USA.

I looked into the Peace Corps and other options, but the one that always called me back was a small TEFL certificate program in Prague.  I had been to Prague for a weekend previously, but never for a significant amount of time.  Nevertheless, I decided to go with my gut and sign up for the program.

Six months to the day after my seemingly world-shattering break-up, I was boarding a plane with a one-way ticket to Prague.  After six months convalescing at home, it was time to start a new life somewhere far away.  I've been enjoying the local beer, meeting new friends, and generally Eat Pray Love-ing it in Prague ever since.

Where to Start?

Filtering selfies since 2016!

I'm Kay.

I'm 27 years old, an American, a daughter, sister, roommate, friend; a traveler, an MSW holder, an explorer.  And, as of today, a blogger.

I hesitated in starting a blog because I didn't know what I wanted this to be.  Did I want to be a travel blogger, one of an army of globe-trotting young women who somehow manage to travel constantly and take flawless Instagram photos while not having a discernible job?  Maybe I could write about the street food or coffee or tea of the places I happened to visit or live?  Perhaps I could get really racy and write about dating foreign men!

Truthfully, I'm not glamorous, rich, or sexy enough to put on any of those personas.  Sometimes I'm a homebody.  Sometimes I'm not going anywhere over the weekend.  Sometimes I want to stay in my sweatpants and read.  Taking on a blogging persona would mean pretending to be someone I'm not, and above all else I want to be genuine.

This will be the story of my life abroad and my story of finding myself.  We'll see where it goes.  In the meantime, I hope you'll join me on this adventure!